They may be rich, cultivated and beautiful; but when the West steps up its 'war on terror', their husbands and sons are in the firing line.
Among them are Maha Khadr and her daughter Zaynab in Pakistan -- or is that area called Waziristan?
[. . . . ] The life of an al-Qa'ida wife is doubly lonely. She must live segregated from her menfolk, in line with the Bin Laden version of Islam; and she must live in hiding from the rest of the world, because of her husband's terrorist activities. Yet there is a certain community to be found among the spouses, who are united by their view that Bin Laden, or "Emir", as they call him, is the ultimate commander of his Islamic legions.
[. . . . ] Today, Maha says, [one of Bin Ladin's wives] hankers after her palatial lifestyle, and resents her exiled existence in cramped quarters with no servants, no ice-cubes, and no way out. "She was bitter about Osama having all these other wives," recalls Maha.
While Bin Laden travelled and plotted in perpetual hiding, his veiled wives were left to enforce his strict rules on his family. Their children were forbidden such symbols of decadence as chilled water, computer games and American soft drinks. They weren't even allowed electricity. The boys were, however, allowed to play volleyball with their father at weekends, and to go hunting. And a child who memorised the Koran could expect to be rewarded with a pony.
There is more -- the kind of thing that hardens my heart against these traitors to everything of the West.
