Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [122]
Sakhr became one of my favorite men in Afghanistan. I remember that he had been very young, only a teenager, when he first volunteered to travel from Yemen to Afghanistan to fight the Russians. After the war ended, he remained in the area, discouraged from returning to Yemen, as many Mujahideen fighters had been arrested by their governments upon their return home.
While Sakhr was not my father’s designated driver, he was an exceptional driver, able to maneuver along the narrow and winding Afghan highways better than anyone I knew. Sakhr was also my father’s chosen mechanic because no one could repair a car or truck with such skill. The position of auto mechanic was Sakhr’s single job for the entire time I was living in Afghanistan, although I cannot swear to Sakhr’s role once I left Afghanistan for the final time in 2001. I feel confident that Sakhr was never a bodyguard, because he didn’t have the qualities necessary to serve in such a position.
Sakhr was also a favorite of the veterans of the war with the Soviets. He was a peaceful man, often proclaiming that he had finished his fighting duty against the Russians. He was not in typical soldier physical condition; and like the majority of the Russian veterans, never bothered to brush up his military skills in the camps. He was more of a friend to my father, but never expressed awe or fear of Osama bin Laden, like so many of the fighters. Many times I witnessed Sakhr sitting beside my father, the two of them reminiscing about one thing or another.
Sakhr spent much of his free time hanging around with the sons of Osama bin Laden. He would arrange barbecues in the flatlands and accompany us on horse-riding jaunts. By this time my father had acquired horses. Sometimes Sakhr would play games with us, or help us with our rabbits or dogs.
When I returned from my first trip to the training camps, I felt lost and confused. There were times I felt a great anger at the West, for propaganda is a powerful tool and few could withstand the constant half-truths. Without a competing message about the Americans, I believed that the United States was an evil nation with an evil agenda to kill Muslims.
Most of the men around my father were passionately committed to my father’s message of hate, even if their support meant that they would die. I heard my father speak many times; and he never ordered anyone to go on a suicide mission, but instead instructed fighters that if they felt compelled to do so, to write their names on a piece of paper and leave it in the mosque. My father was adamant that no one would be pressured to give up his life, even for a cause he believed to be worth any sacrifice.
While the soldiers enthusiastically embraced the message of hate, it drove me to despair, for I am not a natural hater. I knew that my father expected me to become a soldier, perhaps even to give up my life on a mission. Although I was a boy who relished outdoor activities, such as horseback riding and hunting, I was not and could never be a killer of men. My only real goal was to figure out how I might escape the life my father had ordained for me.
Desiring mental escape, I often listened to one of my father’s old radios. He had many and often listened to the BBC, enthusiastically following the news of the world as though he had a personal stake in every story. One day while I was sitting in the stables with a friend, both of us drinking hot tea and listening to the radio, suddenly a distinctive voice rang out, singing a song so beautiful it was like poetry raining from heaven. I moved quickly to switch the radio off because my father allowed us to listen only to talking voices, not singing voices. But the switch was stuck, and I could not turn off the haunting song. The emotion expressed by the singer made me feel strangely soft inside, and I asked my