London: Osama Bin Laden wanted his children
to be educated in Western universities and live peacefully
rather than embrace terrorism, a close relative has claimed.
According to Zakaria al-Sadah, whose sister Amal was the
fifth wife of the slain al Qaeda leader, "Bin Laden told his
own children and grandchildren, `Go to Europe and America and
get a good education."
Sadah told The Sunday Times, bin Laden was adamant that
his children "should not follow him down the road to jihad".
Sadah has recently been reunited with his sister for the
first time since she was shot in the knee when US Navy Seals
killed Bin Laden at his compound in the Pakistan garrison city
of Abbottabad last May.
Sadah said the three wives and nine children who were in
the compound have been held for months in a three-room flat in
Islamabad guarded by Pakistan`s ISI intelligence service.
Amal had told him that bin Laden had regrets about the
impact on his family of the September 11 attacks on New York
and Washington in 2001, which killed about 3,000 people and
made him the world`s most wanted terrorist.
He had advised his children to consider European and US
universities, saying: "You have to study, live in peace and
don`t do what I am doing or what I have done.
" Bin Laden, who went to King Abdulaziz University in
Jeddah, had brothers at Harvard Law School, the University of
Southern California in Los Angeles and Tufts University,
Boston.
Sadah, who fears his sister may be charged with crimes
against Pakistan and never released, has given the newspaper
the first photograph to be published of the children from the
compound.
PTI
