In the autumn of 2005, while conducting
research in Saudi Arabia for the book that became “The
Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century,” I met
a Saudi journalist named Khaled Batarfi, who had been a neighbor
and friend of Osama Bin Laden in their teenage years. During one of our
interviews, Batarfi offered an account of Osama’s early travels - to
London, to Africa on Safari, and to the United States - that was
suggestive of a young man who had more direct experience of the West
than was generally understood.
Batarfi’s account of Osama’s American trip
was particularly striking. In December of that year, I wrote a story for
this magazine about the private high school Osama had attended in Jedda,
and how he was first introduced to the tenets of radical Islamic
politics.
In that story, I also reported Batarfi’s
on-the-record but unconfirmed account of Osama’s visit to America;
Batarfi believed the travel had occurred not long before the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, in 1979. U.S. customs and immigration records
from the relevant period had been routinely destroyed - and so the
question of whether Osama had personal experience of America, and what
that experience might have been, remained elusive. (Bin Laden has never
referred to any trip to this country in his writings or statements.)
While I found Batarfi to be credible, a
single-source account, based on hearsay, could hardly be regarded as
satisfactory.
Over the next several years, I came across several other fragments
suggesting that Batarfi was essentially correct - these bits of evidence
included a published account by one of Osama’s workplace supervisors in
Saudi Arabia reporting that Osama had once traveled to the United
States, and more recently, an interview with Yassin Kadi in
the Times in which Kadi recalled meeting Osama during the nineteen
seventies in Chicago.
After the original 2005 interviews with Batarfi, I reported that only
one aspect of the journey made a particularly strong impression on bin
Laden: On the way home, Osama and his wife were sitting in an airport
lounge, waiting for their connecting flight. In keeping with their
strict religious observance, his wife was dressed in a black abaya,
a draping gown, as well as the full head covering often referred to as
hijab.
Other passengers in the airport,
“were staring at them,” Batarfi said,
“and taking pictures.”
When bin Laden returned to Jedda, he told
people that the experience was like “being in a show.” By
Batarfi’s account, bin Laden was not particularly bitter about all the
stares and the photographs; rather, “he was joking about it.”
Batarfi had it right, it now seems. Here is Najwa’s forthcoming account
of their journey, according to a bound galley of “Growing Up Bin Laden”
provided by St. Martin’s Press.
One evening he [Osama] arrived home with a surprise announcement:
’Najwa, We are going to travel to the
United States. Our boys are going with us.’
I was shocked, to tell you the truth…
Pregnant, and busy with two babies, I remember few details of our
travel, other than we passed through London before flying to a place I
had never heard of, a state in America called Indiana. Osama told me
that he was meeting with a man by the name of Abdullah Azzam. Since my
husband’s business was not my business, I did not ask questions.
I was worried about Abdul Rahman because he had become quite ill on the
trip and was even suffering with a high fever. Osama arranged for us to
see a doctor in Indianapolis. I relaxed after that kindly physician
assured us that Abdul Rahman would soon be fine.
…I am sometimes questioned about my personal opinion of the country and
its people. This is surprisingly difficult to answer. We were there for
only two weeks, and for one of those weeks, Osama was away in Los
Angeles to meet with some men in that city. The boys and I were left
behind in Indiana with a girlfriend whom I would rather not name…
My girlfriend was gracious and guided me on short trips… We even went
into a big shopping mall in Indianapolis…
I came to believe that Americans were gentle and nice, people easy to
deal with. As far as the country itself goes, my husband and I did not
hate America, yet we did not love it.
There was one incident that reminded me that some Americans are unaware
of other cultures. When the time came for us to leave America, Osama and
I, along with our two boys, waited for our departure at the airport in
Indiana. I was sitting quietly in my chair, relaxing, grateful that our
boys were quiet….
I saw an American man gawking at me. I knew without asking that his
unwelcome attention had been snagged by my black Saudi costume…
I took a side glance at Osama and saw that
he was intently studying the curious man. I knew that my husband would
never allow the man to approach me…
When my husband and I discussed the incident, we were both more amused
than offended. That man gave us a good laugh, as it was clear he had no
knowledge of veiled women…
We returned to Saudi Arabia none the worse for our experiences.
Not a particularly consequential experience, perhaps, but surely one
that has a life in Osama’s memory and imagination - and another
indication, among many available in his life, that he should be
understood not only as a self-isolating radical imbued with millenarian
religious narratives, but also as a modern and globalized figure whose
experiences and outlook belong very much to our age.
