A Bin Laden Brother's Ambitious Bridge Project

ADEN, Yemen -- Nobody has walked across the Red Sea since Moses parted the waters. But it could happen again under an audacious plan to build the world's longest suspension bridge between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

If built, the bridge would cross the Red Sea at an 18-mile-wide strait known as the Bab al-Mandeb, or Gate of Tears, connecting the southern tip of Yemen with the tiny East African country of Djibouti. Estimated price tag: $10 billion to $20 billion.

The proposal is turning heads in the Middle East, and not just because it would make engineering history. The developer of the project is a Dubai-based firm headed by Tarek bin Laden, an elder brother of the world's most famous terrorist.

The bin Laden family, from Saudi Arabia, has operated a construction empire for decades. In the mid-1990s, the clan cut its financial ties with Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda, around the time he declared war on the United States and called for the overthrow of the Saudi ruling family.

Since then, the rest of the bin Ladens -- Osama has 24 half brothers and 29 half sisters -- have quietly gone on with their business. The Bab al-Mandeb bridge would be their most ambitious project to date, overshadowing their renovations of Islamic holy sites in the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina.

"This has been Sheik Tarek's idea for many, many years," said Jameel Murshed, a lawyer and legal consultant for Middle East Development LLC, the partnership led by Tarek bin Laden. "He wants to serve his mother country."

The father of Tarek and Osama, Mohamed bin Laden, was born into poverty in Yemen a century ago before moving to Saudi Arabia to seek his fortune in building. Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. Promoters of the Bab al-Mandeb bridge say it will transform the region's economy by opening a fixed rail and highway route between Africa and the Middle East.

"It's not just about Yemen and Djibouti. It's about two continents: Africa and Asia," said Tariq Ayyad, president of Noor City Development Corp., a San Francisco firm hired by Middle East Development to manage the project.

Government officials on both sides of the sea have given their blessing to the project. In February, Djibouti followed Yemen's lead in signing a memorandum of understanding with Tarek bin Laden's firm, although numerous details -- including precise ownership stakes -- are still under negotiation.

Yemeni officials have said little publicly about the project. One government representative, who declined to be quoted by name, said Yemen welcomed the potential multibillion-dollar investment but is taking a wait-and-see attitude. "If it happens, we're all for it," the official said.

There is widespread skepticism on both sides of the Red Sea. "When I talk to people about it, 99 percent of the time they think it's a joke at first," said Amman M. Said, a Noor City representative in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. "The scale is so large that they're not sure what to make of it. When you tell people we're crossing the Red Sea by land, they say, 'Yeah, right.' "

But backers predict that things will change once construction starts -- perhaps as soon as next year.

The mammoth bridge is only one part of the project. Bin Laden's firm is
also planning to build giant free-trade zones and expanded ports on
both sides of the crossing.

The plans take some imagination to envision. The southwestern tip of
Yemen is sparsely populated, with only a few fishing villages dotting
the landscape. It is so remote that Yemen's government has agreed to
grant more than 500 square miles of land to the developers -- gratis.

If the project is completed, some Yemenis might be in for a cultural
shock. Bin Laden is planning to ban all firearms from the free-trade
zone, as well as any traces of khat -- a leafy narcotic plant that an
estimated 80 percent of Yemeni men chew daily for its mood-changing
effects.

"It will be a very modern city," said Murshed, the lawyer for Middle
East Development. "In 10 to 12 years, you will see in the Bab al-Mandeb
area a city that will look like Dubai, or Hong Kong."

Other massive challenges loom. The Red Sea is a seismic hot spot,
with several active volcanoes and a constant threat of earthquakes.

There are man-made hazards, too. The waters around the nearby Horn of Africa are infested with pirates.

According to preliminary designs, the link would consist of several
sections. The first would be a bridge from Yemen's coast to Perim
island, two miles away. After crossing the 2.5-mile-wide island as a
highway, the route would become a bridge again, making the 13.5-mile
jump across the strait to Djibouti.

The total length would be about the same as the Chesapeake Bay
Bridge-Tunnel, which extends 17.6 miles from Virginia Beach to Cape
Charles, Va. The waters there, however, are only a tenth as deep as the
Bab al-Mandeb, which reaches about 1,000 feet at its lowest point.

To allow large vessels to pass underneath, the bridge would have two main suspension spans, each about 1.7 miles long.

"This is a huge challenge from an engineering point of view," said
Henrik Andersen, a department head at COWI, a Danish firm hired by
Tarek bin Laden to design the bridge. "But we think it can be done."

Despite the enormous price tag, developers said they don't expect to
have much trouble raising private capital to build the bridge, given
the flood of petrodollars in the Middle East these days.

"At the end of the day, we're all in this to make money," said
Ayyad, the American of Kuwaiti origin who heads Noor City Development.
"Once people realize the magnitude of this project, everybody will want
to jump in and get involved."