Iman bin Laden, 17, was allowed to leave the country where 30 of bin Laden’s family members have been detained since they tried to flee the 2001 America attack on Afghanistan by fleeing across Iran. They were confined comfortably to a compound near Tehran.
In January, Iman was allowed outside on a supervised shopping trip. She said she managed to escape her minder and went to the Saudi embassy, from which she was permitted to phone her family in Saudi Arabia.
The Islamic Republic said it would give her the travel documents to leave Iran if the Saudi government could prove who she was, trying to suggest that Iran didn’t know who it had confined for eight years. It isn’t known why Iran waited another three months before finally allowing her to leave.
The Arabic daily Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat said Iman’s mother, Najwa al-Ghanem, bin Laden’s first wife, flew from her Damascus home to Tehran last week to pick up the teenager and bring her to Syria last Thursday. The mother is a Syrian national.
Another bin Laden daughter, Bakr, 16, was allowed to leave Tehran December 25. It remains unknown if any other family members will be allowed to leave.
Meanwhile, Khalid bin Laden, a son of Osama who heads the North African branch of Al-Qaeda, charged that the Iranians had beaten the family members in Iran.
But another son, Omar, issued a statement saying that was false. Omar, 29, who rejects his father’s jihadi ideology, said, “The Iranians have been very caring and kind to my family. If anyone asks why they are still in Iran, it is because we have not been able to find any country to accept them.”
