23 Children Lived With Osama Bin Laden: Where Are They Now?
Osama Bin Laden & the Kids
I don’t know about you, but when I think about the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound I envisioned Bid Laden hiding in his palatial spread with a handful of close operatives and lots of guards. Did it it even cross my mind that children would be living there too. Not at all. But there were kids living there, we’re talking oodles of kids. There were reportedly 23 children living in seclusion in the compound, 23 children who were home at the time of the dramatic raid. So, where are all the kids now?
The 23 children along with 9 women were handed off to Pakistani authorities where they are currently in custody and no doubt being questioned. The youngest were six children aged two to twelve, they were separated out from the rest and were taken to a Pakistani military hospital and currently remain in custody there.
One wonders what life must have been like in the compound for these children. Since Bin Laden had been hiding out there for the past six years, a few of these children may have born there and spent all their days behind these high walls. And these children were like prisoners, not allowed to go outside the compound. It is customary for the children of the neighborhood to be invited to each others homes but in this case no outsiders were ever allowed in. The only sighting reported thus far was from a woman who gave the children polio shots but she wasn’t even allowed in, the children were brought to the front door one by one. And it was noted by a local merchant that the people in the home went through very large quantities of milk.
In the end, it is nice to hear that none of these children were harmed during the raid and that compound wasn’t hit with a bomb but instead it was a shift operation.
Are you surprised to hear that so many children lived there?
Actually there was an article I read the other day interviewing local Pakistanis near the compound. Neighborhood children were often invited in to play. Gifts were exchanged between neighbors, and one of the men in the compound gave a ride to an elderly woman to the market while it rained. Those were human beings inside that compound.
I think it’s appalling that so many people are trumpeting someone’s death as a celebratory event. Osama was indeed a bad guy- an enemy and needed taking out, but it’s frightening that American children are being taught to revel in a vengeful killing.
An unarmed man was shot in the face, in front of his wife, who was shot in the leg. This probably occurred right in front of some (if not all) of the children in the compound. It’s all very sad. Why are the youngest children in a military hospital? Were they wounded in the fray?
I don’t know why, but your text made me think of the children of the people who were brutally murder on 9/11… Did it ever occur to you what happened to them? I also wonder if there were any children in the Towers, do you think muslims would give a fig?!
Agreeing w/ Kelly 100%. I would take any information reported about the OBL assassination with a big ol’ grain of salt – remember how they claimed he used his wife as a human shield, and that was circulated widely before it was debunked? I have a feeling that all of these stories about the lives of these kids being restricted are the same brand of bullhonky, used to justify killing a man in cold blood, with no trial, in front of his family.
I don’t know why- but I don’t think the US should stoop to the same level as terrorists when conducting their affairs. I also wonder who would think that because terrorists made the choice to injure so many Americans- possibly including children- that it makes it okay and even commendable for special forces to have injured children in attacks conducted in Pakistan.
I will never forget 9/11. But as the saying goes, “two wrongs don’t make a right.”