THE WEST AT WAR: BIN LADEN'S SON: DAD HAS BECOME INVISIBLE ALWAYS ON HIS GUARD
ABDULLAH, 18, VOWS THAT BIN LADEN WILL OUTWIT THE WEST TO WIN AGAIN Dad sleeps for just 2 or 3 hours a night and he rises at 3am to pray He won't wear battery watches because US spy satellites will track him If he has to speak on a mobile he will use it just once then junk it He eats very little.. he says too much food will make you sleepy My father believes American spies have joined the Taliban He talks in a code that even I can't understand
THE piercing stare is hauntingly familiar. So is the long coarse beard which falls dramatically from his youthful face.
After a tense silence that seems to last hours, Abdullah Laden finally delivers his father's message in a measured tone.
"America and Britain will never track down my father. He is now in the safest place in the world," he says. "No matter how many planes bomb our homeland, Afghan earth will never give up my father. He has vanished into the landscape. Dad has become invisible."
The man Abdullah calls "Dad" is the most wanted man in the world. Osama bin Laden is held responsible for the murder of almost 6,000 innocent people in the carnage of New York and Washington.
Last week Abdullah Laden granted me a world exclusive interview in which he became the first member of bin Laden's own family to speak about the events of September 11.
My audience with Abdullah must rank as the most extraordinary - and chilling - 20 minutes of my career as a journalist.
I was granted the interview at the end of a 10-day trail which took me from Islamabad to the frontier town of Peshawar and back to the Pakistan capital.
It was arranged by a Taliban agent and finally took place at a secure guarded compound in Islamabad's diplomatic quarter.
Abdullah, always in control, knows exactly what he is doing in talking to a Western newspaper.
For the most part his speech is slow, almost to the point of being slurred. But he speaks deliberately, hesitating only when commenting on his father's current whereabouts.
For the whole interview, despite his determination to get his father's message across to the Western world, he never once acknowledges my presence.
The rules have been made very clear to us. I, as a non-Muslim, am not allowed to speak directly to Abdullah.
He does not shake my hand or look me in the face. There are no familiarities. My Muslim interpreter is offered green tea. But photographer Alban Donohoe and I are simply ignored.
The tense atmosphere and lack of refreshments is a far cry from the warm, even overbearing, hospitality we received from other leading Taliban figures and ordinary Muslims during our travels through Pakistan.
We can only assume it an expression of his personal contempt for all things Western.
What is clearly apparent as he speaks in the Afghan language, Pushto, and waits for his replies to be translated into English - is that 18-year-old Abdullah is a highly intelligent young man, and he is devoted to his father.
Our meeting produces a fascinating insight into the secret life of the man who has triggered the current world crisis.
ABDULLAH reveals that his father is living in a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan - where he fled on the day of the American attacks.
Like his father, he is unbowed by last week's ferocious bombing strikes by the Allied forces on Afghanistan.
He says: "I am not worried that my father will be caught. He has outsmarted the Americans for many years. But, in my heart, I do not know when I will see him again."
Abdullah is one of bin Laden's 42 children. His mother, Sabiha, 45, is the fifth of his five wives.
He has three siblings - his brother Abdul Malik, six, sister Samina, two, and an older brother who has remained in Afghanistan.
The family - Abdullah, his younger siblings and mother - fled the country hours after the bombing raids started last Sunday night and were given safe passage to Islamabad. While most Afghans have walked to the Pakistan border and begged to be allowed in, the family were whisked there in a luxury Landcruiser.
The last time he saw his father was on Sunday, September 9, two days before the devastating attacks on the US.
"I was with my father all day at our home in Kabul. He spent the day with his advisers talking about the war against the Northern Alliance forces," Abdullah tells me.
"There was no discussion of any attack on America. I can tell you categorically that my father had no involvement in the war on New York and Washington."
Despite these claims, bin Laden left the giant bomb-proof underground house he regularly visited in Kabul - home to three of his wives and 29 of his children - immediately after the US plane hijackings
Close to their home is the base of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Bin Laden - whose father owned Saudi Arabia's biggest construction group - designed both houses.
Abdullah boasts that the hideaways, built from concrete, steel and cement can only be penetrated by nuclear or chemical weapons.
He says: "One of my father's most trusted advisers came to me on September 11, early in the evening.
"He told me my father had gone by horse to the mountains with 300 of his commandos.
"There, they will be completely safe. No one can find them. Their home in the caves is very secure. The adviser said that a convoy of around 60 trucks filled with computers and satellite equipment had left Kabul at the same time. He said the technology would be used to prepare for war against the US. I told him I wanted to fight for my father, but the adviser ordered me to stay behind and protect my family. I was angry, but he said I must respect my father's will."
The same night Abdullah and his family were ordered to leave the huge house.
They moved to a giant nine-mile-long bunker on the outskirts of the Afghan city of Jalalabad, where they lived for three weeks.
