Osama bin Laden's wife and six children 'in Iran' AFP/File – Undated file picture of Osama bin Laden. Six of Bin Laden's children and one of his wives, missing …
By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Writer Salah Nasrawi, Associated Press Writer – Wed Dec 23, 10:26 am ET
CAIRO – A daughter of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has taken refuge in the Saudi Embassy in Tehran after eluding guards who have held her and five brothers under house arrest for eight years, a Saudi-owned newspaper reported Wednesday.
It has long been believed that Iran has held in custody a number of bin Laden's children since they fled Afghanistan following the U.S.-led invasion of that country in 2001 — most notably Saad and Hamza bin Laden, who are thought to have held positions in al-Qaida.
This year, U.S. officials said Saad bin Laden may have been killed by a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan, where they said he may have fled after being freed from Iran, but they could not confirm the information.
But Omar bin Laden, another son who lives abroad, told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Eman told relatives in a call from the embassy that 29-year-old Saad and four other brothers were still being held in Iran.
Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Omar were not immediately returned, and there was no comment from Iranian or Saudi officials.
Asharq Al-Awsat said the 17-year-old daughter, Eman, slipped away from guards and fled to the Saudi Embassy nearly a month ago. The embassy's charge d'affaires, Fouad al-Qassas, confirmed to the paper that she has been at the mission for 25 days and that there were diplomatic efforts with the Iranians to get her out of the country.
Another bin Laden son, Abdullah, who lives in Saudi Arabia, told the Arab TV news network Al-Jazeera in an interview aired this week that Eman telephoned him after she eluded guards who were taking her on a shopping trip in Tehran.
Osama bin Laden reportedly has 19 children by several wives. He took at least one of his wives and their children with him to Afghanistan in the late 1990s after he was thrown out of his previous refuge, Sudan. They fled when the U.S-led war erupted, including the group that tried to escape through Iran.
His son Omar told Asharq Al-Awsat that the family had not known for certain the fate of the siblings that fled through Iran until Eman's escape. "Until four weeks ago, we did not know where they were," said the 28-year-old Omar, who is married to a British woman and has lived in Egypt and the Gulf. He said eight other bin Laden children live in Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Most of the al-Qaida leader's children, like Omar, live as legitimate businessmen. The extended bin Laden family, one of the wealthiest in Saudi Arabia, disowned Osama in 1994 when Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship because of his militant activities. Osama bin Laden's billionaire father Mohammed, who died in 1967, had more than 50 children and founded the Binladen Group, a construction conglomerate that gets many major building contracts in the kingdom.
Omar bin Laden said he spoke by telephone in recent weeks with his 25-year-old brother Othman, who is among the six siblings being held in Iran. Othman told them that Iranian authorities detained the group after they crossed the border from Afghanistan in 2001, and since have been holding them under guard in a housing complex in Tehran, Omar told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Omar said the bin Laden children in Iran were sons Saad, Hamza, Othman and Bakr and daughters Iman and Fatima.
In January, the Treasury slapped financial sanctions on Saad bin Laden and three other al-Qaida figures for suspected terror activities. At the time, Michael McConnell, then-director of national intelligence, said it was believed Saad had left Iran and was likely in Pakistan.
In July, U.S. counterterror officials said Saad may have been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan, but there has been no confirmation since.
---
Bin Laden's daughter "in Saudi embassy in Tehran"
24 Dec 2009 21:27:02 GMT
Source: Reuters
TEHRAN, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran has informed the Iranian authorities that one of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's daughters is in the embassy and wants to leave the country, Iran's foreign minister said on Thursday.
Manouchehr Mottaki spoke a day after Britain's Times newspaper reported that some of bin Laden's closest relatives, including children, were living in a secret compound in Iran.
A daughter called Iman had recently escaped during a rare trip outside the compound and made her way to the Saudi Arabian embassy, the Times said. She is now living there while seeking permission to leave Iran, it said.
"We were informed by the Saudi Arabian embassy ... some time ago that one of bin Laden's daughters is in the Saudi embassy in Tehran," Mottaki said on state television.
"We do not know how the individual ... entered the Saudi embassy and Iran in the first place. Her real identity is not yet clear to us," he said. "Upon determination of her real identity she will be able to leave Iran with proper permits."
Mottaki made no reference to any other relatives of bin Laden living in Iran.
The Times said the group included a wife and children who disappeared from bin Laden's Afghan camp at the time of the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
It said other relatives found out last month that the group, including one of bin Laden's wives, six of his children and 11 of his grandchildren had been kept in a high-security compound outside Tehran for the past eight years.
The Times quoted Omar bin Laden, 29, who it said was the al Qaeda leader's fourth-oldest son, as saying he had no idea that his brothers and sisters were still alive until they called him in November.
