Latest Channel 4 News:
Row over Malaysian state's coins
'Four shot at abandoned mine shaft'
Rain fails to stop Moscow wildfires
Cancer blow for identical twins
Need for Afghan progress 'signs'

Bin Laden ex-guard’s warning from Yemen

By Channel 4 News

Updated on 06 January 2010

A former bodyguard to Osama bin Laden tells Jonathan Rugman there are "a million people out there" like alleged failed plane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Nasser al-Bahri now works as a business consultant in Yemen. But in the late 1990s, based in the Afghan mountains, he served as bodyguard to the world’s most wanted man.

Speaking to Channel 4 News Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Rugman in Yemen, al-Bahri said: "I love Osama bin Laden more than my own father."

And he went on to warn that there were "a million people out there" like Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian allegedly responsible for the failed attack on a plane over Detroit on Christmas day.

Last summer Abdulmutallab went to Sana’a, the capital of a country identified by Hillary Clinton as an al-Qaida base, to study Arabic. His teacher told Channel 4 News: "He was always smiling."

Smiling – like the friendly former bodyguard of the world’s most wanted man, who now lives in a city where al-Qaida still inspires men to wage war against the west.

Read more from Jonathan Rugman about the growing terrorist threat from Yemen.

Send this article by email

More on this story

Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.


Watch the Latest Channel 4 News

Watch Channel 4 News when you want

Latest Asia Pacific news

More News blogs

View RSS feed

Pakistan floods

A boy puts cream on in his face during the Pakistan floods (Reuters)

Powerful reports from Jonathan Miller inside Pakistan.

Living with the Taliban

Taliban on the Afghan frontline

A rare film of Taliban fighters on the Afghan frontline.

Fears over Taliban deal

image

Lindsey Hilsum reports on the cost of a Taliban deal.

Tamil killings 'ordered'

image

Sri Lanka commander says killings were 'ordered from the top'.

Most watched

image

Find out which reports and videos are getting people clicking online.

How to tweet

How and why to follow the Channel 4 News family on Twitter.




Channel 4 © 2010. Channel 4 is not responsible for the content of external websites.