THE TELEGRAPH: Omar bin Laden was being groomed as ‘the chosen one’ by his notorious father Osama. Now the favourite son has turned his back on jihadism. But is he really the agent of peace he claims to be?
It is after midnight when Osama bin Laden’s fourth-born son, Omar, leads me into a nightclub called Les Caves de Boys in the centre of Damascus.
He brushes past the two heavyset Syrian thugs at the door and picks a booth in the back.
A dozen or so wealthy Arab men are drinking whiskey and watching Russian strippers put on a show – tame by Western standards, but as Omar sips a 7 Up, he follows their every move with boyish wonder. Russian women, he tells me, are the most beautiful in the world.
As a teenager in the mountains of Tora Bora, Omar had been his father’s chosen successor, the favoured son meant to lead al-Qaeda and carry on global jihad.
Then, in 2001, a few months before Osama bin Laden was to become the world’s most wanted man, Omar abandoned his father’s compound in Afghanistan. He left behind almost certain death for this: the world, Les Caves de Boys, life.
Past two in the morning, a statuesque dancer emerges for the grand finale. Dressed in a red rhinestone bra and panties, with a black shimmy belt and an ostrich-feather crown, she gyrates her hips as Omar watches, mesmerised.
‘Thank God my father doesn’t run the world,’ Omar grins.
To Omar, Osama bin Laden is neither a jihadist nor a mass murderer – he is a lost man, a fanatical father who withheld his love, beat and betrayed his children, and destroyed his family chasing his fantasy of becoming a latter-day prophet. >>> Guy Lawson | Wednesday, March 31, 2010
THE GUARDIAN: Osama bin Laden's Son: Why I Refused to Follow in My Father's Footsteps >>> Mark Tran | Wednesday, November 18, 2009
