Omar Osama bin Laden, the 26-year-old son of the Al-Qaeda leader, tells the Associated Press that he wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West. As part of his campaign, he and his wife are planning a 3,000-mile horse race across North Africa.
"It's about changing the ideas of the Western mind," Omar, one of Osama's 19 children, said in an interview in Cairo. "A lot of people think Arabs — especially the bin Ladens, especially the sons of Osama — are all terrorists. This is not the truth."
The Saudi-born Omar lived with his father in Sudan and moved with him to Afghanistan in 1996. He trained as an Al-Qaeda fighter for the next four years before deciding to seek another way. He left Afghanistan in 2000 and returned to Saudi Arabia.
"I don't want to be in that situation to just fight. I like to find another way and this other way may be like we do now, talking," he said.
He doesn't criticize his father.
"My father thinks he will be good for defending the Arab people and stop anyone from hurting the Arab or Muslim people any place in the world," he said. He points out that the United States and the West supported his father and other mujahedeen in their efforts in the 1980s to oust Soviet forces that had invaded Afghanistan.
Omar said he's had no contact with his father since he left.
"He doesn't have e-mail. He doesn't take a telephone," Omar said. "If he had something like this, they will find him through satellites."
