Arrangements have been made to return Osama bin Laden's youngest wife, wounded in a U.S. military operation in Pakistan that targeted the al-Qaida leader, to her native Yemen, according to media reports.
Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, 29, also known as Amal Abdulfattah, is expected to be sent home from Pakistan within days, according to the reports.
Sadah has been held by Pakistani security officials since May 2, when a team of U.S. commandos stormed a compound in the northern garrison town of Abbottabad where bin Laden had been living for years in hiding. Bin Laden was shot dead, and his body was quickly disposed of at sea in accordance with Islamic practices, U.S. officials have said.
Yemeni and Pakistani diplomats have finalized arrangements for the return of Sadah and her 12-year-old daughter, Safiya, who was also injured in the raid, to Yemen, according to accounts in newspapers in Yemen and Saudi Arabia that were confirmed by officials in Riyadh, the British daily.
Sadah's brother, Zakariya Abdulfattah, told AFP on Wednesday the family was informed by "the foreign ministries of Yemen and Pakistan of plans concerning the return of Amal and her five children to Yemen in the coming days."
"There have been diplomatic arrangements between the Yemeni and the Pakistani parties to secure her return to her country and we have received promises that it will take place soon," he said, according to AFP.
Her brother said he had been told that Sadah is "in good health" despite sustaining a gunshot wound to the leg during the US raid.
Two of bin Laden’s other wives — Khairah Sabar and Siham Sabar — who were with him in Abbottabad, are Saudi citizens and are also in Pakistani custody. Saudi officials told the Guardian that “there was no objection to their return to Saudi Arabia.”
Bin Laden’s Saudi citizenship was revoked in 1994.
Hamza, a 22-year-old son of Bin Laden was killed in the raid.
Sadah’s family lives in in Ibb, an agricultural town in the mountains about 100 miles south of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. They has been demanding that she and her children be sent back home.
Shortly after bin Laden's killing, family members told The Associated Press they had seen their her only once since her wedding to bin Laden in 1999. Since then, communication was largely limited to messages delivered by couriers.
Sadah fled from Afghanistan with her daughter in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. She is reported to have told Pakistani investigators she had spent five years in the compound in Pakistan with bin Laden.
