This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1472

Trendy terror : Bin Laden niece uses uncle Osama and wealth to promote herself as pop star wannabe

More Trendy Terror :Daughter of Tamil Tiger terrorist whose father trained with PLO in Lebanon extols terrorism on albums
December 24, 2005


Wafah Yeslam Bin Laden aka Dufour and her Uncle Osama

In your face: Wafah Bin Ladin taunts Americans with these comments:

"...I want to be accepted here, but I feel that everybody's judging me and rejecting me... "Come on, where's the American spirit? Accept me. I want to be embraced, because my values are like yours..."

"...I was born in the States, and I want people to know I'm American, and I want people here to understand that I'm like anyone in New York..."

MIM: The unmitigated obnoxiousness with which the niece of Osama Bin Laden says she "hopes for acceptance in U.S." It is an obscene travesty glamourise,instead of ostracise anyone who is trying to cash in on the Bin Ladin family name., The celebrity treatiment of someone whose only claim to fame is being related to Bin Ladin in the pages of GQ, is not only an affront to the victims of 9/11 and their families, it is a further sign that America is coming to regard the attacks as an act of criminality, rather then a manifestation of global Jihad.

After 9/11 several Bin Laden relatives claims of distancing themselves from the terrorist not only proved to be false, the indisputable fact is that they are all continuing to benefit from the family wealth.In the case of Wafah Bin Laden aka Dufour.The family details given by Wafah Bin Ladin tell only half truths, do not change the fact that the is using the money and membership in the Bin Ladin family as perverse form of prestige.

(According to a Frontline family chronology, the name of Yeslam Bin Laden's sister in law who sits on the board of the family 'business' in Geneva is Beatrice Lafour, and like Wafah's mother is of Iranian origin.Which begs the question as to if the sister in law is in fact the sister of his ex wife, Wafah Bin Ladin's mother.)

The Frontline article states that Yeslam Bin Laden married a woman of "The princely Shirbot-Meyrani family who fled to Geneva to escape her marriage to Osama's brother. This would mean that Wafah's Bin Laden's claim of her mother be Swiss, is a reference to her nationality , not her background.

The promotion of terror as celebrity is an obscene travesty and the record company putting out Bin Laden's albums as well as the GQ should be boycotted by the public and radio stations in the same way the Dixie Chicks were ostracised after proclaiming at a concert that they were ashamed of being from Texas because it was the birthplace of president Bush.

Wafah bin Laden aka Dufour, who is profitting from the family fortune and using her connections to sell albums brazenly adds insult to injury by complaining that:

"...It's really tough that I always have to explain myself," she told GQ. "It's like every time I meet someone, I have to move a huge mountain that's in front of me, and sometimes I get tired..."

No wonder that Wafah Bin Laden gets tired of explaining herself . It must be hard to lie all the time shunning the Bin Laden family when all her wealth and privledges she enjoys came via her father and the Bin Laden family fortune.

(It also appears that her aunt Beatrice Lafour ( if it is her mother's sister) is sitting on the Bin Laden company's board of directors in Geneva.

A Frontline documentary on the Bin Laden family shows that Wafah's father ,Yeslam Bin Laden moved to Geneva to continue the Bin Laden family's international operations in Europe.

"...Yeslam bin Laden chose the same path as his brother Ali, but without a family break. Very early on, and in consultation with Bakr and Hassan, he decided to move to Europe, where he heads up a portion of the group's international activities..."

"...Since 1980, the bulk of the bin Laden group's international activities are routed through the Geneva offices of Saudi Investment Company (SICO), which was established on 19 May 1980 and whose capital was increased to SF100 million on 30 April 1991.

Located at 13 rue Ceard, the company is chaired by Yeslam bin Laden. Board members are Beatrice Dufour, Baudoin Dunant and Tilouine el Hanafi.

Beatrice Lafour is Yeslam bin Laden's sister-in-law. She is of Iranian origin and is married to a Swiss financier..."

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MIM: Excerpts from the Frontline 'Origins of the Bin Laden family' chronology dealing with Yeslam Bin Laden the father of pop star wannabe Wafah.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/family.html

"...On his death in 1968, Sheik Mohammed left behind not only an industrial and financial estate but also a progeny made up of no less than 54 sons and daughters, the fruit of a number of marriages. The lastborn came into the world in 1967 and is presently a student in Boston.

In an initial phase, the group was headed by Mohammed Bahareth, brother of Mohammed's first wife and uncle of his oldest children. As of 1972, Sheik Salem bin Laden, the eldest son, took over as his father's successor, with the assistance of several brothers.

Upon Sheik Salem's death, the leadership of the group passed to his eldest son, Bakr, along with thirteen other brothers who make up the board of the bin Laden group. The most important of these are Hassan,Yeslam and Yehia.

