The burden of being Osama’s daughter

TEHRAN: Tragedy of a family torn asunder by circumstances has created a stalemate between Iran and Saudi Arabia, tussle between a daughter and her mother and exposed differences between a father and his sons. This is the story of the family of the world most wanted fugitive: Osama bin Ladin. Eman, the 18-year-old daughter of Osama recently took refuge in the Saudi Embassy in Tehran.

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All she wants is to get to Jeddah somehow to be with her elder brother Abdullah bin Ladin, but on the other side her mother, Najwah, has requested the Iranian authorities to send her daughter to Damascus instead where Najwah has been residing for the past nine years since her separation from Osama. The Saudi government has urged the Iranian authorities to allow Eman to travel to Jeddah but the Syrian government is also requesting the Iranians to listen to the mother. Omar bin Ladin, 28, another brother of Eman has also appealed to the Iranian government to send Eman to Syria. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki informed this scribe in Tehran that the Saudi government wanted Eman to go to Jeddah while her mother wanted her to come to Damascus. “We are in trouble and we have decided to act according to the Vienna Convention,” he said. He indicated that the Iranian government would not become part of this dispute and Tehran would take a decision according to the will of 18-year-old girl in the light of international law very soon. Eman had illegally entered Iran from Afghanistan with some members of the family in December 2001. She was only nine at the time. She was detained by the Iranian authorities with her brothers Saad now 29, Osman 25, Hamza, 20, Bakr, 15 and sister Fatima, 22, along with her step mother Umme Hamza. The family spent these years in a house in the outskirts of Tehran under the watchful eye of the Iranian security. Saad bin Ladin, however, slipped back to Afghanistan in 2008 and joined al-Qaeda. A few weeks back, young Eman went to a market for shopping. She dodged the Iranian security and contacted her brother Abdullah in Jeddah on phone and asked him to help her escape from Iran. Abdullah advised her to immediately take refuge in the Saudi Embassy, and that was the beginning of this unfolding bin Ladin family drama. One of her brothers, Omar, now lives in Qatar. He separated from his father a few months before 9/11 after refusing to become an al-Qaeda fighter. He left Afghanistan with his mother Najwa on September 9 2001 and after a few years, married a British girl Jane Felix (now Zaina). Omar contacted one of his younger brothers Bakr in Tehran two weeks back and convinced him to go to Damascus. Bakr reached Damascus from Tehran a few days back safely and now he is also trying that his sister Eman should join him in Syria. It is pertinent to mention that Abdullah separated from his father in 1996 when Osama bin Ladin migrated from Sudan to Afghanistan. Abdullah has never denounced his father publicly but Omar has repeatedly done so in the recent past. Abdullah, Omar, Eman and eight other brothers and sisters were born of Najwa, who was the first wife of Osama bin Ladin. She was married to Osama in 1974. Nowadays, at least 28 members of bin Ladin family are living in Iran, including 11 grandchildren of Osama. Four wives of Osama have a total of 26 children and all these wives and children were separated after the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan in December 2001. The Iranian government has condemned al-Qaeda and Iranian foreign minister had expressed complete ignorance about the presence of bin Ladin family members in Iran until Eman took refuge in Saudi Embassy. According to Western diplomats, Iran tried to trade the members of bin Ladin family with US for Mujahedeen Khalq militants after 9/11.These Iranian rebels now live in Iraq but USA refused to make a deal. Iranian authorities have denied these claims.