Cairo: 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-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, but in an interview with The Associated Press, he said there is better way to defend Islam than al-Qaida s militancy: Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West.

Omar raised a tabloid storm in Britain last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who took on the name Zaina Alsabah. Now the couple say they want to be advocates, planning a 5,000-kilometre 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 Friday at a cafe in one of Cairo s new shopping malls.

Of course, many may have a hard time getting their mind around the idea of "bin Laden: peacenik". "Omar thinks he can be a negotiator," said Alsabah, who is trying to bring her husband to Britain. "He's one of the only people who can do this in the world."

Omar, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden's 19 children, lived with his father in Sudan, then moved with him to Afghanistan when Khartoum forced out the al-Qaeda leader in 1996.

Source : PTI