Osama bin Ladens children?
May 04, 2011
Rick Westhead
Guards stand outside one of the doors of the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed on Monday in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
RICK WESTHEAD/TORONTO STAR
ABBOTTABAD, PAKISTANIt took less than an hour for the U.S. Special Forces to complete their mission and kill Osama bin Laden.
It will take far longer to determine the fate of his children.
The children American soldiers left them at the compound with their hands bound behind their backs after taking away bin Ladens body and dozens of computers and hard drives are aged 4 to 12 and are being kept in a safe house near Islamabad in the military city Rawalpindi, a source told the Star.
Detailson their specific ages and gender have not been released, although reports indicate bin Ladens 12-year-old daughter Safia witnessed her fathers death.
Its possible some of the children are bin Ladens nephews and nieces.
While Pakistans foreign ministry has said it wants to repatriate the children to their country of origin, that may prove difficult. Long before his death, Saudi Arabia revoked the citizenship of the 54-year-old bin Laden in 1994.
Its unclear where his children were born but a person familiar with the matter told the Star that Pakistans foreign ministry on Tuesday asked Saudi officials to take custody of the bin Laden children. The request was refused, the source said.
Because of bin Ladens revoked citizenship status, his children may now be stateless, said a United Nations official based in Pakistan.
At least one of bin Ladens wives may be a citizen of Yemen. An Urdu language paper published Wednesday a grainy photo of a Yemeni passport that it reported belonged to one of his widows.
Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, who was shot in the leg during the raid, is being treated at the military hospital in Rawalpindi, according to reports on the Arabic news network Al-Arabiya.
Its thought to be the same hospital that bin Laden was treated on Sept. 10, 2001 hours before the attack on the World Trade Center.
The 27-year-old, who was bin Ladens fifth wife, is at the centre of a diplomatic custody battle after U.S. attempts to interrogate her appeared to be rejected by Pakistan.
A Yemeni diplomat in Pakistan declined to comment when reached by the Star. Its unclear whether Yemen would agree to take the bin Laden children.
Its similarly uncertain how many of the children, if any, were born in Pakistan. U.S. officials say they believe bin Laden has been living in Abbottabad since at least last August.
Several diplomats said they are worried how the government will deal with the children.
With a flagging economy and the desire to keep pace with Indias military spending, Pakistan has not made its education and child protection systems a priority.
Filling the void of social services has been a series of madrassas, or religious schools, that pepper Pakistans landscape. Some of the madrassas are run by extremists, government officials concede.
Maulana Abdul Aziz, head of the controversial Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad, is offering to adopt bin Ladens children.
We accept that bin Laden is dead and consider him a martyr, Aziz told the Star. We know many people who would want to care for his children, and we would be willing to look after them, too.
Lal Masjid is one of Pakistans most radical mosques, a staging ground four years ago for a showdown between government forces and arch-conservative extremists.
In July 2007, soldiers raided the mosque after a series of provocations by its members. Officially, 76 militants and 11 soldiers were killed. Aziz was captured when he tried to escape. He fled the mosque wearing a burqa, the head-to-toe veil worn by female students at his conservative seminary.
Walking into Lal Masjid, 22-year-old Fahim Khan said that while he doesnt believe bin Laden is dead, he hopes the children are assimilated in madrassas like Jamia Afridi, a school funded by the mosque.
Wed be proud to have them, the children, too, are heroes, Khan said.
Several retired Pakistan diplomats said they doubted the government would allow bin Ladens children to be handed over to a madrassa.
Itd be a huge mistake. The children would have a cult following and almost certainly become jihadis, said Zafar Hilaly, a former Pakistan diplomat and aide to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Wouldnt it be great if the U.S. said, they can come here.
Hilaly said its unreasonable, however, to expect the U.S. government to make that offering.
Its also possible that the children might be turned over to public or privately run orphanages, although that, too, is a less than ideal option.
The government-run orphanages are basically like prison cells, said Mohammad Tahseen, founder of the South Asia Partnership, a consortium of Canadian and international aid agencies.
