A documentary about a Canadian family closely linked to Osama bin Laden portrays the al-Qaida chief as a well-meaning family man who banned ice in drinks, loves volleyball and has trouble controlling his children.
The program, broadcast on Canada’s CBC television Wednesday night, lifted the veil on the private life of the world’s most wanted man, accused of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide attacks in the United States.
It included lengthy interviews with the widow and children of Ahmed Said Khadr, an Egyptian-born friend of bin Laden and an accused al-Qaida financier.
Khadr was killed in a gun battle with Pakistani police last October, and his son, Omar, 17, is in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, accused of involvement in the death of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
‘He has issues with his wife and ... his kids’
Another son, 21-year-old Abdurahman Khadr, was released from Guantanamo Bay late last year and now lives in Toronto. In the documentary he described bin Laden as quite normal.
“He has issues with his wife, and he has issues with his kids, financial issues, you know, the kids aren’t listening, the kids aren’t doing this and that. It comes down to (the fact) he’s a father and he’s a person,” he said.
Khadr’s 23-year-old daughter, Zaynab, said bin Laden -- who attended her wedding in 1999 -- was athletic.
“He loved playing volleyball. And he loved horse riding. ... Kids played around him.... And (when) they’d go shooting, he’d go with them. If he missed his (shot), they’d laugh at him and stuff like that,” she said.
Abdurahman and Zaynab said the al-Qaida leader loved horses and camels -- as did his children.
“Their father had promised them that he would get them a horse if they memorized the Koran. They were so anxious to finish memorizing it so that they could get a horse, which shows you that they’re normal children too,” said Abdurahman.
Ahmed Said Khadr emigrated to Canada in 1977 and got married there, but went to Afghanistan to fight Soviet troops after the 1979 invasion. His family joined him later.
Family lived in bin Laden compound
The Khadrs lived in the bin Laden family compound in the Afghan town of Jalalabad for several years, leaving soon before U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan in 2001. One son, 14-year-old Abdul, was paralyzed in the fight that killed his father.
Most members of the family -- apart from Omar and Abdurahman -- now live in Pakistan but still retain their Canadian citizenship. Abdurahman is the only family member to renounce al-Qaida and bin Laden’s tactics.
Zaynab said bin Laden imposed many restrictions on his three wives and their children and banned the use of electricity in their part of the compound.
“He didn’t allow them to drink cold water ... because he wanted them to be prepared (so that if) one day there’s no cold water, they’d be able to survive and it wouldn’t be so difficult for them,” she said.
Abdurahman recalled: “He was against using ice, and he actually forbade it (for) the people that lived around him. ... He didn’t want them to be spoiled.”
Ahmed Said Khadr was arrested in Pakistan in 1996 on suspicion of financing a fatal bombing of the Egyptian Embassy there. He insisted he was an innocent charity worker, and was released after then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien intervened in the case.
‘We are an al-Qaida family’
“I admit it that we are an al-Qaida family. We had connections to al-Qaida,” said Abdurahman Khadr, who says he resisted his father’s urgings to become a suicide bomber.
But another son, 22-year-old Abdullah Khadr, backed the idea of martyrdom for Islam.
“Every Muslim dreams of being a shahid (martyr) for Islam,” he said. “Everybody dreams of this, even a Christian would like to die for their religion.”
The documentary offered no clues on when the Khadr family had last seen bin Laden, who is still the subject of a manhunt in the tribal areas that straddle Afghanistan and Pakistan.