`Retired' bin Laden viewed death as release from years of declining health in Pak, book claims

Islamabad, Mar 9 (ANI): Former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US Navy SEALS in May last year, accepted that he may be betrayed by someone close to him and viewed death as a release from years of declining health, a new book has claimed.

The research by Brigadier Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani army officer, said that bin Laden was forced to retire and remain in isolation by members of the al-Qaeda, which he once founded.

This had left him with no other choice than to live with squabbling wives as he gradually succumbed to dementia and failing health in his Abbottabad compound in Pakistan.

Brigadier Qadir said he was convinced Pakistan's security forces were closing in on the world's most wanted man and that he was eventually given up by Khairiah Saber, his third wife who arrived to live in the Abbottabad home early in 2011, The Telegraph reports.

He said the existing household of two wives and assorted children and grandchildren was thrown into turmoil by the arrival of a third, older wife.

According to the testimony of his youngest wife Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sadah, Khairiah said soon after her arrival: "I have one more duty to perform for my husband."

While other family members became suspicious it meant betrayal, bin Laden appeared to accept his fate.

"If this is what she's going to do then so be it. It's a wife's duty to relieve her husband," he reportedly said, while staring blankly into space and apparently referring to the fact that he was in poor health.

"He tried to persuade the other wives to go and take the children with them. They refused and said they would not leave without him," Brigadier Qadir wrote. (ANI)