Bin Laden's widow -Amal- to go back home

Amal Ahmed Abdul Al-Fatah Al-Sada, the Yemeni widow of Osama Bin Laden will be repatriated back to Yemen from Pakistan after her husband, Al-Qaeda’s top leader, was killed on May 2nd by US special forces.

Dr. Diyar Khan, Deputy Ambassador of Pakistan to Yemen told the Yemen Times that the embassy in Sana'a received information from their government in Islamabad that some family members of Bin Laden were held in Pakistan after his assassination.

“They [Pakistani authority] told us that they are in safe hands and when initial questions are completed, they will be sent to their home countries,» said Khan.

Al-Sada was with Bin Laden in a bedroom when US special forces stormed the house and was shot in the leg while attempting to defend her husband. She is currently being detained in a hospital in Pakistan, but authorities there told her family that they will send her back to Yemen soon, according to sources close to the family.

Al-Sada is from a Yemeni family living in the Al-Sayyani district of Ibb governorate, 193 km south the capital Sana’a. She was married to Bin Laden in 2000, whose ancestors came from Hadramout governorate in Yemen, one year ahead of the 9/11 attacks.

The bride accompanied with two family members were brought to Pakistan with the assistance of Sheikh Rashad Mohamed Saeed Ismail, also known as Abu Al-Fida, a member of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Ismail, who spoke to the Yemen Times on the phone from Ibb, said that he was in Afghanistan with Bin Laden who told him that he was looking for a woman to marry.

“I said, well what should she look like? He [Bin Laden] replied, “a religious woman with morals from a decent family.”

Ismail said he knew Amal at the time as he was teaching her Islamic religious sciences in one of the religious schools in Ibb.

“I used to know her. She was a good calm girl who did not like to talk much. She was very religious and spiritual,” he said.

“So when I came back from Afghanistan to Yemen in 1999, I offered her marriage proposal from Bin Laden. I also explained to her the situation in detail to show her the reality of the man, and how he lived moving from one place to another, being pursued by the Americans,” said Ismail.

He claimed that the girl accepted the proposal and then he went to her family to ask for her hand on behalf of Bin Laden.

“They informed me of their acceptance one week after my conversation with them,” he said.

“After that I notified Bin Laden and arranged for the travel of the bride with one male member of her family and her older sister from Yemen to Pakistan, and from there to Kandahar in Afghanistan,” he said.

“The marriage ceremonies and the wedding day were performed in Kandahar with the attendance of Bin Laden and other Mujahedeen,” he said.

Al-Sada was married to Bin Laden at the age of 18, when he was more than twice her age, according to Ismail. She was the fifth and youngest wife of Bin Laden.

During her wedding journey from Ibb to Kandahar, where Al-Qaeda’s leader used to live at the time when Afghanistan was under the control of the Taliban, she was not intercepted.

“We traveled from Yemen to Pakistan and from there to Kandahar on our real passports, and no one stopped us for questioning because it is our right to move anywhere,” said Ismail.