17 April,2010 12:42 PM IST | | Agencies
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden ordered for a satellite TV dish to be set up at his hideout so that he could watch the 9/11 terror attack in the US, but he couldn't watch it as he was unable to get a signal in the mountainous terrain, his former bodyguard has said.
Nasser Al Bahri, former bodyguard of the elusive Al Qaeda chief, said: "He asked for satellite TV to be able to follow the bombing."
Al Bahri guarded the Al Qaeda leader for three years before being arrested in Yemen ahead of the 9/11 attacks, Daily Mail reported.
He, however, claims to know that Bin Laden told his media chief Hassan Al-Bahloul: "It is very important that we are able to watch the news today."
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Al Bahri had been instructed to shoot dead Bin Laden if he was about to be captured.
"I would rather receive two bullets in the head than to be taken prisoner. I want to die a martyr, but certainly not in prison," Bin Laden told his then bodyguard.
Al Bahri's startling claims are made in his book, In The Shadow Of Bin Laden that he co-authored with French journalist Georges Malbrunot.
Al Bahri regrets not having shot Bin Laden dead when he could have.
"Today I wish I had used it (the gun), but at the time he was someone very important for me. Jihad is not about attacking civilians," he was quoted as saying.
He thinks that Bin Laden is in good health and under tribal protection in Waziristan at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
