A former aide to Osama Bin Laden has said he is willing to mentor British Muslim children after spending 20 years in prison for his role in terrorist attacks on US embassies.
Adel Abdel Bary said he wants to give young people “skills” and a “vision” as he plans his first public interview since returning to the UK following his release from a US prison.
The 64-year-old was convicted for his role in the 1998 Kenyan and Tanzanian embassy bombings.
Since returning to Britain, Bary has been living with his wife, a British citizen, in their taxpayer-funded home in Maida Vale.
In a profile on the website Islam21c, which aims to “educate and inspire” Muslims, Bary is quoted as saying: “The best things for our world now are the basics… Go play with the kids, give them skills, give them a vision,'” The times reports.
Adel Abdel-Bary pictured arriving at his family apartment in the UK after being released from US prison
Adel Abdel Bary, left, a former aide to Osama bin Laden, right, has said he wants to mentor British Muslim children.
Bary, a former lawyer, first came to the UK in 1991 to seek asylum in his native Egypt, after being jailed and tortured for his involvement in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.
Last year, an open letter to the United States from Osama Bin Laden justifying his 9/11 terrorist attacks went viral after being discovered by pro-Palestinian Generation Z TikTokers on The Guardian’s website.
The ‘Letter to America’ was circulated among British Islamic extremists in 2002, a year after the atrocities, and saw the al-Qaeda leader attempt to justify murderous acts in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia that killed nearly 3,000 people.
It was published in its entirety on the Guardian’s website, based on a translation it obtained, under a link titled “Read Bin Laden’s letter in full,” but the newspaper removed it after people began sharing it on the context of the Israel crisis. -Hamas War.
On TikTok and other social media platforms, video creators appear to have equated the 9/11 mastermind’s views on Palestine with showing solidarity with the Palestinian people in the current conflict in the Middle East.
One user wrote: “I just read it… my eyes have been opened,” while another said: “I think this has made a lot of people realize that even ‘villains’ can tell the truth.”
TikTok is “proactively and aggressively” removing the content and has launched an investigation into how it appeared on the social media site.
Bin Laden – who was killed by US troops in an operation in Pakistan in May 2011 – expressed deeply anti-Semitic views and conspiracy theories in the letter, saying the US military was “blatantly helping the Jews fight against us”.
Last year, an open letter to the United States written by Osama Bin Laden justifying his 9/11 terrorist attacks went viral.
He also tried to justify the indiscriminate killing of American citizens because they indirectly fund American military efforts through their tax dollars.
He wrote: “The American people are the ones who pay the taxes that finance the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that attack and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies that occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets that guarantee the blockade of Iraq.
‘These taxes are given to Israel so that it can continue to attack us and invade our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the spending of that money in any way they wish, through their elected candidates.’
The Guardian’s digital edition of the letter was shared on TikTok by several users, seemingly deliberately ignoring bin Laden’s role as a terrorist warlord responsible for instigating and inspiring atrocities around the world.
Most users also do not comment on the more extreme comments Bin Laden makes in the manifesto, including calls for the “rejection” of homosexuality and the claim that AIDS was an “American satanic invention.”
The letter also perpetuates a long-standing anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about the Jewish people, claiming that they have “taken control of their economy (and) their media… turning them into their servants.”