An exclusive Newsweek interview with the wife of Dr. Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the suicide bomber in Afghanistan who killed himself and 7 CIA agents, reveals a chilling anti-American sentiment.
During the interview, Defne Bayrak, 31, spent more than an hour at the offices of NEWSWEEK Türkiye in Istanbul talking about her husband and his hate for America.
Bayrak is Turkish and a journalist, and one book she has translated is called Bin Laden: Che Guevara of the East.
According to Newsweek:
“Al-Balawi “started to change,” says his wife, after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. By 2004, she says, he began to talk to her about his strong belief in the need for violent jihad against Western occupiers of Muslim lands, but he was not part of any organization or group. “He followed all of them, but from a distance,” she says. “He was constantly reading and writing. He was crazy about online forums. He would go onto them and write severe, extremely hardline comments.”
The interview was reported by Newsweek Turkiye’s Adem Demir and written by Christopher Dickey.