NEW YORK, Dec 23: A niece of Osama bin Laden has posed in nothing but high heels and ostrich feathers for photographs published in a US men’s magazine.

The daughter of Osama’s half-brother, Yeslam, Wafah Dufour shows off her long legs as she reclines on a bed in a profile in the latest edition of GQ magazine.

The US-born aspiring singer told the magazine that she has adopted her mother’s maiden name to dissociate herself from her uncle. “Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him,” she said.

Wafah Dufour, who also posed in a bubble bath, says she has not been in Saudi Arabia since she was 10 years old and is anxious to tell the world that she sees herself as an American.

“It’s really tough that I have to always explain myself,” said Dufour, who the magazine described as speaking with a French accent.

“It’s like every time I meet someone, I have to move a huge mountain that’s in front of me, and sometimes I get tired.”

The magazine says Dufour is vague about her age but reports that she looks to be in her twenties, with an ‘alluring’ face that bears some vague resemblance to Osama himself.

She said she has no contact with most of her relatives, including her father, that she doesn’t speak Arabic and is optimistic her US compatriots will not judge her harshly.

Ms Dufour said she was in Geneva when she learned of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks. “I was freaking out, crying hysterically, watching this in horror. I was like, ‘Somebody’s bombing my city, and I wanna go home!’”

In an interview earlier this year with the New York Post, Ms Dufour spoke about her ambitions for pop stardom. —AFP