Osama Bin Laden’s elder half-brother is lobbying investors to build a 17-mile bridge that would be the longest in the world, connecting the continents of Asia and Africa, reports The Sunday Times of London.

Sheikh Tarek Mohammed Bin Laden, 60, says he hopes that the project would rehabilitate his family name.

Known as “the bridge of the century,” it would stretch between Yemen and Djibouti on the Horn of Africa and include a freeway and rail links. Two new luxury cities would be built on either side of the Red Sea.

Sheikh Bin Laden – who runs the Saudi-based Bin Laden Group, a construction conglomerate which manages Mecca’s holy sites, among other interests – has already won pledges of land from the presidents of both countries after shuttling between the capitals in his private jet to outline his plans in recent weeks.

At present, the longest suspension bridge in the world is the 2.4 mile Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Japan, which opened in 1998 and has a center span of more than 1.2 miles. Bin Laden’s proposed bridge would be more than three times as long with a center span of 3.1 miles, allowing even oil tankers to sail underneath.