Osama Bin Laden?s Wives Fought Among Themselves on His Last Days Hiding In Abbottabad

Mangalore Today /ITV

London, March 8: Slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden spent his last days hiding in the Abbottabad house even as his three wives constanstly fought among themselves out of jealousy while vying for his affections, an account prepared by a retired Pakistani army brigadier reveals, reports Mail Today.

On the top floor of his hideaway in Pakistan, bin Laden shared his bedroom with his youngest and favourite wife, Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada, a Yemeni who was 19 when she married the al-Qaida leader in 1999.

His second wife, Siham Saber, lived in another room which doubled up as a computer room on the same floor.

Trouble arose when his eldest wife, Saudi-born Khairiah Saber, showed up in early 2011 and moved into the bedroom on the floor below. The eldest and youngest wives did not get on over bin Laden’s perceived favouritism of Amal.

Others in the family, crammed into the three-story villa Abbottabad compound where bin Laden would eventually be killed in a May 2 U.S. raid, were convinced that the eldest wife intended to betray the al-Qaeda leader.

Indeed, the compound where bin Laden lived since mid-2005 was a crowded place, with 28 residents — including bin Laden, his three wives, eight of his children and five of his grandchildren.

The bin Laden children ranged in age from his 24-year-old son Khaled, who was killed in the raid, to a 3-year-old born during their time in Abbottabad

Bin Laden’s courier, the courier’s brother and their wives and children also lived in the compound.

The picture of bin Laden’s family life comes from Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani army officer who spent months researching the events and says he was given rare access to transcripts of Pakistani intelligence’s interrogation of bin Laden’s youngest wife, who was detained in the raid.

 

Bin Laden’s home life was stirred up when Khairiah joined the fray. There was already bad blood between Khairiah, who married bin Laden in the late 1980s, and Amal because of bin Laden’s favoritism for the younger Yemeni woman, Qadir said he was told by tribal leaders who knew the family.

Even ISI officials who questioned Khairiah after the raid were daunted by her.

‘She is so aggressive that she borders on being intimidating,’ Qadir said he was told by an ISI interrogator.

Amal stayed close to bin Laden as he fled Afghanistan into Pakistan following the 2001 U.S. invasion. She took an active role in arranging protection for him and bin Laden wanted her by his side, the tribal leaders told Qadir.

Khairiah fled Afghanistan in 2001 into Iran along with other bin Laden relatives and al-Qaeda figures. She and others were held under house arrest in Iran until 2010, when Tehran let them leave in a swap for an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Pakistan’s frontier city of Peshawar.

 

Khairiah showed up at Abbottabad in February or March 2011 and moved into the villa’s second floor, Amal told her interrogators.

Khalid, bin Laden’s son with Siham, was suspicious, according to Amal’s account. He repeatedly asked Khairiah why she had come. At one point, she told him, ‘I have one final duty to perform for my husband.’ Khalid immediately told his father what she had said and warned that she intended to betray him.

Amal, who shared Khalid’s fears, said bin Laden was also suspicious but was unconcerned, acting as if fate would decide, according to Qadir’s recounting of the interrogation transcript.

There is no evidence Khairiah had any role in bin Laden’s end. Accounts by Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials since the May 2 raid have made no mention of her. Instead, U.S. officials have said the courier inadvertently led the CIA to the Abbottabad villa after they uncovered him in a monitored phone call.

Bin Laden had two marriages before Khairiah that ended in divorce and had more than 20 children with his various wives.

In addition to three wives the commandos who raided the compound also found an ’extensive’ collection of modern pornographic films.

The pornography recovered consisted of modern, electronically recorded video although it is unknown who at the home procured and or watched it.

Amal gave her interrogators details on bin Laden’s movements after fleeing Afghanistan. Her account underscored that bin Laden did not stay long in Pakistan’s tribal-run regions on the border where the United States long presumed he was holed up.

She and bin Laden hid for several months in 2002 in Salman Talab, a suburb of Kohat, a northwest Pakistani border town. There bin Laden was visited at least once by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind arrested in Rawalpindi on March 1, 2003.

Amal said they moved constantly to avoid being spotted for several months in South Waziristan, a border region. In 2004, she and other family members went to Shangla, a town in the Swat Valley, 80 miles (128 kilometers) northwest of the capital Islamabad. Bin Laden joined them by doubling back through Afghanistan because it was feared he could be identified if he crossed Pakistan.

Later in 2004, they moved to Haripur, only 20 miles (33 kilometers) from Islamabad, according to the interrogation transcripts. After several months there, they moved in the summer of 2005 to the villa in Abbottabad, a town 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital and home to a large military base.

The wives and bin Laden family members who were in the villa during the raid remain in Pakistani custody.

Qadir said he was allowed to visit the villa four times, most recently in November. He described the bin Laden bedroom, saying one wall was peppered with bulletholes and splattered with blood, which his ISI escort told him was from Amal, who was shot in the leg during the raid.

There was also blood on the ceiling, which Qadir presumed was from bin Laden, who was shot through the eye.

Qadir said he was struck by the lack of defenses — no basement, no warning system, no escape routes.

’It was a death trap if it were ever attacked.’