Bin Laden Did Not Hate America in 1979

By Anna Mulrine, Washington Whispers

Terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden was the shy child of a divorcée, and his favorite food is zucchini stuffed with marrow. That's according to Najwa Bin Laden, Osama's wife and first cousin. She tells the story of their courtship in her new tome, Growing Up bin Laden, written with her son Omar bin Laden and author Jean Sasson; the subtitle promises that "Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World." Najwa shares that at the age of 15, she was impatient for Osama to propose. No chatterbox, his "silence soon grew annoying," she confesses. She tells about a trip she took with Osama to the United States in 1979, visiting Indiana. "I came to believe that Americans were gentle and nice, people easy to deal with," she writes. "As far as the country itself goes, my husband and I did not hate America, yet we did not love it."

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