Bin Laden's son barred from France after terror praise post

Omar bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, has been banned from entering France, as announced on Tuesday by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau. This decision follows a social media post where the son of the Al-Qaeda leader expressed approval for terrorism.

The son of the Al-Qaeda leader, 43-year-old Omar bin Laden, has lived in France since 2016. He lived in a village in the Normandy region, in the Orne département, where he worked as a landscape painter. Omar's wife is a British citizen.

On Tuesday, 8 October, French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau announced that Omar bin Laden has been banned from entering France and has already been expelled from the country. Retailleau did not reveal the specifics concerning the time or location to which bin Laden was deported. However, it is known that the 43-year-old "will not be able to return to France for any reason."

According to the local weekly "Le Publicateur Libre," cited by Reuters, Omar bin Laden attracted the attention of the French authorities in 2023 when, on his father's birthday, he posted a message on social media praising terrorism.

The AFP agency reported that Omar bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia and spent his early years in Sudan and Afghanistan. At 19, he left his father, and since then, he has resided in various countries, including Arab states.

The man resembles his father, and in one interview, he claimed that he was more intelligent than his brothers, which is why Osama bin Laden chose him as his successor. According to Omar's accounts, he severed ties with the terrorist world because terrorists tested chemical weapons on his pets.

Osama bin Laden, responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001, was killed by a U.S. forces unit on 2 May 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, near the country's capital, Islamabad.