by Jean Sasson
The isolation brought me closest to my son Omar. For the first time I had the opportunity to observe all my children closely, and Omar’s behavior revealed that he had grown the strongest personality and had become a man in all ways. Yet he had many facets to his character. My good son was trustworthy, faithful, and decent, yet he could be short-tempered, reaching quick decisions that he stubbornly held to even in the face of evidence that he might be wrong.
Our sleeping quarters were cramped on that mountain, with all my children crammed into a very small space. There were many times I woke in the middle of the night to see Omar kneeling to his God, feverishly praying. I knew that my son was unhappy. But there was nothing I could do but to tell him that our lives were in the hands of God, and as such, we should not worry.
Despite his misery, Omar thought mainly of others. He could not bear to see any living thing mistreated, whether human or animal. He was the one to come to the defense of all, even snakes, a scary species that has frightened me since my childhood.
One night a terrifying storm struck my husband’s mountain. The storm was blowing with such intensity that our windows and doors lost their animal-skin covers and we were caught without any protection from the strong winds and rain. My smallest children were squealing with terror. Being on top of the mountain gave us a feeling of being tossed into the maelstrom of the storm. Never had any of us seen such natural violence. We were accustomed to little more than sandstorms, which can be frightening, but nothing matched the power of crashing thunder, lightning flashes, high winds, and torrential rain. Finally my older sons managed to hang a blanket over the door and towels over the windows. My smaller children and I huddled against the wall at the greatest distance from the doors and windows.
My older boys dashed away to check on their aunties. I suddenly heard a very strange hissing sound, which I believed to be gas leaking from one of the cylinders that held fuel for our lanterns. When I went to check on the problem, my eyes caught sight of an enormous snake coiled at the hut’s opening, acting as though it had been invited to visit, although I realize now it was simply seeking shelter from the storm. I called God’s name out loud and tried to walk backwards very slowly. My husband and sons had warned me to be alert because those mountain snakes carried poison so deadly one would not have time to rush down the mountain and drive along the highways to the hospital in Jalalabad. I did not want to die and leave my little children without their mother.
I was tottering with fright. I am a woman whose childhood fears have increased to the level that that I cannot tolerate even the image of a colorful snake on the pages of a book. Having nowhere to run in that small hut, I cried out for my boys. Omar quickly came running to me with his Kalashnikov in his hand. For the first time I was happy that my husband made my boys carry that bad weapon.
I shouted, “Omar, be careful! There is a giant snake. There, by the door! Kill it!”
Omar took a look at the snake and teased me. “Poor snake. You want to kill it? Leave her alone, let her live.”
By that time I was yelling very loudly, “Kill that snake!” There was no way I was going to allow that snake to run away to come back and perhaps crawl under my blanket while I slept.
My son kept repeating that he did not want to kill the snake.
I kept screaming, “Kill the snake!”
Finally Omar saw that his mother meant business and he used his big weapon to hit the snake on its head. I watched the snake’s body slowly deflate, to my immense relief.
Omar felt guilty about killing the snake, lifting its limp body in his arms even as I screamed in terror for him to take it away, for even a dead snake makes me quiver. Omar was sad when he said, “You should not have made me kill this snake.”
Off my son went, a big dead snake in his arms—to where I do not know, and at the time, did not care.
Omar had a way with animals. I remember once when I was watching my husband attempt to deliver a baby camel. There was trouble, but nothing helped the desperate mother. The baby was stuck half in and half out, and the mother camel was in the greatest pain.
Omar heard about the problem and came to assist. Though my husband told him to go away, Omar did not respond, but reached to lift the baby camel’s head, helping the mother. Finally Omar got the baby out alive and prayed some verses over mother and baby. My husband did not know what to say because it was becoming clear that Omar was blessed by God to feel the pain of every animal, and had a bit of magic in communicating with them.
There are many other stories. The life lived by the men around us was often so brutal that they did not notice cruelty. Even my own sons, and sons of the men who worked for my husband, were known to abuse animals. But Omar was willing to fight to protect them, telling the others, “Hey, leave that animal alone. I order you to stop.” Even the older boys would obey because they knew that Omar would not hesitate to take further action on behalf of the animal.
After months of life on that mountain, the days were beginning to feel like years. Then a good day arrived when Omar gave me the news that we would soon be leaving, to move to a city called Kandahar. Omar said, “My mother, your daily life will improve.” Although I was careful not to speak of my happiness, my heart fluttered with joy to hear that the time had come for us to leave the mountain life. I knew my child was nearly due, and I did not know what might happen, for I had not seen a doctor once since arriving at Tora Bora. I was no longer a young woman having easy pregnancies. I prayed that I would be in the town of Jalalabad or at Kandahar when my child decided to come.
Soon we were loading into my husband’s vehicles and making our way down the mountain. The move did not come a moment too soon, because shortly after arriving in Jalalabad, I went into labor. My husband was not with me, but my three oldest sons transported me to a small hospital in Jalalabad. No one could be with me, because that was not the way it was in Afghanistan, but my sons waited outside to hear that our family had another little girl to love. And so it came to be that I had Rukhaiya, a lucky baby who was never subjected to life on Tora Bora.
