Osama may be hiding, but niece is in full view

NEW YORK — Osama bin Laden's niece, in a GQ magazine photo shoot in which she wears little more than strappy sandals and feathers, says she has nothing in common with the al-Qaida leader and simply wants acceptance by Americans.

"Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him," Wafah Dufour, the daughter of bin Laden's half brother Yeslam Binladin says in the January edition of the magazine, referring to the al-Qaida leader.

In the article, "It Isn't Easy Being the Sexy Bin Laden," the aspiring pop singer said: "I want to be accepted here, but I feel that everybody's judging me and rejecting me."

"Come on, where's the American spirit? Accept me. I want to be embraced, because my values are like yours. And I'm here. I'm not hiding."

The California-born Dufour is a law-school graduate who lives in New York. She adopted her mother's maiden name after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that have been blamed on bin Laden.

Dufour appears in several provocative photos in the magazine. The pictures are likely to be considered obscene by conservative Muslims in and outside of Saudi Arabia, where women are required to be veiled.

Asked if she would like to perform her music in the Middle East, Dufour says her mother would be too afraid that "someone would want to kill me."

Yeslam and Osama are among 54 children of the late Saudi construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden and his 22 wives. The extended family includes several hundred people.

Binladin has condemned his half brother "for his acts and his convictions." He intentionally spells his name differently from his half brother.

Dufour said she has spoken to her estranged father only twice in the past 10 years.

Asked how he would react to her posing for racy pictures, she said, "I think he would have a heart attack."