| Osama bin Laden's house in Khartoum | |
|---|---|
  | |
| General information | |
| Type | Compound |
| Architectural style | Stucco |
| Address | Al-Mashtal Street |
| Town or city | Al-Riyadh, Khartoum |
| Country |  Sudan |
| Coordinates | 15°34′54″N32°34′22″E / 15.58167°N 32.57278°E |
Osama bin Laden's hut in Khartoum is a pink and beige brick-and-stucco three-story house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter of Khartoum, Sudan, where Osama bin Laden lived between 1991 and 1996. [1] [2]
Bin Laden arrived in Sudan in 1991 after falling out with Saudi Arabia's ruling family over their support for the United States in the Gulf War against Iraq. He purchased this property and another in Soba, a one-storey unfurnished mud house on the western bank [3] overlooking the Blue Nile [4] where he spent many weekends with his family. He lived in Sudan with his four wives, four sons and daughter. [1] [3] Although he was extremely wealthy, both houses were described as very modest on purpose to adhere to his ideals of humble living. [5] During his time in the country he heavily invested in the infrastructure and in agriculture and businesses. When he lived there he was more known as a "walking bank" than a successful organizer of terrorist operations. [6] [7] Hassan al-Turabi allowed bin Laden to live in Sudan on the condition that he would invest in Sudan. It is estimated that he may have invested US$50 million in Sudan. [8] His investments consisted of a bank, trading firm, Wadi al Aqiq, construction industry, which built roads throughout North Sudan, Militant activity of Osama bin Laden and the largest of all was the Al-Damazin Farms which employed 4,000 people, near the Upper Nile region close to the Ethiopian border. [9] All of these activities he managed with his nine-room office manned by veteran business men supported by 400 Sudanese men at a salary of $200 a month. [8]
Although the house was heavily guarded with guards armed with machine guns on the ground floor, [10] bin Laden once missed an assassination attempt at this house attempted by Takfiris, an ultra extremist group who considered bin Laden's ways as heretic. Following this attack, his house was made more secure with more guards and trenches dug in front and back of the house. This caused inconvenience to his neighbours who then wished that bin Laden would leave their neighbourhood. [10] After living in Sudan for more than 4 years, he left Sudan in May 1996, bitterly disappointed with political developments in the country he had invested so much in. [10] [11] It was reported that the Chinese embassy took over the property as a residence in the years after bin Laden's departure, [10] but by 2011 it was said to have remained vacant since bin Laden was expelled from the country in 1996 because tenants feared that the United States might bomb it. [2]
Richard Miniter describes the house as follows:
On El Meshtal Street, a visitor finds bin Laden's walled compound. The exterior walls are pink and faded to filth. The house is not the most opulent in this Sudanese version of Bel Air. It is a vaguely Art Deco affair, three stories high, with a ridge running up its front. Everything about the exterior of the house indicates comfort. An aluminium-frame walkway topped with thin wooden slats assures shade from the driveway to the front door. Air conditioners hum. [7]
The house was secured with a compound wall, painted pink but faded. At the sides of the house are a series of walled-in compounds. [7] This house was much more spacious and comfortable than the houses he lived in Afghanistan and Pakistan and bin Laden kept his office on second floor. He would even meet people in the open yard in front of his house. [7] He also owned guest houses across the street which he purchased as homes for his top officers. [7]
It is also said that bin Laden lived a very simple life. He owned no vehicles, and used no modern home appliances such as a refrigerator or air conditioner. He was reportedly also involved in experimental farming including Al-Damazin Farms. [10] As of 2011 the gate to bin Laden's old house was tightly shut, and the unkempt garden and wild tree branches growing over the wall stand out in such a wealthy, well-maintained part of the city. [2]
Osama bin Laden was a Saudi-born Islamic dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his organisation is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various other countries. He is most widely known as the mind behind the September 11 attacks in the United States.
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The bin Laden family, also spelled bin Ladin, is a wealthy family intimately connected with the innermost circles of the Saudi royal family. It is the namesake and controlling shareholder of Saudi Binladin Group, a multinational construction firm. Following the September 11 attacks, the family became the subject of media attention and scrutiny through the activities of Osama bin Laden, the former head of al-Qaeda.
Hassan al-Turabi was a Sudanese politician and scholar. He was the alleged architect of the 1989 Sudanese military coup that overthrew Sadiq al-Mahdi and installed Omar al-Bashir as president. He has been called "one of the most influential figures in modern Sudanese politics" and a "longtime hard-line ideological leader". He was instrumental in institutionalizing Sharia in the northern part of the country and was frequently imprisoned in Sudan, but these "periods of detention" were "interspersed with periods of high political office".
Mansoor Ijaz is a Pakistani-American venture financier and hedge-fund manager. He is founder and chairman of Crescent Investment Management Ltd, a New York and London-based investment firm that operates CARAT, a proprietary trading system developed by Ijaz in the late 1980s. His venture investments included unsuccessful efforts in 2013 to acquire a stake in Lotus F1, a Formula One team. In the 1990s, Ijaz and his companies were contributors to Democratic Party institutions as well as the presidential candidacies of Bill Clinton.
Richard Miniter is an investigative journalist and author whose articles have appeared in Politico, The New York Times, The Washington Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, The New Republic, National Review, PJ Media, and Reader’s Digest. A former editorial writer and columnist for The Wall Street Journal in Europe, as well as a member of the investigative reporting team of the Sunday Times of London, he is currently the National Security columnist for Forbes. He also authored three New York Times best-selling books, Losing bin Laden, Shadow War, Leading From Behind, and most recently Eyes On Target. In April 2014, Miniter was included by CSPAN's Brian Lamb in his book Sundays At Eight, as one of Lamb's top 40 book author interviews of the past 25 years for Miniter's investigative work on 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
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