One of Osama Bin Laden’s sons found refuge in painting

Since Normandy, where he lives with his wife, Omar bin Laden, the fourth son of former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has rebuilt himself thanks to his passion for painting. In an interview with the magazine Vice, the 39-year-old explains that he has been captivated by art since his childhood. “Some of my mother’s family are very artistic. My mom loves to paint, as does one of my sisters. My uncle was also a very good artist. So the need to draw and paint runs in my blood, ”he explains.

Painting mainly landscapes, from the desert of the Nile to the American Far West via the mountains of Tora Bora, where his father went to hide after the attacks of September 11, 2001, Omar bin Laden produced a dozen works during of the past year. With Vice, he says that at the age of 7, he drew “beautiful pictures” of his father’s horses and remembers the moment when his mistress decided to hang one of his drawings on the classroom wall. . An indelible memory that he describes as “the only happy moment” of his childhood.

Painting as a remedy to face your painful past

Alongside his wife Zaina, whom he met in 2006, Omar Bin Laden took advantage of the confinement imposed by the coronavirus epidemic to multiply the webs. “This year, I sat in my art studio and painted with all my heart,” he rejoices. Suffering from bipolar disorder and psychological scars from his upbringing, he now claims to have achieved “a semblance of peace within myself”, largely thanks to painting.

In this interview, Omar Bin Laden also returned to his relationship with his father. During his younger years, he admits that he was never particularly close to Osama bin Laden. He was 18 when he left the al-Qaeda mission led by his father to travel with his mother to Syria. The last time he saw him was at his compound in Afghanistan in 2001, a few months before the September 11 attacks. For 20 years, he has repeatedly expressed terrible pain for the thousands of victims who have lost their lives and denounced the ideology of Al Qaeda and its “massacres of innocent civilians”.

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