Growing Up bin Laden

by Jean Sasson

  To reassure the wary class, the general related a short story about how teachers often used such tactics to frighten students, to see how they might react, looking for students who kept their cool in such a situation. He said chaos had ensued not so long before in a class that was packed with gullible students. On that occasion so many students tried to run out the door that they had tightly wedged their bodies in the door frame, the result being that no one could get out and no one could get in. Another soldier, still physically fat from the good life in Saudi Arabia, had made for a small window exit. Unfortunately, his body was larger than the opening, so he had become jammed with his head and shoulders outside and his chest and lower body inside.

  Thankfully the exercise was only a ploy, or all those trapped in doors and windows would have been blown to bits.

  In another class we were observing, the situation became more serious. My brothers and I were trying to hide our laughter because the teacher looked more like a scholar than a soldier. Most troubling to me, he appeared to be half-blind, even though he was wearing very thick glasses with double lenses that made his eyeballs seem huge. That nearly blind instructor was holding a lighter in one hand and an explosive in the other, telling us it was important for a soldier to know how long a fuse would burn. He moved the lighter so close to the fuse that it started smoldering. Unaware that he had accidentally lit the fuse, he threw it into the box with the other explosives.

  I was about to warn my brothers to run to safety, when I remembered the first teacher’s instruction that many of these situations were designed as tests for students. I forced myself to sit still, keeping a close watch on the box of explosives. Well, the box caught fire and smoke billowed. The teacher panicked, grabbing and tossing the box to the floor, stomping on the flames. Just as I got up to make a quick exit, some battle-trained soldiers heard the commotion and dashed inside. Seeing the teacher and the burning box, several soldiers bravely seized the box and dashed outdoors. Although two men suffered burns to their hands, they escaped life-threatening injuries.

  Yet another time a teacher was demonstrating the workings of a small bomb when he accidentally ignited it. Too late the teacher saw that the fuse was shorter than usual. He screeched for us to run and we all did, with our teacher on our heels. At the precise moment we reached safety, the bomb exploded.

  Another kind of incompetence endangered us during one of our daily religious classes, which were held at the mosque inside the compound. The classes were large, because sons of al-Qaeda men attended with us.

  Our teacher was a pleasant-faced man named Abu Shaakr, an Egyptian in his early thirties. He was thin but muscular and fit. He had a short beard and an appearance difficult to describe because he possessed no atypical physical features, such as a big nose or small eyes. He was happy to be with students and always kind, a favorite of all the schoolboys.

  The mosque was old, originally constructed of mud bricks. The roof, as was usual in Afghanistan, was made of wood, grass, and mud bricks. Because of the mud in the bricks, water dripped from the ceiling every time it rained. A repairman would be called in after each rain. Rather than take the time to repair the roof properly, the repairman would pour a little sand on the roof, a recipe for disaster, due to the accumulated weight. His technique was unknown to my father, of course, who was an expert when it came to building or repairing any kind of structure.

  Our usual routine meant that the smaller boys left at eleven in the morning while we older boys remained an extra hour for additional study. One day, my brothers and I were sitting at back of the mosque. Hamza, the only child of Auntie Khairiah, my mother’s best friend and a sister-wife, was the last of the little kids to leave, slamming the door behind him.

  When my brother slammed the door, the mosque roof cracked and collapsed. Heavy mud bricks fell on our heads, followed by sand, grass, and wood.

  The weight on our heads and bodies stunned us, although we remained conscious. We could hear Abu Shaakr shouting loudly, calling out our names. The poor man was probably terrified, thinking that the elder sons of Osama bin Laden had perished on his watch.

  My brothers and I were alive, although stuck in position, because the wood and mud bricks had locked us in place. But we were strong boys and started pushing as one. Over the din we could hear our little brother Hamza crying loudly, realizing that something very dangerous had just happened. Hamza feared that he would be blamed since he was the last one out of the building.

  Within minutes, we heard our father’s commanding voice, followed by the voices of other men. My father and his men were frantically removing the rubble with their bare hands while we were pushing from below. With two ends meeting in the middle, we soon saw the light of day. Later we were told that we created quite a frightening sight for the young children. Our eyes were sealed with dust, our faces yellowed by sand, and our headwear pierced with large wooden splinters. One of my brothers said that with our bloodied hands reaching out like the living dead we reminded him of ghosts and goblins described by one of our father’s fighters.

  Dr. Ayman al-Zawahari made an appearance and studiously checked us over. He announced that we were all free of serious injury.

  That was the first time that Dr. Zawahari had ever laid a hand on me. I had felt disquiet from the first moment my father had introduced me to the man. And in Sudan, after he murdered my young friend, the son of Mohammed Sharaf, I avoided him whenever possible. I knew from the beginning that Zawahari was a negative influence on my father, taking him further down the road of violence than he would ever have gone on his own. Zawahari, who was a very intelligent man, picked up on my feelings. I sensed his dislike for me, formed perhaps because I was the only son of my father who was sometimes bold enough to speak my mind.

