'She was quiet and confident... and after she married Bin Laden we never spoke of her again': Family of Osama's youngest wife speak out



Early interview describes life with Osama bin Laden after 9/11

Three of his wives currently in custody and being questioned by Pakistan officials

Claims: The wife of Osama Bin Laden, Amal al-Sadah, says she lived with her husband in the same room for the past five years

The family of Osama Bin Laden's youngest wife were too afraid to speak of her after she married the terror chief, it has been revealed.

Amal Al Sadah, the Al Qaeda leader's fifth wife, was a 'quite, polite, easy-going and confident teenager' before she was married off to the world's most wanted terrorist.



A relative named Ahmed has told CNN that the young bride was from a big, conservative family - but that she was in no way extremist before the wedding.



After the arranged marriage - made to shore up Bin Laden's political ties to Yemen - however, Amal's family abandoned her to her fate, too afraid to discuss her in public.



'Her direct family knew the dangers of talking about such topics,' Ahmed told CNN. 'Even if anyone asked about her, they would avoid talking about the issue.'

'She was a very good overall person,' he said. Her family 'was like most Yemeni families. They were conservative but lived a modern life compared to other families.'

The family were established and respectable - but certainly not militant, he said. 'The family had no extremist views, even though they came from a conservative background.'



He claimed the Yemeni government has harassed the family into keeping silent on their terrorist in-law.



The government apparently did not realise that Amal was married to Bin Laden when she was issued with a passport, Ahmed claimed.



Amal was shot in the calf when she charged at the Navy SEALs who stormed the room she had been living in with her husband for the last five years.

As Pakistani authorities took hold of the woman and her young daughter Safiyah, they hoped that questioning her could provide intricate details into the life of America's most hated enemy.

Fifth wife: Amal al-Sadah and two of the terror leaders other wives were summoned to his compound when he reportedly became lonely

The 29-year-old and her daughter are recovering in a military hospital in Rawalpindi and intelligence are trying to gage as much information from her as possible after she reportedly told them that she and her husband lived in the same room in the compound for the last five years.

They are also holding two of Bin Laden's other wives and gleaning 'valuable information' from them.



According to Time magazine, in 2002 Amal gave an interview to a Saudi woman's magazine, al-Majalla, in which she explained that after the 9/11 attacks, she made her way to Yemen from Pakistan with the help of Pakistani officials.

She also gave a glimpse into the life of a terror chief's wife.

She said: 'When the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan started, we moved to a mountainous area with some children and lived in one of the caves for two months until one of his sons came with a group of tribesmen and took us with them.



Family man: Bin Laden reportedly spent his final days in a house surrounded by his sprawling family

'I did not know that we were going to Pakistan until they handed us over to the Pakistani government.'

Time said that parts of this account were confirmed to them by an Arab woman - who did not want to be identified - who knew Bin Laden personally in Afganistan. Members of her family were also a part of Al Qaeda's inner circle.

When Amal was handed over at the age of 19, she and her daughter were allowed to fly home to a town close to the Yemen capital of Sanaa.

It is not clear how she was able to rejoin her husband and it has raised questions about whether or not the CIA were watching her closely enough with claims that it could have led them to Bin Laden sooner.



When asked in the interview if she would join her husband again in the future she said: 'Let us see what happens.'

Although she leaped to her husband's defence during the attack, an acquaintance of hers interviewed by Time remembers her as 'shy and meek' when she was first brought to Kandahar in 2000, where she stayed with Bin Laden's other wives.

The friend said of Amal - Bin Laden's fifth wife: ' She was new. She was out of place. The Sheikh's other wives were much older than she was. So were many of his sons.'

The Al Qaeda leader's first wife Saada was said to be furious that she married the son of a billionaire who preferred to live in a hut in Afghanistan rather than a palace at home.



Being aware of her disillusionment, Bin Laden sent a trusted Yemeni aide Abual Fida to look for a new bride for him, one which he wanted to be 'religious, generous, well-brought up, quiet, calm and young enough not to feel jealous of his other wives'.

According to Time, Amal's family considered it an honour that their teenage daughter were to marry the Taliban chief - who was already on the U.S. most-wanted list.