Omar, 41, makes his living painting pictures in Normandy, in northern France. He, who even sells some of them for more than R$54,000, found a therapeutic experience in art. His wife —Zaina, 67— says he suffered post-traumatic stress, causing him to have panic attacks and seek help.
The traumatic event in question was the attack on the Twin Towers, on September 11, 2001. Although he was away from New York on the day that went down in history as one of the darkest in the USA, Omar saw in the terrorist attack the culmination of a childhood. scarred by trauma.
He is the son of Osama bin Laden, who was the leader of Al Qaeda and one of the most famous terrorists in the world – and considers himself one of its victims. To the British newspaper The Sun, Omar resumed episodes lived alongside his father and the experiences of being close to the command of the group that raised terrorism to a new era.
“I just try to forget all the bad moments as much as I can. It’s very difficult. You suffer all the time”, said the painter. Born in Saudi Arabia in 1981, Omar was chosen at the age of 15 by his father to accompany him and live in Tora Bora. In the cave complex in a mountainous region in eastern Afghanistan, he says he learned to shoot AK-47 rifles and drive tanks.
He also says that some of his pet dogs were killed during chemical weapons experiments conducted by members of the terrorist organization his father led.
“My father never asked me to join Al Qaeda, but he told me I was the chosen son to continue his work. He was disappointed when I said I wasn’t suited for that life.”
Asked by the British newspaper why he thinks he was chosen by Bin Laden, Omar says: “I don’t know, maybe because I was smarter. That’s why I’m alive today.”
Bin Laden’s son left Afghanistan in April 2001, five months before the biggest attack orchestrated by his father. The farewell between the two would also, according to Omar, be the last conversation with Osama. Ten years later, while in Qatar, he learned on the news that his father had been killed by US Marines in a safe house in Pakistan.
“I thought it was all over and I wasn’t going to suffer anymore. And I was wrong, because people still judge me to this day.” Omar claims he did not mourn his father’s death, but regrets that bin Laden was not given a funeral. The painter also doubts the official report that the terrorist’s body would have been thrown into the sea. “I think they took his body to the US for people to see.”
The Sun points out that Omar “bears a striking resemblance to his infamous father”, but without the “sinister gleam in the Al Qaeda warlord’s eye”. “Omar loves and hates Osama at the same time. He loves him because he’s his father, but he hates what he did,” says Zaina. Before marrying bin Laden’s fourth eldest son, the British woman was known as Jane Felix-Browne and even held an elected position similar to that of councilor in Cheshire, a county in northwest England.
After being married six times, Zaina describes Omar as her soulmate. The couple gave the interview in Qatar, after watching the last match of the host team in the group stage of the World Cup, against the Netherlands.
The two met in 2007 during a tour of the pyramids in Giza, Egypt, and were married shortly after. In 2010, they tried to have a child through in vitro fertilization, but the chosen surrogate ended up having an abortion in the tenth week of pregnancy with the twins.
The couple says they want to live in the UK, but Omar says he was barred from entering the country two years ago. “When I first set foot on English soil, they immediately took us to the interrogation room for many hours. But they were very kind and very respectful.”
Despite the anti-American doctrine in which he was raised, bin Laden’s son says he loves some of the elements that are symbolic of the USA, such as the McDonald’s and KFC fast food chains and Clint Eastwood’s movies.
Omar signs all the paintings with his initials: OBL, the same as his father’s. “My name helped me a lot [na venda das obras]🇧🇷 It’s very well known all over the world.”
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