They told him how they had fled Afghanistan just before the 9/11 attacks and walked to the Iranian border. They were taken to a walled compound outside Tehran where guards said they were not allowed to leave "for their own safety".
Omar bin Laden said that his relatives lived as normal a life as possible, cooking meals, watching television and reading. They were allowed out only rarely for shopping trips.
"The Iranian government did not know what to do with this large group of people that nobody else wanted, so they just kept them safe. For that we owe them much gratitude, and thank Iran from the depth of our heart," he said.
He now hopes that the family will be given permission to leave Iran and join his mother, brother and two sisters in Syria, or himself and his wife in Qatar.
U.S. soldiers and Afghan militia forces launched a large-scale assault on the Tora Bora mountains in 2001 in pursuit of Saudi-born bin Laden. Bin Laden has never been found and is believed to still be hiding in the mountainous border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. (Reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Hashem Kalantari; writing by Fredrik Dahl; editing by Andrew Roche)
---
Bin Laden daughter should be free to quit Iran -S.Arabia
02 Jan 2010 16:07:19 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Bin Laden's daughter 'fled house arrest' in Iran
* Took refuge in Saudi embassy in Tehran
* Riyadh says she should be allowed to return home
RIYADH, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia urged Iran on Saturday to allow a daughter of Osama bin Laden, who fled house arrest and sought refuge in the Saudi embassy in Tehran, to leave the country if she wishes.
Iman bin Laden and five siblings had been held in Tehran since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported last month. Iman, 17, escaped during a rare trip outside in November and made her way to the embassy, the paper said.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh that Iman should be allowed to leave Iran.
"We consider this to be a purely humanitarian issue and we are in talks with the Iranian government to treat it as such and leave the choice of leaving to the girl," he said.
Asharq al-Awsat, owned by a cousin of Prince Saud, has reported that the Saudi embassy has issued Iman with a temporary travel permit to allow her to return to Saudi Arabia.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and non-Arab Iran have been marked by regional rivalry and mutual mistrust due mainly to sectarian tensions in the region between Sunnis and Shi'ites -- Islam's two main factions -- and more recently over Tehran's nuclear plans.
Iman's father, Osama bin Laden, was born into a wealthy Saudi family but had his nationality revoked. The al Qaeda head is believed to be hiding in the mountainous border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. (Reporting by Souhail Karam; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
==
Last Updated: July 05. 2011 1:00AM
CIA analyst behind hunt for bin Laden
Realizing importance of little details helped him find terrorist
Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo/ Associated Press
Washington — After Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the White House released a photo of President Barack Obama and his Cabinet inside the Situation Room, watching the daring raid unfold.
Hidden from view, standing just outside the frame of that now-famous photograph was a career CIA analyst. In the hunt for the world's most wanted terrorist, there may have been no one more important. His job for nearly a decade had been finding the al-Qaida leader.
The CIA will not permit him to speak with reporters. But interviews with former and current U.S. intelligence officials reveal a story of quiet persistence and continuity that led to the greatest counterterrorism success in the history of the CIA. Nearly all the officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
The Associated Press has agreed to the CIA's request not to publish his full name and withhold certain biographical details. Call him John, his middle name.
John was among the hundreds of people who poured into the CIA's Counterterrorism Center after the Sept. 11 attacks, bringing fresh eyes and energy to the fight.
He had been a standout in the agency's Russian and Balkan departments. When Vladimir Putin was coming to power in Russia, for instance, John pulled together details overlooked by others and wrote what some colleagues considered the definitive profile of Putin.
That ability to spot the importance of seemingly insignificant details, to weave disparate strands of information into a meaningful story, gave him a knack for hunting terrorists.
"He could always give you the broader implications of all these details we were amassing," said John McLaughlin, who as CIA deputy director was briefed regularly by John.
John examined and re-examined every aspect of bin Laden's life. How did he live while hiding in Sudan? With whom did he surround himself while living in Kandahar, Afghanistan? What would a bin Laden hideout look like today?
The CIA had a list of leads, associates and family members who might have access to bin Laden.
"Just keep working that list bit by bit," one senior intelligence official recalls John telling his team. "He's there somewhere."
In 2007, John's team decided to zero in on a man known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, an important courier for al-Qaida's upper echelon. The CIA tracked al-Kuwaiti to a walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. If bin Laden was hiding there, in a busy suburb not far from Pakistan's military academy, it challenged much of what the agency had assumed about his hideout.
But John said it wasn't that far-fetched. Drawing on what he knew about bin Laden's earlier hideouts, he said it made sense that bin Laden had surrounded himself only with couriers and family.
By April, the president had decided to send the Navy SEALs to assault the compound.
Though the plan was in motion, John went back to his team, a senior intelligence official said.
