Dancing, laughing were banned at Osama's wedding

First wife and son bare secrets of Osama bin Laden in book

First wife and son bare secrets of Osama bin Laden in book

After years of hiding and social ostracisation, the wife and son of al- Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden have come out with a no-holds-barred book that reveals quite candidly the harsh life the family led under the gaze and zealous Islamic authority of the terror kingpin.

According to the New York Post, Osama bin Laden's first wife, Najwa and her son Omar, in the forthcoming book titled Growing Up bin Laden, reveal a world where women are never allowed outside the house, 12-year-old daughters are married off to 30-year-old al-Qaeda fighters, pet dogs are used for target practice and the biggest household fight is over whether Islam allows refrigerators.

Najwa, who remains married to the "monster", but now lives apart from him in an undisclosed Middle Eastern location, with the fourth son of her 11 children, Omar.

She neither defends nor lashes out at Osama, as she says that terrorism is what he does for a living, and that all she needs to do is worry about keeping his house in order.

Childhood Memories: All the toys Omar and his siblings received as gifts when they were kids were destroyed by their dad

Najwa grew up a rebel in the port city of Latakia in Syria. She refused to hide her hair and wore colorful dresses that didn't cover her face or arms.

She attended school, played tennis and was a fledgling artist who painted portraits and landscapes till she met her first cousin Osama, the nine-year-old son of her father's sister, when she was just seven.

"He was such a serious, conscientious boy," she writes. "He was proud, but not arrogant. He was delicate, but not weak. He was grave, but not severe."

He was also "shyer than a virgin under the veil".

Their marriage in 1974 she was 15, he was 17u00a0was a telling precursor to a joyless union. Dancing, joking and laughing were forbidden at the nuptials.

After the wedding, they immediately departed for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she was forced to wear the "dreaded veil" and full-length black robes.
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Her schooling was discontinued, tennis lessons cancelled, her artwork forgotten.

Najwa was almost perpetually pregnant, as Osama said it was important to make many warriors for Islam.

The book reveals a terrorist leader who is embarrassed easily, obsessed with a long-dead father, terrified of women, and who thinks of his children as cannon fodder.

Inside World

Osama's way of flirting was by saving the best grapes from Najwa's backyard for her.

Air conditioning, televisions, phones were all banned in the house.

Toys given as gifts to the kids were destroyed.

Omar's asthma was treated with honeycombs and onions, since modern medicine wasn't allowed. Everything the family ate had to be bought the same day, since refrigerators were out of the question.

Pets met horrible ends. A monkey the children loved was run over by one of Osama's men.

Bin Laden had told them that "the monkey was not a monkey at all, but was a Jewish person turned into a monkey by the hand of God."

A litter of puppies the boys adopted was gassed by al Qaeda fighters.