Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [117]
Our boys echoed their father, making little noises with their tongues, their minds clearly in sympathy with his nearly nonexistent relationship with his own father.
Osama gave the boys something important to think about. “You must understand. I have all of the world’s business on my mind. I cannot be the perfect father who spends every minute of the day and night with my children. But from now on, I will try to spend more time with you, my sons.”
Our sons nodded, recognizing that there was nothing further any of us could do.
How I hoped Osama would do as he said. Our sons appeared as lost boys.
That night I thought a lot about my husband and my children, and felt an overwhelming urge to escape the walls of my rock hut, to breathe the free air around me. After my children ate their boiled eggs and flat bread, they retired to their mattresses, tossing and turning until each slowly drifted off to sleep. Only then did I peek to make sure that I alone was still awake. Feeling comfortable that I would not be caught, I slipped on the unfamiliar burqa, taking soft steps to the edge of the ledge, gathering the puffy fabric of the cloak under and around me to sit quietly on the stony cold ground. There I sat in silence, a woman covered from head to toe, alone with my thoughts.
There were few sounds to be heard, for the mountain creatures had retired, yet I could see for many miles as there was a full moon, shining brightly over the world, little glimmers of moonlight flashing like a silent echo off the endless chain of rugged mountains. I sat there, peering through the burqa’s latticed opening into the star-filled skies of Afghanistan. I was no longer a part of the hustle and bustle of earthly life. In fact, I knew that somewhere beyond the mountains of Tora Bora a busy world was passing me by. Such thoughts made me feel entirely alone in the world, a burqa-clad woman forgotten to all. Few people in the world even knew that Najwa Ghanem bin Laden existed. Yet no one could deny that I had lived, for I was a woman who had given life to nine children, with a tenth child soon to be.
I sat quietly with my thoughts for many hours, the full moon highlighting my still, small figure. I felt like nothing more than a stone on the mountain known only to Allah.
Chapter 18
My Father’s Army
OMAR BIN LADEN
My father failed to keep his promise to devote more time to his sons. After our meeting, life went on as before, with our father totally involved with his “world business” and his sons hanging around the perimeter of his Jihadi life.
While in Sudan, he had maintained an interest in normal matters of life, such as his businesses, whether farming or factories, but once he lost the right to live and work in that African country, his fury sparked a tremendous desire for revenge. That’s when violent Jihad became his whole life, rather than merely a part of it.
After Mullah Omar sanctioned our presence, my father felt confident enough to send out the call for warriors for Jihad. Men began to swarm into Afghanistan, worker bees looking for “their queen,” or in this case, “their king.” And why not? My eyes were a witness to the overwhelming effect my father’s mere presence had on tough warrior men.
That’s the time when I took an active interest in the world of Jihad, and the evolution of my father’s al-Qaeda organization from its origins in Abdullah Azzam’s Services Office, which had been formed for the purpose of organizing resistance