"Right up to the last hour," he told them, "if we get any piece of information that suggests it's not him, somebody has to raise their hand before we risk American lives."
Nobody did.
An agonizing 40 minutes after Navy SEALs stormed the compound, the report came back: Bin Laden was dead.
John and his team had guessed correctly.
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110705/NATION/107050329/CIA-analyst-behind-hunt-for-bin-Laden#ixzz1RDaJxNwI
==========
Bin Laden widows charged with illegal stay in Pakistan
Thu, Mar 08 13:56 PM EST
image
By Qasim Nauman
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani authorities have brought charges against Osama bin Laden's three widows for illegally entering and living in the country, the interior minister said on Thursday.
The al Qaeda leader was killed in a secret raid by U.S. Special Forces in the garrison town of Abbottabad in May last year after a decade-long manhunt.
His three wives and an undisclosed number of children were among the 16 people detained by Pakistani authorities after the raid.
"They (the wives) were presented before the court. After that, they are on judicial remand, and are being kept in a proper, legal manner," Minister Rehman Malik told reporters.
"Cases have been registered against the adults, not the children."
Two of the wives are Saudi nationals, and one is from Yemen, according to the Pakistani foreign ministry.
Malik did not specify which court was dealing with the case, or where the women were being held. They will have to stand trial, but it was not clear what punishment they faced if convicted.
Pakistan had previously said that it would repatriate the women to their home countries after a government commission probing the bin Laden raid had completed its questioning.
The commission has interviewed the family members for clues about how the al Qaeda chief managed to stay in the country undetected.
The youngest widow, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, told Pakistani investigators in May that bin Laden and his family lived for five years in the compound in Abbottabad where he was killed.
The raid plunged the relationship between uneasy allies Pakistan and the United States to their lowest point since Islamabad joined Washington in the global war against militancy.
While the operation was hailed as a success in the United States, Pakistan reacted angrily, terming the raid a gross violation of its sovereignty.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
==========
Wife: Bin Laden Hid in Pakistan, Not Caves, for Decade
ABC NewsBy RANDY KREIDER | ABC News – Fri, Mar 30, 2012
Related Content
Wife: Bin Laden Hid in Pakistan, Not Caves, for Decade (ABC News)
Wife: Bin Laden Hid in Pakistan, …
Osama bin Laden's youngest wife has revealed that the al Qaeda leader spent a vast majority of his time after the 9/11 attacks not hiding in caves but living in Pakistani cities, where he moved several times and fathered a handful of children.
According to a police report dated Jan. 17 and obtained by ABC News, bin Laden's youngest wife Amal Ahmad Abdul Fatah claims that except for the eight or nine months just after 9/11 when the family "scattered" and she does not account for bin Laden's whereabouts, the most wanted man in the world skipped from home to home in Peshawar, Swat and Haripur, Pakistan before settling in Abbottabad for about the last six years of his life. In his time on the run, bin Laden managed to father four children -- at least two of whom were born in government hospitals. Far from the popular image of bin Laden holed up in a cave in the rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, Fatah said the family lived in houses.
"The inescapable conclusion is that he was helped by high-level officials in Pakistan," said Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism advisor and now a consultant to ABC News.
Bin Laden was killed in his compound in Abbottabad in a nighttime raid by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs in May 2011.
Fatah said that she spent very little time in the hospital when she gave birth to bin Laden's children -- just two or three hours -- and, except for when they were in Abbottabad, bin Laden's family moved houses often even if they were staying in the same city.
American officials have said they suspected some Pakistani officials must have known bin Laden had been hiding in Pakistan.
"I don't have any hard evidence, so I can't say it for a fact. There's nothing that proves the case. But as I said, my personal view is that somebody somewhere probably had that knowledge," Panetta told CBS News' "60 Minutes" in January.
Sen. Carl Levin, D.-Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Jonathan Karl of ABC News right after bin Laden died that "at high levels, high levels being the intelligence service ... [the Pakistanis] knew it."
The new report is part of the Pakistani government's investigation into whether bin Laden's three wives entered Pakistan illegally. Bin Laden was married to four wives in all, but divorced his first wife prior to 9/11. According to the report, Fatah, a Yemeni, got a temporary visa to enter Pakistan for "medical treatment" in 2000 that expired after a few months. For the next decade, the report says, she was considered an illegal immigrant.
American officials were able to interview bin Laden's wives shortly after the raid that killed the terror leader, but they described the wives as being uncooperative.
Earlier this month, new details emerged about bin Laden's last days in his compound in Abbottabad where he was caught between two feuding wives and in danger of being betrayed from the inside.
READ: Bin Laden's Last Days, Caught Between Feuding Wives
===================
No comments:
Post a Comment