  For example, I remember once when Zawahari, my father, and Abu Hafs were sitting and drinking tea. The three men were all leaders, although my father was the head, and they knew it. Even Zawahari would ask him for permission to speak. I never once heard him say a single word without that permission. He would say, “Sheik Osama, may I please speak?” Or, “Sheik Osama, please, may I say something to the men?” All the other men were the same; no matter their status in their organizations, none dared utter a single thought without my father’s permission.

  But that day they had my father’s permission to talk and were involved in a complex conversation about their goal of saving the world from American power. My father was saying, “All the weight and injustice has been put on the Islamic world. Do you put all the weight on one end of a seesaw? No, if you do, the seesaw cannot rise normally, in the way it was intended. Everything must be evenly distributed in life. Because Muslims are blamed for everything, we receive all the injustice in the world. It is wrong.”

  I was expected to be a silent server, but on that day I had heard quite enough. Before I knew what was happening, my foolish tongue moved and I blurted out my thoughts. “My father, why have you brought us to this place? Why do you make us live like this? Why can’t we live in the real world and have a normal life, with ordinary things, surrounded by normal people? Why can’t we live in peace?” I had never spoken out so boldly before, yet I was so desperate to hear my father’s response that I looked brazenly into his eyes for the first time in my life.

  My father was too shocked at my audacity to respond. He sat there without looking at or speaking to me. Remembering my tone and attitude, I’m surprised he didn’t cane me in front of the men.

  Finally Abu Hafs relieved my father, saying, “Omar, we want to be here in this country. We have come out of our own desires so that we might escape the real life. We no longer want to be a part of that world. That is why your father is here. As his son, you belong with your father.”

  I longed to protest further, but I didn’t. I well remember the hateful way that Zawahari glared at me, probably wishing he could put a bullet in my head, just as he had done to my innocent friend in Sudan.

  By this time and age, I was losing my p
olite personality. My father wanted his sons to be aloof from all men, to follow his direction, a man whom few people really knew. He said, “My sons must be the fingers of my right hand. My thoughts must control your actions in the same manner my brain controls the movement of my limbs. My sons, your limbs should react to my thinking as though my brain was in your head.”

  We were to be robots, in other words, without opinions or actions of our own.

  Over time he would send us out with his orders, commanding us to be strong and forceful, and to avoid becoming too friendly with any of the men. Thus my brothers and I were afforded some of the princely status of our father. The men even starting calling the older sons of my father “the big sheiks,” which I admit was not unpleasant to my ears, for I had never had any recognition. My desire to establish my own presence increased with age. Over time my brothers and I became arrogant, feeling that we were above all the others, because that is the way we were regarded.

  Our father abused us as his robot slaves and his men indulged us as young kings. As a result of our distorted lives, each of us developed personality problems. Only Abdullah had escaped the worst. Abdul Rahman had not changed much since childhood, comfortable mainly with the friendship of horses. With every passing day, Sa’ad became more impractical, chatting nonstop. The tough soldiers around us were unaccustomed to any man who couldn’t control his tongue, but because Sa’ad was the son of their champion, my brother was quietly tolerated.

  After we moved to Kandahar, Sa’ad had gotten into a habit of prattling endlessly about food. No one knew why, although I believe it was because we were often hungry and when we did eat, our food was so inferior. One bad meal followed another, giving Sa’ad an obsession with cuisine. One day in Kandahar he managed to get a sweet cake, from where we never knew. Sa’ad discussed it so incessantly that even today I remember that cake as if I had eaten it myself! That cake had sweet shredded wheat covering the top and was dripping with sugar and honey.

  Sa’ad had eaten the whole cake, refusing to share even a crumb. For weeks afterwards, Sa’ad would approach strangers on the street to launch into a detailed description of what the cake looked like, tasted like, and how he believed it had been baked. Grown Afghan men backed away, thinking that my brother was not right in the head. My father’s soldiers listened to Sa’ad babbling about that cake until they began to run away when they saw him approaching. I finally threatened to beat him if he didn’t shut up. But he carried on regardless until one day he got hold of a special pudding and began to describe that pudding as he had the cake. Not even my father’s disapproval could stop Sa’ad’s tongue from wagging.

  My father’s choices for our lives had begun to drive his sons crazy!

  Osman had a difficult time maintaining a normal friendship with anyone, primarily because he wanted to control their opinions, in much the same manner as our father.

  Today when I read news reports that my brothers are important leaders in my father’s organization, I question those reports. By the time I left, they had formed their adult personalities, and none of them was capable of organizing a fighting force.

  My younger brother Mohammed is the only sibling that might have risen to a high rank, for he was of a quiet and serious character. Even before I left Afghanistan, I could see my father transferring his hopes from me to Mohammed for the title of the “chosen one.” Once he had Mohammed photographed with him, while my brother was holding a rifle in his lap. In our world, this is a message that the father is passing his power to his son.

  Before then, however, his confidence and trust grew in my direction. I remember when he came to me about a growing problem, the shortage of food and other provisions. We all knew by that time that my father was no longer a wealthy man. Although a system was in place to procure funds from those who supported Jihad, for there were a number of friends, family, and royals who still offered financial support, at times the coffers were empty.

