Osama appeals children in his will not to join al-Qaeda

London, May 4 (PTI) Osama bin Laden, who was world's
most wanted man, didn't want his children to join al-Qaeda and
apologised to them for spending much of his time on waging
Jihad, according to a document believed to be his will.
In the four-page document dated December 14, 2001,
written on computer and signed by him, the dreaded terrorist
bin Laden had appealed his children not to join al-Qaeda.
The document, which was first published in a Lebanese
newspaper in 2001, has resurfaced this week following Osama's
death at the hands of the US navy SEALs on Sunday at his
Pakistan hideout, the Daily Telegraph reported.
"I'm sorry, I spent so much time on Jihad." It was a
candid apology al-Qaeda chief bin Laden has made to his
children in the document believed to be his last will.
It is thought bin Laden wrote the will in 2001 after
the September 11 terror attacks in which nearly 3,000 people
lost their lives.
In the will, bin Laden compares himself to a seventh
century caliph and suggests his children need to forge their
own way in life rather than ride on the back of his name.
"As for you my children: Forgive me for not giving you
except but a minimum amount of my time since I have begun my
call for jihad," bin Laden allegedly wrote in the will. "And I
advise you not to join in the work of Al Qaeda."
This is in direct contrast to what one of his children
-- bin Laden is believed to have fathered between 12 to 24
children -- told a British newspaper in 2009.
"He never asked me to join Al Qaeda, but he did tell
me I was the son chosen to carry on his work," Omar bin Laden,
Osama's son and author of 'Growing Up Bin Laden', had said.
One of his sons Saad was killed in a 2009 drone attack
was thought to have been a close confidant of bin Laden and
fought alongside him in Pakistan. Another, Khalid, died with
his father during the SEAL raid on Sunday.
Rohan Gunaratna, author of 'Inside Al Qaeda' and head
of the International Centre for Political Violence and
Terrorism Research, is convinced that the document is genuine.
"I have no doubt this document is real," he told ABC
News. "Despite being puritanical, bin Laden had a rather
modern management style," Gunaratna said.
"He didn't want them to inherit what he built simply
because they were his sons. He wanted them to work from the
bottom up."
In the document, bin Laden also wrote that his four
wives should not remarry in the event of his death.
Gunaratna also claimed the signature at the bottom of
the document was that of bin Laden's.
However, Michael Scheuer, a veteran CIA agent who
headed the secretive bin Laden Issue Station and was later the
chief of the bin Laden Unit, said the will is a fraud.
"It's a Saudi fabrication and it's been around for
years," Scheuer said.
He said, "Nothing in it resembles bin Laden's thought
patterns. The structure of the language is all wrong.
"One thing that never appears in his documents is
despair, and this thing is full of despair.
"It's a direct contradiction to what we know about bin
Laden," he added.