Wafah openly blamed her failures on her infamous uncle Osama - who she never met (she's one of 300 of his nieces and nephews) - and became so fed up with the family name that he single-handedly dragged through the mud, that she started to use her mother's maiden name, "Dufour". After significant media attention prior to the name change, it seems the horse had already bolted from the stable.

An unaided upturn in fortunes seems a long way off. In one of many interviews with the press, Wafa lamented, "because of this last name that I have nothing to do with, the Western world hates me, and because I've chosen American values, the Saudi Arabian world hates me."

Wafah was born an American citizen while her father was studying in California. She grew up in Switzerland in a multimillion-dollar mansion. She studied law at Geneva University before going on to Columbia for a three-year doctorate.

In 2001, she lived in a $6,000-a-month loft on Spring Street, just ten blocks from the World Trade Center. Shopkeepers knew her as a big spender. A saleswoman at the retailer Bigdrop, which sells an array of designer dresses, handbags and accessories, reported that she would spend thousands of dollars at a time on designer clothes. But in the months before the 9/11 attacks, she left for London.

Wafah Binladin is apparently still living on Park Avenue, and still frequenting New York's trendiest clubs and bars. Some New Yorkers are still outraged that she should be living a life of luxury so close to the where the twin towers once stood. But Wafah, like her mother, has broken away from the Wahhabi codes for women and lives an essentially Western life - she's an American first by any judgement.  

Carmen's marriage to Yeslam disintegrated when he expected their children to be brought up conservatively. "My husband doesn't even acknowledge his daughters when he sees them on the street", she said.

According to Wafah, her mother fears some fundamentalist will "do away with me" because of her attempts at becoming a pop star.

Wafah's website catalogues a handful of media appearances and explains that the polyglot Wafah can sing in Spanish, French and English and that she writes songs as well as sings them.  The music career has had little exposure in the media - although Wafah claims to have a voice similar to Chrissie Hinds. Wafah's biggest step into the spotlight was an appearance on MSNBC in early 2006, when the publisher Judith Regan signed Wafah to appear in a reality TV show.  The most far-reaching step into the limelight also came in 2006, when Wafah appeared in the popular U.S. men's magazine GQ in the above pose which caused much consternation on jihadi websites and across the Muslim world.  

Surely, a woman who's a clear target for the jihadis - representing so much of what the strict Islamist enemy detest in a woman - needs to be better used by the Americans? In exchange for security and even a pop career (at least the woman can sing, unlike so many of today's lip-synch brigade) the US authorities ought to be using this wonderful Western asset to drive a stake into the enemy.

Many would argue that it's Wafah Binladin's right - as a free, American-born citizen - to turn her back on the Islamists as they've caused her enough harm already; to live a free, enjoyable life away from the war on terror.

Even a single album with a few ditties about her Uncle the fool or the odd interposed lyric denouncing the oppression of Muslim women by the Islamists - this is exactly the kind of thing that bursts extreme Islamism's totalitarian bubble. There is little any man can do faced with a crooning goddess, and, like Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue or the timeless Sabrina, a good music video subliminally plants the words of the song sung (albeit at the time at best the secondary focus of one's faculties) forever in one's head. Come out with a catchy number for Wafah and - Noriega style - the Taliban can be ghetto-blasted out of their trenches. Never underestimate the power of a Muslim woman, who has thrown of her male-imposed shackles.

I shall be the first to buy the album.

A message to all you government-paid propagandists and companies like the Lincoln Group: wake up. Carpe Diem. Wafah is an American and America is at war.

Matt Kilkenny is based in Chicago and a former US Government employee.

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