Most of these brothers have different mothers and different nationalities as well. Each has his own set of affinities, thus contributing to the group's international scope. Bakr and Yehia are seen as representatives of the "Syrian group"; Yeslam, of the "Lebanese group". There is also a "Jordanian group." Abdul Aziz, one of the youngest brothers, represents the "Egyptian group" and is also manager of the bin Laden group's Egyptian branch, which employs over 40,000 people. Osama bin Laden is, incidentally, the only brother with a Saudi mother.

Given the size of the family and the financial empire, the bin Ladens have obviously not managed to escape internal conflict.

One of the most significant clashes involved Ali bin Laden, Salem's youngest son and Bakkr's older brother. Ali currently lives between Beirut, Damascus and Paris. Some have said that the break took place over religious reasons. In fact, our information tells us that Ali bin Laden felt smothered under the weight of the bin Laden empire and chose freedom. This distancing has been accompanied by financial disputes, as the other brothers are in no mood to share the group's dividends with Ali and turn a deaf ear to his repeated demands for remittances.

This said, relations between Ali and his brothers had thawed during recent years. His son Mohammed, now completing his studies in Paris, is set to take on important duties within the group at the appropriate moment. It should be noted that he is currently in discussions with French weapons manufacturers and is strengthening his ties with the Saudi Defense Ministry.

In turn, Mahrous bin Laden is still a member of the group's board of directors. His mistakes during the '70s are still a sticking point, however, and he is primarily involved in the organization's Medina branch without engaging in activity at the central level...a way of getting himself forgotten.

Yeslam bin Laden chose the same path as his brother Ali, but without a family break. Very early on, and in consultation with Bakr and Hassan, he decided to move to Europe, where he heads up a portion of the group's international activities. He divides his time between Geneva and Paris. This choice also stems from his marriage with a woman of princely (but Iranian) family, Mirdoht-Sheybani. He is one of the most "Westernized" of the bin Laden brothers, and we are told that his household language is French.

"...At most, it might be said that the activities of Salem bin Laden in the context of Irangate and Contragate, or of Yeslam bin Laden within his association with the Shakarshi family, have placed the family at the center of these negotiations, but solely as a guarantor or as a representative of the interests of the royal family. The real contracts have been signed directly by members of the royal family: Prince Mohammed Ben Fahd or Prince Saud Ben Nayef.

The bin Laden family (and Yeslam bin Laden in particular) have thus had long-standing and close ties to the London/Geneva-based Albilad company, created in the `70s by Mohammed Ben Fahd and taken over by Saud Ben Nayef in 1984. Albilad was the main instrument for negotiation of the Anglo-Saudi Al Yamama agreement. Saudi interests were represented by businessman Wafik Said, while the British side was represented by Jonathan Aitken, currently a minister in the Major government. It might be noted that a major player in these negotiations was none other than Mark Thatcher, son of the former Prime Minister and very close to Wafik Said.

Nonetheless, while the bin Laden group does not deal directly in armaments, it is an obvious presence in the big military-related construction contracts. We have mentioned a few of these above. At present, its most important contract is for the Riyadh Airport, through the intermediary of the Al Salam Aircraft company, in the framework of the compensation contracts stipulated by the Peace Shield agreement..."

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2005/December/theworld_December685.xml&section=theworld&col=

Saudi Bin Laden niece hopes for acceptance in US
(DPA)

24 December 2005


WASHINGTON - A niece of Osama bin Laden is yearning for acceptance in the United States and is striking racy poses to try to speed up the process, a magazine reports.

Aspiring pop singer Wafah Dufour, daughter of a half-brother of the Al Qaeda leader, told a US men's magazine she feels most at home in New York - the city attacked in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"I was born in the States, and I want people to know I'm American, and I want people here to understand that I'm like anyone in New York," Dufour, who uses her Swiss mother's maiden name, told GQ. "For me, it's home."

Hoping to create a buzz, she posed for GQ's January edition, due out on Tuesday. A photo on the magazine's website shows her reclining among pillows in a mini-skirt and tank top.

Dufour, reportedly in her late 20s, spent part of her youth in Switzerland, where her mother fled in the 1980s to escape her marriage with Yeslam bin Ladin, Osama's older brother. Later, she studied law at New York's Columbia University, but gave up.

Dufour was born in California, where her parents moved after meeting in Geneva, according to other media reports. She says she has never met Osama bin Laden.

GQ said Dufour doesn't speak Arabic, has a US passport and shuns contact with most of her relatives, including her father. But she still struggles to shake off the bin Laden name.

"It's really tough that I always have to explain myself," she told GQ. "It's like every time I meet someone, I have to move a huge mountain that's in front of me, and sometimes I get tired."

