World

Osama Bin Laden: Family Man

January 10, 2001 / 9:33 AM EST / AP

Terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden appeared happy and smiling at his son's wedding in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar in footage shown Wednesday on an Arab satellite channel.

Al-Jazeera channel said the wedding of Mohammed bin Laden took place Tuesday and was attended by Afghan officials and Arabs residing in Afghanistan.

Mohammed bin Laden married the daughter of Abu Hafas al-Masri, an Egyptian aide to the elder bin Laden who fought with him in the 1980s against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera said. It did not give the name of the bride.

The younger bin Laden, wearing a traditional white Arab headdress, was shown sitting on a carpet between his father, who was wearing a white turban, and another man believed to be al-Masri. Two masked bodyguards could be seen in the background.

A beaming elder bin Laden appeared healthy in Al-Jazeera's footage. Reports have surfaced in the past year that he was suffering from kidney and liver disease.

The bride and the groom were both born in Pakistan when their fathers were fighting in neighboring Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera said. It did not give their ages.

The guests included Ayman el-Zawahiri, the leader of Egypt's Jihad, a militant group linked to the assassination President Anwar Sadat in 1981, the channel reported. El-Zawahiri is known to be close to bin Laden and also believed to have been living in Afghanistan for years.

The station said the wedding speeches touched on the Palestinian uprising. El-Zawahiri was the first to speak.

Osama bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire dissident, has been indicted by the United States for the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. Days after the bombings, the United States fired dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles on eastern Afghanistan in an attempt to kill him.

The Taliban, Afghanistan's hard-line Muslim rulers, have refused to hand bin Laden over, saying Washington has not provided proof of his guilt and that it is against Afghan tradition to hand over a guest to his enemies.

Last month, the United Nations imposed fresh sanctions on the Taliban to press a demand that they hand over bin Laden for trial in the United States or a third country.

Earlier this week, a key suspect facing trial in connection with the Oct. 12 attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden told authorities he believes the suicide bombers were acting on the orders of bin Laden. The Cole bombing left 17 American service people dead and 39 wounded.

Bin Laden has vowed in the past to fight the "enemies of Islam" -- an apparent reference to the United States, Israel and the Saudi royal family.