It’s easy to demonize Osama bin Laden for his participation in widespread terrorist activity, but even the leader of Al Qaeda had some reservations about his chosen career path, and mostly because of the effect it had on his 24 children. Osama bin Laden, a father with regrets? Apparently so.

In a four-page will written in 2001 and just published in Al-Anbaa, a Kuwaiti newspaper, bin Laden reportedly said, “You, my children, I apologize for giving you so little of my time because I responded to the need for Jihad.”

Then, in a move that the children of organized mobsters have no doubt heard many times themselves, bin Laden tells his kids not to go into the family business.

“I have chosen a path fraught with dangers and endured hardships, disappointment and betrayal. If it wasn’t for betrayal, things would be different today.”

As for his wives, bin Laden left these instructions: “Don’t consider marrying again, and devote yourselves to your children and guide them to the right path.”

(Note: According to the Guardian, Al-Anbaa does not reveal how or when it obtained the will or whether it was able to authenticate it. Al-Majallah, a Saudi-owned Arabic magazine, published a similar document in 2002 but it was dismissed as a fraud by a pro-jihadi website.)

(AP Photo/Rahimullah Yousafzai)