Bin Laden son aims to be ‘ambassador of peace’

updated 8:07 p.m. ET Jan. 21, 2008

CAIRO, Egypt - Omar Osama bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to his notorious father — except for the dreadlocks that dangle halfway down his back. Then there's the black leather biker jacket.

The 26-year-old does not renounce his father, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but in an interview with The Associated Press, he said there is a better way to defend Islam than al-Qaida's militancy: Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West.

Omar raised a tabloid storm in Britain last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who took on the name Zaina Alsabah. Now the couple say they want to be advocates, planning a 3,000-mile horse race across North Africa to draw attention to the cause of peace.

"It's about changing the ideas of the Western mind. A lot of people think Arabs — especially the bin Ladens, especially the sons of Osama — are all terrorists. This is not the truth," Omar said last Friday at a cafe in one of Cairo's new shopping malls.

Of course, many may have a hard time getting their mind around the idea of "bin Laden: peacenik."

"Omar thinks he can be a negotiator," said Alsabah, who is trying to bring her husband to Britain. "He's one of the only people who can do this in the world."

Trained at al-Qaida camp
Omar, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden's 19 children, lived with his father in Sudan, then moved with him to Afghanistan when Khartoum forced out the al-Qaida leader in 1996.

Omar says he trained in Afghanistan at an al-Qaida camp, but in 2000 he decided there must be another way and he left his father, returning to his homeland Saudi Arabia.

"I don't want to be in that situation to just fight. I like to find another way, and this other way may be like we do now, talking," he said in English. He suggested his father did not oppose his leaving — and Alsabah interjected that Omar was courageous in breaking away, but neither elaborated.

He said he hasn't seen or been in contact with his father since leaving Afghanistan. "He doesn't have e-mail," Omar said. "He doesn't take a telephone ... if he had something like this, they will find him through satellites."

Sees father as defender of Muslims
Omar doesn't criticize his father and says Osama bin Laden is just trying to defend the Islamic world.

"My father thinks he will be good for defending the Arab people and stop anyone from hurting the Arab or Muslim people any place in the world," he said, noting that the West didn't have a problem with his father when he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Omar is convinced a truce between the West and al-Qaida is possible.

"My father is asking for a truce, but I don't think there is any government (that) respects him. At the same time they do not respect him, why everywhere in the world, they want to fight him? There is a contradiction," he said.

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