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MIM: Trendy terrorism:

"...As the beats bounce from continent to continent, calls to the dancefloor sound like calls to arms. Take opening track Pull Up the People, on which she whoops jubilantly: "I've got the bombs to make you blow."

Her artwork for Arular swarms with stencils of AK-47s and Molotov cocktails.

That imagery also peppers her lyrics, most controversially on Sunshowers, with a line that sticks out like a hand grenade in a fruit bowl: "Like PLO, I don't surrender." At first she claims it's just an easy analogy, but I suggest that's a cop-out for someone so savvy.

"Come on, that's not fair that I can't mention Palestine," she protests. "What we've done is said all the acts of terrorism or rebellion are connected and there's one big conspiracy of terrorism. That's dangerous. So I have to be brave about that..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,1464842,00.html

Fighting talk

She's a revolutionary's daughter and her music oozes attitude. Dorian Lynskey meets MIA

Friday April 22, 2005
The Guardian

Maya Arulpragasam, aka MIA
'I've got the bombs to make you blow'... Maya Arulpragasam, aka MIA. Photograph: Sarah Lee


'It's bizarre what's happening with this album," says Maya Arulpragasam, wriggling about on the sofa, eyes wide, hands whirling. "When I made it I'd kind of lost faith in reality and disappeared into my own world. I didn't have a forum to discuss what was on my mind. I needed to make music so that life was palatable."

Three years later, life is more than palatable. The 28-year-old who calls herself MIA (as in Missing in Action, not Mia) is only in her record label's London office for a flying visit. She spends most of her time in America, where she's currently the object of enormous fuss; having been courted by Def Jam's Jay-Z, she recently signed to Interscope Records, home of Eminem.

The cause of this excitement, an album called Arular, is a new kind of world music, born in Britain but assimilating underground dance genres from anywhere where partying and politics are not considered mutually exclusive, whether it's dancehall from Jamaica, bhangra from the Indian subcontinent, or baile funk from the favelas of Rio. As the beats bounce from continent to continent, calls to the dancefloor sound like calls to arms. Take opening track Pull Up the People, on which she whoops jubilantly: "I've got the bombs to make you blow." The New Yorker's music critic, one of MIA's US cheerleaders, observed: "It could be the sound of a carnival, or a riot."

Britain has proved a little slower on the uptake. "I thought the British were so obsessed with being smart and then when I did something that fucked with people on so many different levels they thought I was a fake," she huffs. "No." She elongates the vowel as if addressing a slow-witted child.

Like her music, Arulpragasam's voice is hard to place. On disc, it can be sly, flirtatious, exuberant or ferocious, elastic with slang and sound effects, like a London Missy Elliott. In conversation, it's the product of being born in Hounslow, raised for 10 years in Sri Lanka, returning to Britain with only five words of English (apple, mango, elephant and Michael Jackson), and deposited on a council estate in Mitcham. She learned her English from pop culture but buffed it to a shine when she won a scholarship to St Martin's College of Art, so the letter T in "Britain" comes and goes, while vowels sprawl lazily, then snap smartly to attention.

Her intelligence is cocky, fidgety, breathless, as if there's too much to say and never enough time to say it. Whatever criticisms are levelled at her, she has already thought of them. "I knew people were going to ask, 'What are you? A rapper? A dancehall artist?' If I didn't have my own style they'd have ripped me to shreds. But coming out as the first Sri Lankan artist in the west, what the fuck am I supposed to sound like? There's no rules for me."

Nevertheless, a backlash is already afoot on the internet. Moronic, realer-than-thou challenges to her "authenticity" because she went to art school aren't worth bothering with, but charges of radical chic bear consideration. Her artwork for Arular swarms with stencils of AK-47s and Molotov cocktails.

"It is my past but it's also the future we're dealing with," she explains. "For the first 10 years of my life I was the underdog and those images were relevant and now I'm an overdog and those images are exactly what poses a threat to my environment. I got hit round the face by music in the year 2002 and I looked around and that's what I found - my cousin died as a Tiger in Sri Lanka and I'm worried about being gassed on the tube. I'm just making connections."

That imagery also peppers her lyrics, most controversially on Sunshowers, with a line that sticks out like a hand grenade in a fruit bowl: "Like PLO, I don't surrender." At first she claims it's just an easy analogy, but I suggest that's a cop-out for someone so savvy.

"Come on, that's not fair that I can't mention Palestine," she protests. "What we've done is said all the acts of terrorism or rebellion are connected and there's one big conspiracy of terrorism. That's dangerous. So I have to be brave about that. There's issues about the PLO that people don't know and if a line like that puts that idea in people's heads that's a good thing. It's really important to find out what everybody thinks about the PLO, not what I think."