Although life would remain difficult in so many ways, God granted my wish that I would never again set foot on the peaks of my husband’s Tora Bora Mountain.
Chapter 20
The Violence Escalates
OMAR BIN LADEN
The thing I had wanted most had happened. Our family finally departed Tora Bora, and from that time on would never live on the mountain again. I could see that my mother and siblings were pleased, too. Although life anywhere in Afghanistan was a challenge, nothing could match Tora Bora for sheer misery.
The previous month had been filled with activity. When my father gave the order for his family and the main leaders of al-Qaeda to vacate bin Laden Mountain, my brothers and I were so cheerful that we had to struggle to keep ourselves from laughing aloud. For the first time, the grueling four-hour drive from Tora Bora to Jalalabad met with no complaints.
We remained in Jalalabad for a few weeks so that my father could organize his new plans with his lieutenants. That was an opportune time because my mother gave birth to a little girl named Rukhaiya almost as soon as we arrived, giving her a few weeks in Jalalabad to rest before we had to load up once again to make a car trip to Kabul.
When we left for Kabul, we saw that at every point the scenery was dramatically beautiful. Yet we could hardly enjoy the spectacular vistas because the roads were so rough that our vehicles bucked like wild broncos. Kabul was only a hundred miles west of Jalalabad, but the bad road meant that the trip took eight hours. I could think of little beyond my mother, her infant daughter, and my other young siblings.
I was relieved that we all arrived in Kabul in one piece. The city was located on a small plain, divided by the Kabul River and ringed by the dramatic mountains of the Hindu Kush.
Most importantly, my mother and the new baby made the trip without any medical complications. The family remained in that broken city for several weeks so that my father could i
nspect the area and meet with individuals there. While waiting for him to conduct his business, our family lived in rented two-storey houses that were rather ordinary, yet we were happy to have a roof over our heads, for few in Kabul had that luxury.
Kabul was an example of what total war can do to a country. Factional fighting since the Russians left Afghanistan had left the once prosperous city a pile of rubble. Although there were a few habitable homes scattered about, most of the suffering population lived in blown-out concrete shells that little resembled homes.
The city was so dismal that my mother, siblings, and I were happy to leave, and most pleased to hear that we would traveling the more than three hundred miles to Kandahar by air. By that time, we all had had our fill of the roads in Afghanistan.
My father refused to board any kind of aircraft, declaring that the equipment was in such disrepair that he didn’t trust any of the Afghan planes to stay airborne. So when the time came for us to depart, he bid us farewell and left with a few of his men in vehicles. Despite his concern about the safety of air travel, traveling across Afghanistan on appalling dirt roads during the middle of a ferocious civil war would not be a picnic. Ignorant of his plan at the time, I now know that he was surveying military bases abandoned by the Russians. Those military compounds had been built near every major Afghan city. Mullah Omar had told my father that he could make use of any of the complexes not occupied by the Taliban.
Still hugely embittered by his exile from Sudan, which he continued to blame on the Americans, my father was in a heated rush to set up training camps. He was obsessed with training many thousands of fighters to unleash on the western world.
The plane used for our journey was owned by the Taliban, but generously placed at my father’s disposal. When we boarded I could see that every passenger seat had been removed. There were so many of us that everyone had to sit bunched together on the floor. The women automatically filed to the back of the plane, while the men settled in the front. All the men were heavily armed, with guns looped across their shoulders and grenade belts around their waists. That was standard practice in Afghanistan, where one never knew when a fight might ensue and every man felt the need to be equipped for battle.
We were told that the flight would last only a few hours. We gathered collectively in groups, pleased to have an excuse to be social. Young men sat with young men while the older fighters banded together. I was in a rare good mood, excited about the move to Kandahar. I had never been there and was hoping that there was one place in Afghanistan that I would find agreeable.
I was sitting with a friend of mine named Abu Haadi, who was fifteen years older than me. He had grown up in Jordan, but seeking a higher purpose, had traveled to Afghanistan to join the Jihad. My older brother Abdul Rahman was in my view, and I noticed that he was playing with his grenades, but I thought nothing of it at the time.
An hour or so into the trip, Abu Haadi urgently nudged me, whispering loudly, “Omar! Look! Look at your brother!”
One glance and my heart raced. Abdul Rahman had accidentally armed one of his grenades. The pin was on the floor and the grenade was in Abdul Rahman’s hands! Any moment the grenade would explode, bringing down the plane and killing everyone on board.
Abu Haadi moved more quickly than I’ve ever seen a grown man move, grabbing Abu Hafs and hurriedly telling him the problem. Abu Hafs was the man my father had entrusted to deliver his entire family safely to Kandahar. Abu Hafs seized the grenade from Abdul Rahman, then solicited the help of one of the grenade experts on board. The two men stabilized the grenade before dashing into the cockpit. It happened that the plane was flying low, and somehow they tossed the grenade out a window. They claimed the grenade detonated in midair, although none of us heard it explode.
No one ever related the story to the women on board.
