Bin Laden aide says he wants to mentor British Muslim children

A former aide to Osama Bin Laden has said he is keen to mentor British Muslim children after spending 20 years in jail for his involvement in terror attacks on US embassies.

Adel Abdel Bary said he wants to give youngsters 'skills' and a 'vision' as he plans his first public interview since returning to the UK after his release from a US prison.

The 64-year-old was convicted over his role in the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Since his return to Britain, Bary has been living with his wife, a UK citizen, at their taxpayer-funded Maida Vale home.

In a profile piece on the Islam21c website, which claims to 'educate and inspire' Muslims, Bary is quoted as saying: 'The best things for our world now are the basics … Go play with the children, give them skills, give them a vision,' The Times reports.

Adel Abdel-Bary pictured arriving back at his family flat in the UK following his release from US prison

Adel Abdel Bary, left, a former aide to Osama Bin Laden, right, has said he wants to mentor British Muslim children

Bary, a former lawyer, first came to the UK in 1991 to seek asylum from his native Egypt after he had been imprisoned and tortured for his implication in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.

Last year, an open letter to the US by Osama Bin Laden justifying his 9/11 terror attacks went viral after being discovered by pro-Palestine Gen-Z TikTokers on the Guardian website.

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The 'Letter to America' was circulated amongst British Islamic extremists in 2002, a year after the atrocities, and saw the al-Qaeda leader attempt to justify the murderous acts in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia that killed nearly 3,000.

It was published on the Guardian's website in its entirety, based on a translation it obtained, under a link titled 'Read the Bin Laden letter in full' - but the newspaper has now removed it after people began sharing it in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.

On TikTok and other social media platforms, video creators appear to have equated the 9/11 mastermind's views on Palestine with showing solidarity with Palestinian people in the current conflict in the Middle East.

One user wrote: 'Just read it... my eyes have been opened,' while another said: 'I think this has made a lot of people realize that even 'villains' can speak the truth.'

TikTok is 'proactively and aggressively' removing the content and has launched an investigation into how it appeared on the social media site.

Bin Laden - who was killed by US troops in a Pakistan operation in May 2011 - espoused deeply anti-Semitic views and conspiracy theories in the letter, and said that the American army was 'shamelessly helping the Jews fight against us'.

Last year, an open letter to the US by Osama Bin Laden justifying his 9/11 terror attacks went viral

He also sought to justify the indiscriminate slaughter of American citizens because they indirectly fund American military efforts through paying taxes.

He wrote: 'The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq.

'These tax dollars are given to Israel for it to continue to attack us and penetrate our lands. So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us, and they are the ones who oversee the expenditure of these monies in the way they wish, through their elected candidates.'

The Guardian's digital edition of the letter was shared to TikTok by a number of users - seemingly deliberately ignoring Bin Laden's role as a terrorist warlord responsible for instigating, and inspiring, atrocities across the world.

Nor do most users make any comment on the most extreme comments Bin Laden makes in the manifesto, including calls for the 'rejection' of homosexuality and a claim that AIDS was a 'satanic American invention'.

The letter also perpetrates a long-running antisemitic conspiracy theory about Jewish people, claiming that they 'have taken control of your economy (and) your media...making you their servants'.