Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [151]
After his near assassination in Khartoum, my father often reminded us that the price of Jihad was eternal vigilance. In fact, he tried to convince Mullah Omar of the importance of remaining a moving target. But the Taliban leader shrugged off my father’s advice. Mullah Omar was an admitted fatalist, believing whatever God decreed would happen, and declaring that he slept peacefully, never spending a moment worrying about potential assassins.
Then one day a large water tanker truck appeared outside Mullah Omar’s home in Kandahar. This sort of truck was unusual because the mullah had a piped water supply, but no one thought to mention its appearance. Soon there was a huge explosion, ripping through the mullah’s home, killing two of his three wives, two of his brothers, and many members of his staff. There were many body parts flung over a large area, but Mullah Omar was only slightly injured.
Even after that close call, Mullah Omar retained his old habits. Staff members reported that the mullah still slept through the night like a contented baby, knowing in his heart that the deaths had been God’s will.
Not so long after the American embassy bombings and the Clinton attack on the training camps, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and various other nations began to pressure the Taliban to expel my father from Afghanistan. Remembering the trauma of being expelled from Sudan, I believed that history was repeating itself.
Many people wanted a chance to arrest my father and put him on trial followed by execution. I could see my father’s tension when such talk reached his ears. There were few places of refuge left. If he was kicked out of Afghanistan, he was unsure where he might end up, although secluded regions of Pakistan and Yemen were still a possibility.
While Mullah Omar was not the sort of man to allow outside intervention in his business, the American attack upon Afghanistan had caught his full attention.
I was loitering in my father’s Kandahar compound office one day when he received word that Mullah Omar was coming to visit later in the day. We had only a few hours to prepare. Anxious to make a good impression, my father bombarded his men with instructions to prepare a feast and set up one of the largest and nicest garden areas for the meeting area.
My father dressed in his formal Saudi robes to wait. This was an important occasion, the first time that Mullah Omar had left his home to pay my father a visit. Picking up on the apprehension of men like Abu Hafs and Zawahiri, who were usually cool and calm, my brothers and I waited nervously with our father.
Soon my father’s lookouts informed us that a caravan of twelve black Land Cruisers with tinted windows was coming our way. No one spoke as the cruisers pulled into the compound. When the caravan stopped, the doors opened and heavily armed Taliban soldiers stepped out. Notoriously secretive, Mullah Omar had few known photographs of him taken, so my brothers and I had no idea what he looked like. But when he stepped from the vehicle, all identified him instantly from the aura of power and invincibility that set him apart from his followers.
I found myself looking at a man taller and slimmer than my own father, which was a big surprise. I had never met anyone who was taller than my father.
Mullah Omar was wearing distinctive Taliban dress consisting of a black waistcoat and a white shirt, so white and shiny that we knew it was made from the finest cotton. He had a black turban twisted around his head, with only a small amount of jet black hair protruding from under the turban. He had a handsome masculine face with olive skin. Unkempt, bushy brows gave him an intense look. His healthy beard was thick and reached mid-length. A full mustache covered his upper lip.
As we had heard, he bore facial injuries from fighting the Russians. There was a depression