The youngest widow of slain al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden could return home to Yemen from Pakistan within days, a security official confirmed on Friday. “Eventually everyone will go back, but I’m not sure about the timeframe.
It could be a day, two days, may be more,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release the information. “But the first one is probably the Yemeni wife,” the official added.
Pakistan took custody of Amal Abdulfattah and two Saudi widows as well as Bin Laden’s children after US Navy SEALs found and killed the al Qaeda terror chief at a home in Abbottabad on May 2. From the outset, the federal government said that the relatives would be handed over to their countries of origin.
On Wednesday, Abdulfattah’s brother, Zakariya, told AFP that the family in Yemen had been told by Sanaa and Islamabad that she and her five children would be returning home in the coming days. “There have been diplomatic arrangements between the Yemeni and the Pakistani parties to secure her return to her country and we have received promises that it will take place soon,” he said. Her brother had said that he has received assurances from the Yemeni ambassador in Islamabad that she is “in good health” despite sustaining a gunshot wound to the leg during the US commando raid that killed Bin Laden. US intelligence services have interrogated Bin Laden’s widows. 29-year-old Amal married Bin Laden in 1999 through a local matchmaker, the brother said, and then travelled to Afghanistan to join him.
