Omar Osama bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to his notorious father - except for the dreadlocks that dangle halfway down his back. Then there’s the black leather biker jacket.

The 26-year-old does not renounce his father, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but in an interview with The Associated Press, he said there is better way to defend Islam than militancy: Omar wants to be an “ambassador for peace” between Muslims and the West.

Omar — one of bin Laden’s 19 children — raised a tabloid storm last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who took the name Zaina Alsabah. Now the couple say they want to be advocates, planning a 4,825-km horse race across North Africa to draw attention to the cause of peace.

“It’s about changing the ideas of the Western mind. A lot of people think Arabs - especially the bin Ladens, especially the sons of Osama —are all terrorists. This is not the truth,” Omar told AP last week in Cairo.

“Omar thinks he can be a negotiator,” said Alsabah, who is trying to bring her husband to Britain.

Omar lived with the al-Qaeda leader in Sudan, then moved with him to Afghanistan in 1996. There, Omar says, he trained at an al-Qaeda camp, but in 2000, he decided there must be another way and he left his father, returning to his homeland of Saudi Arabia.

“I don’t want to be in that situation to just fight. I like to find another way and this other way may be like we do now, talking,” he said.

... contd.