Her uncle is the world's most wanted man and a byword for zealotry.

Which makes these poses by Osama Bin Laden's niece either very brave or extremely foolish.

Wafah Dufour, 26, is seen sprawled on a bed in lingerie, a feather boa and high heels.

She stretches out her long limbs and throws back her hair in an attitude seemingly calculated to outrage Islamic traditionalists.

The former law student, a would-be pop singer, is also seen with a guitar between her legs in a flowing dress and, perhaps most provocative of all, is seen pouting in a bubble bath.

New York-based Wafah, who adopted her mother's maiden name after the September 11 attacks directed by Bin Laden, is the daughter of his half- brother Yeslam.

She has already risked Osama's wrath by declaring her ambitions to launch a pop career. But that was nothing compared with her decision to appear in a photoshoot for the January edition of American GQ magazine.

Wafah estimates she has 200 cousins.

Her father and Osama are two of 54 children fathered by Mohammed Bin Laden, a Saudi whose construction companies have changed the face of the Middle East.

She says she has never met Osama Bin Laden, who is currently believed to be holed up somewhere on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan with a £13million price on his head.

He has close ties to Afghanistan's Taliban, which compelled women to wear the head-to-toe burqa.Those not clothed according to the rules could be whipped and beaten.

At the time of September 11, 2001, Wafah was attending Columbia Law School in New York. But on the day of the terror attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., she was visiting her mother in Switzerland and recalls hearing the news.

She said: 'They were starting to say Bin Laden did this, Bin Laden did that ... and I was so numb because I couldn't even believe what was happening in New York. It was my home.'