  During one week when family members were going hungry, my father came to me and said, “Omar, I have noticed that you are a just man. I need someone I can trust to ration the food. From now on, it will be your job to calculate the amount of food necessary for each wife and her children. Take into account that teenagers need more than most, for they grow so rapidly. You must sort out all the food supplies and divide them fairly.”

  I speculated that my father knew that Abdul Rahman could not be considered for the job because his personality so craved isolation that he would have found it impossible to interact with others while distributing the food. Sa’ad was not suitable because we all knew that he would eat the tastiest morsels himself.

  I took the job seriously. I could not bear for my mother and aunties or the children to be hungry. Although our diet was generally bland and sparse, there were a few times when visiting royals who traveled to Afghanistan to accompany my father on hunting trips would bring gifts consisting of large boxes of fruit, fish, red meat, and vegetables. Those were the happy days, when the smallest children would receive a special food treat. My father said he received reports that I was so fair there were no complaints from anyone. Soon after this episode, my father confided that I was the son he had chosen to be his second-in-command.

  My father’s face paled when I replied, “My father, I will do anything to help my mother, aunties, and siblings, but I am not the right son to assume your life’s work. I am seeking a peaceful life, not a life of violence.” Even after this, my father failed to abandon the idea that I was his rightful replacement. Soon afterwards he took me to the front line of the fighting. I can only guess that he hoped if I got a taste of the excitement of fighting, I might become passionate about war, as he had done when fighting the Russians. He was to be sorely disappointed.

  Over time I became much bolder than I had ever dreamed possible, speaking confidently against my father’s decisions. But our relationship-breaking conflicts would come later.

  A few months after my family settled in Kandahar, I was visiting with my mother when one of my brothers came to tell me that our father wanted me by his side. Obedient to my father’s commands, I slung my Kalashnikov over my shoulder, adjusted my grenade belt, and walked away.

  At the time I assumed that my father had a question about our food resources, or wished to give orders regarding family matters. Although I was only sixteen years old, I had assumed a large share of responsibility for the wives and children.

  I was informed by a passing fighter that my father was in the building he used as his office. I found him there, sitting cross-legged on the floor, with a group of his fighters. I approached softly and without speaking because that was our way.

  My father looked up, looking neither pleased nor displeased to see me, saying only, “My son, I am leaving now to go to the front lines. You are to come with me.”

  I nodded without comment. I was not afraid, but excited. After more than a year of living in the warring country, I was curious about the front, as I had heard many tales of valor from returning soldiers. The Taliban was still battling the Northern Alliance, headed by Ahmad Shah Massoud, a warrior known for his military genius and a Mujahideen hero from the days of the Russian war. Upon my father’s return to Afghanistan, the two heroes of the Russian campaign had become foes. After Mullah Omar provided his shield of protection, my father had committed his fighting force to Mullah Omar’s army. Mullah Omar and the Taliban were deadly enemies of Massoud.

  Everything about that day was casual. The men chosen to make the trip had no assigned vehicles or seats. My father randomly selected a vehicle and driver and I followed, riding with Sakhr al-Jadawi (Salim Hamdan). The journey was short, no more than thirty or forty minutes, but uncomfortable and bumpy, as are all trips on Afghan roads. I can’t recall anything specific about the journey, except that Sakhr’s tall stories kept me laughing, bringing me out of my usual serious state. Sakhr was the sort of man who constantly joked, enjoying his life more than most. It was difficult not to loosen up when in his compan
y.

  Once we arrived at the front, everyone found something to do while my father met with some of the lieutenants holding the line. Sakhr and I wandered off, and out of boredom Sakhr decided to do some target practice.

  Sakhr set up an empty tin can and began shooting.

  We discussed his prowess for a while and then he shot some more.

  Sakhr fired once again.

  We were in for a big shock, because the blast was so loud that we were instantly confused. What had occurred? Neither of us had ever heard a Kalashnikov make such an earth-shattering noise.

  Just as we were examining Sakhr’s weapon and discussing the strangeness of the situation, a missile broke through the air around us, exploding nearby. That’s when we realized that the Kalashnikov was not the source of the noise.

  Within seconds we were under a full-blown bombardment with missiles raining down. There was a short pause in the attack, and I heard my father’s voice shouting, “Move back! Move back!”

  I sat crouched with Sakhr. I was too startled to move and Sakhr was too cautious. He was plotting how to move out without running into a missile.

  Our minds were racing, neither of us understanding how Massoud’s men had gotten so close. We were behind the front line, for God’s sake! How had Massoud’s men slipped in between the Taliban line and us without being seen?

  Squatting there, expecting to die any moment, I looked back to see that my father and his friends had taken cover in a concrete building, where they looked helplessly at Osama bin Laden’s son, so openly vulnerable. With missiles whistling past my head, dirt and small stones peppering my face, and deep craters appearing all around me, I truly believed I was living my last moments on earth. My big regret was the sorrow I knew my death would cause my mother. Strangely enough, I did not feel a sense of true fear. I suppose that an adrenaline rush was creating a deceptive sense of courage.