Theres a lot of exploitation there. Over the past years theres been a bit of improvement, but its still a very bleak picture.!http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/985937--what-will-happen-to-osama-bin-laden-s-children)
May 04, 2011
Rick Westhead
RICK WESTHEAD/TORONTO STAR
ABBOTTABAD, PAKISTANIt took less than an hour for the U.S. Special Forces to complete their mission and kill Osama bin Laden.
It will take far longer to determine the fate of his children.
The children American soldiers left them at the compound with their hands bound behind their backs after taking away bin Ladens body and dozens of computers and hard drives are aged 4 to 12 and are being kept in a safe house near Islamabad in the military city Rawalpindi, a source told the Star.
Detailson their specific ages and gender have not been released, although reports indicate bin Ladens 12-year-old daughter Safia witnessed her fathers death.
Its possible some of the children are bin Ladens nephews and nieces.
While Pakistans foreign ministry has said it wants to repatriate the children to their country of origin, that may prove difficult. Long before his death, Saudi Arabia revoked the citizenship of the 54-year-old bin Laden in 1994.
Its unclear where his children were born but a person familiar with the matter told the Star that Pakistans foreign ministry on Tuesday asked Saudi officials to take custody of the bin Laden children. The request was refused, the source said.
Because of bin Ladens revoked citizenship status, his children may now be stateless, said a United Nations official based in Pakistan.
At least one of bin Ladens wives may be a citizen of Yemen. An Urdu language paper published Wednesday a grainy photo of a Yemeni passport that it reported belonged to one of his widows.
Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, who was shot in the leg during the raid, is being treated at the military hospital in Rawalpindi, according to reports on the Arabic news network Al-Arabiya.
Its thought to be the same hospital that bin Laden was treated on Sept. 10, 2001 hours before the attack on the World Trade Center.
The 27-year-old, who was bin Ladens fifth wife, is at the centre of a diplomatic custody battle after U.S. attempts to interrogate her appeared to be rejected by Pakistan.
A Yemeni diplomat in Pakistan declined to comment when reached by the Star. Its unclear whether Yemen would agree to take the bin Laden children.
Its similarly uncertain how many of the children, if any, were born in Pakistan. U.S. officials say they believe bin Laden has been living in Abbottabad since at least last August.
Several diplomats said they are worried how the government will deal with the children.
With a flagging economy and the desire to keep pace with Indias military spending, Pakistan has not made its education and child protection systems a priority.
Filling the void of social services has been a series of madrassas, or religious schools, that pepper Pakistans landscape. Some of the madrassas are run by extremists, government officials concede.
Maulana Abdul Aziz, head of the controversial Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad, is offering to adopt bin Ladens children.
We accept that bin Laden is dead and consider him a martyr, Aziz told the Star. We know many people who would want to care for his children, and we would be willing to look after them, too.
Lal Masjid is one of Pakistans most radical mosques, a staging ground four years ago for a showdown between government forces and arch-conservative extremists.
In July 2007, soldiers raided the mosque after a series of provocations by its members. Officially, 76 militants and 11 soldiers were killed. Aziz was captured when he tried to escape. He fled the mosque wearing a burqa, the head-to-toe veil worn by female students at his conservative seminary.
Walking into Lal Masjid, 22-year-old Fahim Khan said that while he doesnt believe bin Laden is dead, he hopes the children are assimilated in madrassas like Jamia Afridi, a school funded by the mosque.
Wed be proud to have them, the children, too, are heroes, Khan said.
Several retired Pakistan diplomats said they doubted the government would allow bin Ladens children to be handed over to a madrassa.
Itd be a huge mistake. The children would have a cult following and almost certainly become jihadis, said Zafar Hilaly, a former Pakistan diplomat and aide to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Wouldnt it be great if the U.S. said, they can come here.
Hilaly said its unreasonable, however, to expect the U.S. government to make that offering.
Its also possible that the children might be turned over to public or privately run orphanages, although that, too, is a less than ideal option.
The government-run orphanages are basically like prison cells, said Mohammad Tahseen, founder of the South Asia Partnership, a consortium of Canadian and international aid agencies.
Theres a lot of exploitation there. Over the past years theres been a bit of improvement, but its still a very bleak picture.!http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/985937--what-will-happen-to-osama-bin-laden-s-children)
