Osama Bin Laden spent his final months in a household fraught with friction between his three wives — one of whom might have given him up to the CIA, according to a blockbuster new account.
Bin Laden shared a third-floor bedroom in the crowded Pakistani villa he died in with his fifth, youngest and most beloved wife, Amal.
Trouble came to Abbottabad in early 2011, when the terrorist’s ornery third wife, Khairiah, suddenly moved in.
Not only did she cast a pall over the household with her domineering personality, but the other two wives suspected her of betraying Bin Laden.
The new account of the terrorist mastermind’s domestic woes comes from retired Pakistani army officer Shaukat Qadir, who spoke to The Associated Press and the Guardian newspaper. Much of his information came from an interrogation of Amal, who seems to have had little good to say about her marital rivals.
“When Khairiah came, everybody else was very suspicious of her. They didn’t trust her at all,” Qadir told the Guardian.
“I am also of the view that actually the person who sold him out was Khairiah,” he said. “Everything begins to happen with her arrival. Until then, the Americans seem to know nothing.”
The U.S. government says Bin Laden’s courier unwittingly led the CIA to the terrorist’s long-sought hiding place.
All three Bin Laden widows have been in custody since the May 1, 2011, SEAL raid on the Abbottabad villa that killed Bin Laden, one of his sons and several hangers-on.
On Thursday, Pakistani authorities officially charged them with illegally living in the country without a visa, defying expectations that they would be freed.
Amal, who was 19 when she wed Bin Laden in 1999, shared the third floor with her husband and had few conflicts with wife No. 4, Siham.
“Bin Laden didn’t sleep with any of his other wives after marrying Amal,” Qadir told the Guardian.
After she arrived, spouse No. 3 was restricted to the second floor.
She cast an immediate pall over the 27 Abbottabad residents, who included eight Bin Laden children and five of his grandkids.
“She is so aggressive that she borders on being intimidating,” one interrogator told Qadir about Khairiah.
Worse for the household’s harmony, there were suspicions among the clan that Khairiah’s return was part of a plot to betray her once-beloved husband.
Pressed by one of Siham’s sons about why she had moved in, she declared ominously, “I have one final duty to perform for my husband.”
Khairiah, who married Bin Laden in 1985 and is about 62, was known to be bitter over her 54-year-old husband’s devotion to the younger woman, Qadir said.
She had spent nearly a decade under house arrest in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan in 2001 when Bin Laden went on the lam after the World Trade Center attacks, but was freed by the Iranians in 2010 under murky circumstances.
While Bin Laden shared his son’s suspicions, he left his future up to the fates, Amal told investigators.
Bin Laden and Amal, who remained by his side during their years on the lam, settled into the Abbottabad villa in the summer of 2005 after bouncing from one safehouse to another for years.
While moving around the region, Amal was actively involved in arranging security for the world’s No. 1 fugitive, local tribal leaders told Qadir.
Qadir said he was told that Bin Laden had a kidney transplant in 2002 but he had some kind of degenerative disease, which caused premature senility.
The blood-spattered Bin Laden compound, guarded by iron grilles and 20-foot-high walls, was abruptly demolished by Pakistani authorities last month.
Qadir said despite the exterior security, the home was exceptionally vulnerable. It lacked an alarm system, a panic room and an escape route.
With News Wire Services
lmcshane@nydailynews.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment