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bin Laden's niece trying to make it as a singer
Osama bin Laden's niece says she has nothing in common with the al-Qaida leader and simply wants acceptance by Americans. "Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him," Wafah Dufour, 25, the daughter of bin Laden's half brother, Yeslam Binladin, says referring to the al-Qaida leader.
"I want to be accepted here, but I feel that everybody's judging me and rejecting me," said the California-born Dufour, an aspiring singer and law graduate who lives in New York. "Come on, where's the American spirit? Accept me. I want to be embraced, because my values are like yours. And I'm here. I'm not hiding."
Dufour, who adopted her mother's maiden name after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that have been blamed on bin Laden, appears in several provocative photos in the magazine. In one, she is sprawled on a bed wearing lingerie and a feather boa. In another, she appears in a bubble bath filled tub. The pictures are likely to be considered obscene by conservative Muslims in and outside of Saudi Arabia where women are required to be veiled.
Asked if she would like to perform her music -her lyrics are in English and the sentiments expressed are clearly western - in the Middle East, Dufour says her mother, Carmen Dufour, would be too afraid that "someone would want to kill me."
"Listen, I would love to raise consciousness. Maybe women could hear the songs and realize that I'm doing my dream and hopefully they can, too," she said.
Yeslam and Osama are among 54 children of the late Saudi construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden and his 22 wives. The extended family includes several hundred people.
In the interview, Dufour says she would not date a fundamentalist Muslim and that she cried hysterically when she witnessed the attacks on New York while staying with her mother in Geneva.
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