Then last Sunday night - shortly after the first wave of allied air strikes - they drove for four hours to cross the Pakistan border.
THROUGHOUT our interview, Abdullah clutches a leather-bound Koran. He says it is a gift from his father to celebrate his 18th birthday last November.
Abdullah also gives the Sunday Mirror the most detailed insight yet into the life of his father and family in Afghanistan. He reveals the depth of bin Laden's paranoia at being hunted down by the U.S. and the lengths to which he goes to avoid detection. It was after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 that bin Laden - financed by a chunk of his family's £3billion fortune - took up arms.
He financed the recruitment of Palestinians, Pakistanis and Egyptians under the Islamic banner to fight off the invaders.
But it was after the Gulf War - when Saudi Arabia backed the US-led coalition and enraged bin Laden by allowing Americans to use its military bases for attacks on Saddam Hussein - that he turned his wrath against the USA.
Since 1994, home for the world's most feared terrorist - now disowned both by his family in Saudi Arabia and by the Saudi government - has been Afghanistan.
There he has masterminded a string of atrocities committed in the name of Islam.
According to Abdullah his father lives the simplest and most devout life. (It is at this point that Abdullah is most at ease, speaking swiftly and more fluently. He even interrupts our interpreter to provide unprompted supplementary information and clarification.
"My father is a holy man," he says. "He sleeps for only two or three hours a day. He wakes at 3am for Tahajad prayers, which take place before the moon disappears.
"His only wish is for the US to leave his homeland, Saudi Arabia.
"My father has a very simple lifestyle. Every day he eats only a little amount. He says that eating too much can make you sleepy. And he says he must always be alert.
"For his main meal he eats a portion of leavened Afghan bread, some spinach and a small amount of meat.
"My father never uses any electrical gadgets which require batteries. He told me American satellites are so powerful they can trace him even from the tiniest watch batteries.
"Sometimes my father was forced to use a mobile phone to speak to his aides. But he only spoke for a few seconds in a special code. Not even I, his son, could understand it. Afterwards he always threw the phone away and never used it again. At our house in Kabul many of my father's lieutenants use the laptop computers to communicate via email.
"However, I don't think my father knows how to use a computer. He is a traditional man.
"My father has a tight circle of confidants. He is convinced that US spies have been following him in Afghanistan for several years. He even believes that some US agents have joined the Taliban.
"Because of this he is always looking behind him everywhere he goes."
While in Kabul bin Laden was ferried around by a team of specially trained chauffeurs in his 1998 twin cab red Toyota pick-up truck. He would change his driver every day. To protect him from would-be assassins the vehicle is bullet-proof. At weekends bin Laden, an expert horseman, regularly visited a luxury farmhouse he owns on the outskirts of Kabul.
There he keeps around a dozen thoroughbreds, including a pair purchased from Asif Ali Zaradar, the husband of former Pakistan President Benazir Bhutto.
Abdullah says: "My father is a good parent. He loves all his children.
"He is kind, but he is strict over religious matters. He never shouts. When he is angry, he goes silent.
"His silence tortures his children.
"He has forbidden television and music. But here in Pakistan I have access to the internet," Abdullah said, pointing to the smart personal computer standing in the corner of the lounge in his temporary home. "My father is determined to ensure all his sons receive a good education. In Kabul, teachers from Arabic countries visit us at home to teach maths, electronics, computers and engineering."
Even from his mountain hideaway in the barren Afghan hills bin Laden seems capable of granting his family privileges denied to ordinary Afghans by the Taliban.
While millions of their fellow countrymen queue desperately at the border for the hope of a better life in Pakistan, Abdullah and his family simply drove across the border in their Toyota Land Cruiser, accompanied by what he calls a "special minder', seven days ago.
There is little doubt this minder is a senior go-between linking the Taliban and the Pakistan government at the highest levels. Abdullah proudly shows off the white Afghan refugee papers provided to him.
THE name given on the form is Muhammad, despite the fact his true identity and his father's name appear in his blue Afghan passport.
He says: "I do not know how long we will stay here in Pakistan. This is a different country and we must be careful here. Perhaps we may go away soon. Wherever we travel our father is caring for us. I do not know when, but I am certain we will all be reunited as a family one day.
"I know my father will not rest while the US is spilling Muslim blood. We will fight for revenge with all our hearts."
When the interview is officially over, negotiations begin over the issue of photographs. We were initially told to bring only a small "Sureshot" camera and told we would be allowed just two frames. But Abdullah eventually agrees to a series of pictures, some in the drawing room where the interview was conducted, others in a neighbouring prayer room.
He is a largely unwilling model and quickly tires of the photographer's attention, indicating we are no longer welcome and should leave.
Abdullah then solemnly shakes hands with our interpreter and the three of us leave the room. Again I don't merit a single glance of recognition.
this link was found on the drudge report...
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