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"I will never divorce you" - Osama Bin Laden's bold promise to his first wife Najwa just two days before September 11.

Those words were reported by Atlanta-based writer Jean Sasson who has just written Growing Up Bin Laden - a book which reveals the private lives of the Al Qaeda leader's family, told from the perspectives of Najwa Bin Laden, and his fourth son Omar.

Najwa married Osama when they were both teenagers. She told Jean Sasson that back then her future husband was as shy "as a virgin under the veil."

A strict disciplinarian, the "joyless" Osama apparently banned their eleven children from laughing and put his sons through the rigours of desert training without water.

Matthew Bannister spoke to Jean Sasson about getting to know the private lives of the Bin Ladens.

She described the domestic details of the Bin Ladens' polygamous set-up, their spartan lives in Sudan and Afghanistan, and the day Najwa says she last saw her husband - just two days before September 11.

Growing Up Bin Laden by Jean Sasson is published by Oneworld