Growing Up bin Laden (eBook): Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World

Synopsis

Witness the frightening transformation of a loving husband into a hardened terrorist: his disapproval of modern conveniences, including electricity and medicine; his strategies for toughening up his sons by taking them into the desert without food or water; and his decision to move his wives and children from an orderly life to one of extreme uncertainty. With unprecedented access and insight, bestselling author Jean Sasson takes us inside the secret world of Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden is the western world's most wanted terrorist. Intent on secrecy at all costs, his personal life has been shrouded in mystery – until now. For the first time, Osama's first wife and fourth son break the silence to reveal the truth about the character and life of a man both feared and revered around the globe. Osama married his first cousin Najwa when he was just 17. Here she describes the quiet, serious young man she fell in love with, who would take her from a life of extraordinary wealth in Saudi Arabia to a remote mountaintop in Afghanistan. As his senior wife, she would bear him eleven children and watch him become ever stricter, until his growing fanaticism tore the family apart. Their son, Omar, gives a detailed account of his childhood, vying for his father's love in a household of more than 20 brothers and sisters – and a youth spent learning desert survival skills and handling Kalashnikovs. Here we see Osama the authoritarian husband and stern father, the entrepreneur, and the leader of a complex terrorist network. Together, in gripping detail, mother and son reveal their life on the run – forced to flee from country to country in response to Osama's increasingly militant activities – until their eventual escape from Afghanistan just before the tragic events of 9/11 that would change the world forever. Never before has Osama's own family gone beyond the headlines to show us Osama the man. Now, with unprecedented access, and complete with exclusive family photographs, Jean Sasson, author of the bestselling Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia, takes us inside the secret world of Osama bin Laden.