New book reveals why David Headley preferred Arab wives over Pakistani wives

Investigative journalist Kaare Sorenson's new book, The Mind of a Terrorist, has shed some light on the life of Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley.

According to Sorenson, Headley was rather taken with former al-Qaeda head Osama Bin Laden's penchant towards having several women in one's life. The book reveals that Headley was apprehensive about Pakistani women as he found them to "be cumbersome".

The book reveals that Mohammed bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's father, had at least 54 children from 22 wives, while Osama had 20 children from six wives. An excerpt from Sorenson's new book reads as follows:

"Laden later developed a theory on the advantages of having several women in one's life. Four was the optimal number, prescribed by the Prophet Muhammad himself, according to bin Laden."

Quoting Laden, Sorenson writes: "One is okay, like walking. Two is like riding a bicycle: it's fast but a little unstable. Three is a tricycle, stable but slow. And when we come to four, ah! This is the ideal. Now you can pass everyone!"

"Headley himself loved women. And he had many of them. He bragged to a group of friends that he had been with more black women than his entire class at the military academy combined. That was about one hundred students."

"But he (Headley) found Pakistani women to be cumbersome. They'd all seen too many Bollywood movies with big, dramatic romance scenes, and they didn't want to live their lives as the third or fourth wife in a complicated marriage".

Mind of a Terrorist, published by Penguin Random House India, also includes the content of Headley's personal emails. In one of Headley's mails, the terrorist-turned-approver wrote: "Arab women are much more understanding and open to it. They only ask that you be fair."

"He could manage the American narcotics authorities; connections to the drug trade; heroin smugglers in Pakistan; major Iqbal from the intelligence service; and Pasha, Sajid Mir and the others in Lashkar, and he could juggle all his roles and opportunities at once - without everything coming crashing down to the ground. "But when it came to women - wives, girlfriends, friends and his own mother - everything went wrong,"

In December 2007, Faiza Outalha, Headley's ex-wife reached the American embassy in Pakistan and disclosed information about her husband, Hindustan Times reported. Giving an insight into the identity of Faiza, Sorenson writes:

"She was originally from Morocco, but she was studying medicine at a university in Lahore, and it's not difficult to see why Headley fell for her. In late February 2007, the two got married in Pakistan...Near the end of 2007, less than a year after they got married, his relationship with Faiza was on the verge of collapse."

"She was angry and loudly let the agents from the department of state's security agency know that her husband, an American citizen, was a terrorist. He had stayed in Lashkar-e-Taiba training camps and sometimes spoke about suicide missions. And he might be involved in some activities in Mumbai."

"A few months before the Mumbai attack, Faiza went directly to Lashkar leader Hafiz Saeed and asked for help in saving their troubled marriage. Saeed then paid a visit to Headley, who downplayed the matter and explained that he had been busy with his Lashkar duties and hadn't had much time to take care of wife number two".