Osama Bin Laden’s son Omar just did an ‘exlusive interview’ with The Sun about what it was like growing up with one of the world’s most infamous terrorists as his dad, and (spoiler alert) it wasn’t exactly a good time.
In 1991 Bin Laden was banished from Saudi Arabia for his anti-US diatribes after forming al-Qaeda to fight the Soviet Union in 1988. By May 1996 he was in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan, choosing 15-year-old Omar to accompany him. The teenager became his tea boy, living in freezing huts and on meagre rations. He learned to fire a Kalashnikov and to drive a Russian tank, but was disgusted when Osama and his crew started killing Omar’s pets to test chemical weapons.
“I saw it. They tried it on my dogs and I wasn’t happy. I just try to forget all the bad times as much as I can. It’s very difficult. You suffer all the time.”
Imagine that. Born into unbelievable wealth but ends up stuck in the mountains with his religious zealot old man who is hell bent on going to war. Young Omar could’ve been chilling in a Saudi mansion with his cousins but instead he’s out in the middle of nowhere on some mountain fetching tea for his dad’s buddies and watching them torture his dogs. In another interview in 2010 Omar said his dad used to hit him for “smiling too wide” and that same year (2010) he was hospitalised for a psychotic episode because he kept hearing his dad’s voice in his head.
Omar goes on to explain how his dad was grooming him to become the heir to his terror organisation, but he ended up leaving and becoming an artist instead, which obviously upset Osama:
“My father never asked me to join al-Qaeda, but he did tell me I was the son chosen to carry on his work. He was disappointed when I said I was not suited to that life.
I said goodbye and he said goodbye. I’d had enough of that world. He wasn’t happy that I was leaving.”
Here’s Omar holding a painting exhibition in Paris – his work sells for up to £8,500 apiece! Not bad:
Despite the rocky relationship with his dad, he still believes the way Osama Bin Laden was killed was unjust. Back in 2011 he wrote a letter on behalf of his family saying “the U.S. should have arrested bin Laden and put him on trial as was done with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic”, instead of Navy Seals breaking into his compound and killing him. In fact, he told The Sun during this latest interview that he doesn’t believe the US dumped his dad’s body in the ocean. He would have liked to have the body back for closure.
“It would have been much better to bury my father and know where his body is. But they didn’t give us the chance.
I don’t know what they did to him. They say they threw him in the ocean but I don’t believe that.
I think they took his body to America, for people to see.”
Fair play to Omar for managing to escape/distance himself from his dad while also managing to be sympathetic towards him and carve out a career for himself as an artist despite it all. Nowadays he’s 41 years old, living in Normandy, France, and (according to the article) ‘loves McDonald’s, KFC and Clint Eastwood movies’. Like a proper Westener! He’s also swagged out to f-ck and has a 60-year-old British wife named Zaina Mohamed Al-Sabah:
Who knows – had he stuck around with his dad in the mountains Omar probably wouldn’t be around today to tell his story. Which makes you wonder what the rest of Bin Laden’s 23 kids are up to these days (well, the ones that haven’t been killed). I’m guessing they’ve got some daddy issues they’re living with but that’s to be expected really. Onwards and upwards!