She's right about sparking debate: the MIA thread on internet messageboard I Love Music evolved into an invigoratingly complex dicussion of Sri Lankan politics. What she doesn't want to discuss, but the Tamil Nation website reveals, is her family connection with the PLO. Arular is named after her father, Arul Pragasam, a member of the Tamil revolutionary group Eros who trained with the PLO in Lebanon in the 1970s.

"My dad's been a myth in my life," she says. "He never had a practical, physical influence. He used to come round once a year for 20 minutes at three in the morning. He'd wake you up and give you five rupees to buy an ice cream and then disappear. I felt like he didn't even know what my name was. Sometimes people came up and said, 'Your dad is a great man.' I used to feel really jealous - I hate you, how can you know more about my dad than me?"

Arulpragasam fled Sri Lanka with her mother, sister and brother in 1986 during a particularly violent phase of the conflict between the Sinhalese government and the Tamil Tigers. She didn't return until 2001, when she came to make a documentary. She emphasises that her sympathies lie with ordinary Tamils rather than the Tigers. Her father, she says, was never a member.

"People write it because it's easy. The Tigers were big in numbers but my dad was too selective. The Tigers had machetes and said, 'They killed my mum so I'm going to fucking fight them.' And my dad was like, 'No no no no, read this amazing book about revolution. Let's sit down and draw up a manifesto.'"

She laughs affectionately. "He's a bookworm. All he really cares about is bringing people knowledge. I understand what he's doing and how he lives. I just think he made a mistake getting married and having three children. We paid the price for that. My mother used to say, 'Your father's so useless, all he ever gave you was his name!' So I thought OK, then I'm going to use it, and then I'll find him because Arular will be all over the shop and he'll come and talk to me and we can have it out."

When she's in full flow, Arulpragasam is so sharp and engaging that you can see how she wangled a scholarship to St Martin's despite appalling A-level grades. Eager to make documentaries, but finding British urban music in its late-1990s doldrums, she approached Elastica's Justine Frischmann for a job filming the band's 2001 US tour.

Thus inspired, she began making music of her own. On her visit to Sri Lanka she noticed how adept Tamils were at improvising products to replace those, such as bicycles and petrol, that were banned by the government. Arular, too, has a certain junkyard ingenuity, its jerry-built origins poking through. It seems a non-musician and non-singer has made the record of the year.

"At the time I was doing it people were like, man, Jamelia can sing, what the fuck are you doing?" She squawks a confident laugh. "I was like, maybe it's not about that, and I'm going to find out."

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MIM: Excerpt from MIA Step Up to Blow Up

http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001043.html

As Abhi points out, the terrorism issue will unquestionably be a serious roadblock for M.I.A. commerce: MTV refused to run ‘Sunshowers' without a disclaimer. In 1991, the Tamil Tigers assassinated the prime minister of India with a female suicide bomber. As suicide bombing pioneers, they're hardly a cuddly, symbolic, ‘stick it to the Man' organization, which makes Arulpragasam analogous to Lee Harvey Oswald's daughter or that aspiring pop singer, bin Laden's niece.

And Arulpragasam doesn't downplay her Tiger connection, she flaunts it, it's integral to her marketing. She did a mix album using unauthorized samples called Piracy Funds Terrorism. Her song ‘Sunshowers' refers to suicide bombs (‘And some showers I'll be aiming at you'), her first album bears her dad's eponymous codename. Jungle guerrillas are all over the ‘Sunshowers' video, there's a large running tiger in her excellent concert visuals, she does a soldier step on stage and a shoutout to the P.L.O.

At the level of an individual music fan, going white hat can be quite difficult. So much shared infrastructure is contaminated, you can go nuts trying to track it all. If you watch Bollywood, you fund criminal gangs. If you go to Vegas, you fund the mob. If you buy gas, you fund al Qaeda.

At the same time, ‘it's too hard' is the main excuse people use to turn a blind eye to all kinds of injustices. You do as much as is practical. I don't expect to agree with Arulpragasam's ideas. She's a Sri Lankan Tamil, they are right to be bitter about their situation. Where I disagree with them is in methods, their choice of the expedient over the good. The key is not the fuzzy politics of rebellion, it's whether you press into service the slaughter of non-combatants as a tactic. You can't simultaneously be against indiscriminate profiling in London and for indiscriminate killing in Colombo, by either side. ‘Sunshowers' is less ‘I Shot the Sheriff' than ‘I Bombed the Sheriff's Wife and Kids.'

The dividing line for me is whether my album and concert dollars go to a great new artist, or to inadvertently funding terrorism. That's what's still murky. For M.I.A. to blow up big, she'll have to come out into the sunlight.

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1472