Bin Laden lived with 23 children
NEW details indicate that at least 23 children were living with Osama bin Laden at his hideout at Abbottabad in Pakistan.
By AGENCIES
NEW details indicate that at least 23 children were living with Osama bin Laden at his hideout at Abbottabad in Pakistan.
According to international media reports, after killing Bin Laden, his son and two others, the American commandos took nine women and 23 children away from the compound, according to US officials.
The survivors of the raid are now “in safe hands and being looked after in accordance to the law,†the Pakistani government said in a statement.
“As per policy, they will be handed over to their countries of origin.†It did not elaborate. The reports did not say whether some were children of bin Laden.
Those who live nearby said the people in bin Laden’s compound rarely strayed outside. Most of them were unaware that bin Laden and his family were living there.
Khurshid Bibi, a neighbour, said one man living in the compound had given her a lift to the market in the rain.
She said her grandchildren played with the kids in the house and that the adults there gave them rabbits as a gift. The neighbours said they knew little about those inside in the compound, but bin Laden apparently depended on two men who would routinely emerge to run errands or to a neighbourhood gathering, such as a funeral.
Bin Laden’s wife
The White House yesterday identified the woman said to have charged at US Navy SEALs in an apparent desperate last ditch effort to protect bin Laden, his youngest wife, a woman nearly half his age.
The woman, identified by a passport found inside the compound, was 29-year-old Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah.
She was in the room when the SEALs took the final fateful shots at bin Laden and was herself shot in the leg when she rushed, unarmed, at the special operators.
She was treated for her wounds and is in custody in Pakistan, officials said.
Fatah, bin Laden’s fifth wife and the only one left living with him in the house, had been gifted to bin Laden by a Yemeni family when she was just a teenager and later had three young children with him. Of his other wives, he had divorced one and three others had moved to Syria.
But bin Laden’s children with Fatah are not his only offspring as he was survived by at least 18 children.
None of the sons, however, are in line to succeed their father for leadership of al-qaeda.
most feared terror organisations.
in the world.
"Unlike a lot of Arab governments that are dynastic," said former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, "al Qaeda has not been and his sons have never played a real operational role of any significance. They did not appear to be groomed for leadership roles in al Qaeda."
Photos of Bin Laden’s body won’t be released
The White House last evening said U.S. President Barack Obama had decided not to release photos of Osama bin Laden body.
But a Senator Kelly Ayotte said she had seen one of the photos of bin Laden after he had been killed and that it confirmed his identity.
"I have seen one of them," the Republican senator told reporters inside the U.S. Capitol. "Another senator showed it to me." She said it was a facial shot.
Ayotte made the comments after a closed-door briefing on bin Laden's death given to her and several other senators by CIA Director Leon Panetta.
There was no indication she had seen the photo during that forum. Other senators who emerged said they had not seen any photos of bin Laden.
Ayotte said she thought the photos of bin Laden should be released to the public to help quash any conspiracy theories about whether the al Qaeda leader was dead.
NEW details indicate that at least 23 children were living with Osama bin Laden at his hideout at Abbottabad in Pakistan.
According to international media reports, after killing Bin Laden, his son and two others, the American commandos took nine women and 23 children away from the compound, according to US officials.
The survivors of the raid are now “in safe hands and being looked after in accordance to the law,†the Pakistani government said in a statement.
“As per policy, they will be handed over to their countries of origin.†It did not elaborate. The reports did not say whether some were children of bin Laden.
Those who live nearby said the people in bin Laden’s compound rarely strayed outside. Most of them were unaware that bin Laden and his family were living there.
Khurshid Bibi, a neighbour, said one man living in the compound had given her a lift to the market in the rain.
She said her grandchildren played with the kids in the house and that the adults there gave them rabbits as a gift. The neighbours said they knew little about those inside in the compound, but bin Laden apparently depended on two men who would routinely emerge to run errands or to a neighbourhood gathering, such as a funeral.
Bin Laden’s wife
The White House yesterday identified the woman said to have charged at US Navy SEALs in an apparent desperate last ditch effort to protect bin Laden, his youngest wife, a woman nearly half his age.
The woman, identified by a passport found inside the compound, was 29-year-old Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah.
She was in the room when the SEALs took the final fateful shots at bin Laden and was herself shot in the leg when she rushed, unarmed, at the special operators.
She was treated for her wounds and is in custody in Pakistan, officials said.
Fatah, bin Laden’s fifth wife and the only one left living with him in the house, had been gifted to bin Laden by a Yemeni family when she was just a teenager and later had three young children with him. Of his other wives, he had divorced one and three others had moved to Syria.
But bin Laden’s children with Fatah are not his only offspring as he was survived by at least 18 children.
None of the sons, however, are in line to succeed their father for leadership of al-qaeda.
most feared terror organisations.
in the world.
"Unlike a lot of Arab governments that are dynastic," said former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, "al Qaeda has not been and his sons have never played a real operational role of any significance. They did not appear to be groomed for leadership roles in al Qaeda."
Photos of Bin Laden’s body won’t be released
The White House last evening said U.S. President Barack Obama had decided not to release photos of Osama bin Laden body.
But a Senator Kelly Ayotte said she had seen one of the photos of bin Laden after he had been killed and that it confirmed his identity.
"I have seen one of them," the Republican senator told reporters inside the U.S. Capitol. "Another senator showed it to me." She said it was a facial shot.
Ayotte made the comments after a closed-door briefing on bin Laden's death given to her and several other senators by CIA Director Leon Panetta.
There was no indication she had seen the photo during that forum. Other senators who emerged said they had not seen any photos of bin Laden.
Ayotte said she thought the photos of bin Laden should be released to the public to help quash any conspiracy theories about whether the al Qaeda leader was dead.