Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [130]
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