After that great excitement, we landed safely in Kandahar. The airport was small with only one main building and one runway. There were vehicles waiting to take us to our Kandahar homes. We didn’t know what to expect but we were driven quite a long way, at least twenty-five miles from the airport.
Our vehicles turned in to an immense complex that had been built by the Russians during their time in Afghanistan. The compound was enclosed by a high wall with sentry posts at each corner. There were around eighty medium-sized pink-shaded concrete homes inside the confines of the wall, buildings that my father’s men had been repairing for some weeks. After the Soviets had left in 1988, the buildings had been ransacked. Even after the houses were patched up, I saw missile damage and bullet holes.
My father finally had his own military base. Of course, there was no electricity or running water; my father refused to modernize the compounds, reiterating his belief that his family and fighters should live the simple life. With the memory of the stone huts of Tora Bora still fresh in our minds, no one complained.
My mother and aunties were all moved into their own homes inside the compound. Their homes were side by side, which was convenient, as they had no other companions. Soon my father’s men would construct walls around each house, providing the necessary privacy for my father’s wives.
There were twenty large villas outside the wall that I heard had once been used by the Russian generals. There was also one huge building that had housed the lowest-grade military men. Fighters who were married with children lived in the large building outside the compound walls. Villas for the unattached fighters were outside the walls as well. There was a huge military building outside the walls where special ground-to-air missiles were placed on the roof.
Of course, there was a small mosque inside the walls, as well as various offices for my father and his high-ranking soldiers. Stables for our horses were constructed beside the bachelor quarters.
Kandahar was far from a perfect haven. We were still living in a country at war. There were times we could hear bombing and fighting, although the war never entered the compound. There was also the danger of dying from disease in a land where the citizens had dealt with war and death for so long that many former habits regarding health and hygiene had lapsed.
Although we generally remained at our compound, some months after moving to Kandahar my brothers and I, along with a few friends, grew bold enough to venture into the city. It was in Kandahar that we witnessed the various problems disturbing the well-being of many Afghans.
I remember a time when my friends and I pooled our funds so that we might go to a popular restaurant in Kandahar. Accustomed to food so bland that even the stray dogs ate it reluctantly, we were filled with anticipation. After ordering, one of my companions noticed some jugs sitting near the table area. Being the curious sort, he lifted the container to peer inside. After a sniff, he gagged. The waiter explained that prior to starting a meal Afghanis were partial to clearing their throats of expectorant. To discourage customers from spitting on the floor, the restaurants provided spit jugs.
Such an unappetizing image ruined our meal.
The city itself was polluted, with open sewers in the city streets. Most of the sewage came directly from the homes along the sidewalks and streets. Although most homes had indoor toilets, there was no running water. In order to dispose of the waste, toilets were built with exposed seats that opened out to the street below where the human waste was emptied. Better on the street than in the house, was the common answer to our question.
Although we did not live in such housing, my father had rented a number of buildings in the city to use as guest houses. There were times my brothers and I, or our friends, utilized the houses, so we saw for ourselves the unsanitary method of waste disposal. Most troubling for us, pedestrians could easily look upward to see the toilet user’s bare bottom.
There were times when we found this funny, as when we had a visitor from Saudi Arabia who was accustomed to the finer things of life, for the Saudi government had used oil money to modernize most of the country. This particular friend was experiencing intense stomach cramps after eating in the lo
cal restaurants. When we pointed out the toilet, we purposely did not alert him to the open hole. Soon he ran to us in a frenzy, reporting that a dog was barking at him from the street below. This was something new, so we dashed to see for ourselves. We sneaked a quick look through the toilet opening to discover the barking culprit. There sat a mother dog and her puppies curled beneath the toilet. The mother had found a nice street corner to place her puppies. When they were splattered from above, she started barking. Needless to say, my friend’s tummy ache immediately subsided. He refused to use the indoor toilet from that time on, thinking it best to relieve himself in a nearby field or empty lot.
Those toilet seats created havoc for humans as well as dogs. Human waste had nowhere to go but down. Of course, when pedestrians walked on the narrow sidewalks, they found it was necessary to navigate mounds of human waste. The odor was so strong it was paralyzing. Despite the fact farmers came into the city several days a week to collect the waste to use on their fields as fertilizer, the stench of human waste hung over the city.
Afghanistan proved to be a dangerous place for the bin Laden sons. My brothers and I came close to death more than once. Most of our near misses resulted from the mishandling of grenades or other explosives, for weapons were everywhere and not always in expert hands.
Once we moved from Tora Bora to Kandahar, my father set up weapons training classes within the compound, ordering us to return occasionally for a refresher course. We didn’t complain, for we were often bored and looking for something to do.
On one particular day my brothers and I decided to check in on a grenades class run by certain general. One of his rules had to do with “what to do with a grenade when the pin is removed.” Well, as fate would have it, he dropped the grenade while talking. He reassured the class, “Don’t worry, it’s not activated.”
I examined the grenade rolling around on the floor. Seeing that the pin was separate from the grenade, I immediately ordered my brothers, “Get out of here!”
