He was an obedient boy: bin Laden's mother gave an interview about her son for the first time. How does the bin Laden family live in Saudi Arabia?
On May 2, 2011, according to the CIA, Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Islamic terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, was killed. He was recognized as the No. 1 terrorist in the United States and other countries.
In this collection you will see very different photographs of Osama bin Laden and his relatives. In these pictures you will see Osama the teenager, Osama the loving father, Osama the soulmate, and finally Osama the leader of Al Qaeda.
1. Osama bin Laden (second from right) during a visit to the Swedish city of Falun in 1971. Pictured are several local residents, including Christina and Lars Akelblad, who owned the Astoria Hotel, where Osama and his brother Salem stayed during one of their trips to Sweden. In 1971, 23 members of the wealthy bin Laden family visited Falun, and one of the elders brothers held a business meeting at Volvo. Osama was remembered then as a calm, reserved 16-year-old boy who did not stand out in any way from the crowd.
2. 1978: Osama bin Laden sits in a cave in the Jalalabad area of Afghanistan. It was then that he first picked up a weapon.
3. 1980s: Osama bin Laden with Afghans in the Jalalabad area during the war against Soviet forces. Osama fought in this war for almost ten years.
4. 1989: Osama (right) in Afghanistan.
6. 1989: Osama during the war with the USSR.
7. 1989: Osama (right) in Afghanistan.
8. 1989: Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan during the war with the USSR.
10. Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 80s.
11. Osama bin Laden over a map of Afghanistan in 1998.
12. Osama bin Laden meets with a group of reporters in the mountains of southern Afghanistan's Helmand province on December 24, 1998. Bin Laden was later involved in a series of terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, the 1995 Riyadh car bombing, and the 1995 Saudi military barracks truck bombing. Arabia in 1996, which killed 19 American soldiers, and in the 1998 attack on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
13. Osama bin Laden during the 2001 shootings.
14. The attention of the entire world community was focused on the personality of Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed about three thousand people. The picture shows a still from the Al Jazeera TV program, which was shown on the second anniversary of the September 11 tragedy.
15. Undated still from a video that aired in 2007. In this video, Osama talks about the importance of jihad and glorifies the martyrs who died in the name of Allah. Osama is believed to have crossed the Pakistani border after US and British troops launched an offensive in Afghanistan in late 2001.
16. Osama bin Laden and his son Ali, who was 10 years old at the time.
17. Omar bin Laden, the 26-year-old son of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, with his wife Jane Felix-Brown before airing on Italian television in 2008.20. An image of possible changes in Osama bin Laden's age that was released by the US State Department and the FBI in January 2010.
21. Osama bin Laden sits on the floor with his family in a safe house in Afghanistan, November 2001.
22. Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 in a mansion in the city of Abbottabad, 50 km from Islamabad, as a result of a joint 4-hour operation by American and Pakistani special forces. This was stated on the state television channel by the head of Pakistani intelligence, Ahmed Pasha.
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The image of bin Laden, who does not part with his personal machine gun - in all photographs it is a Soviet AKS74U - also gained some fame. According to him, he allegedly took this weapon from the Soviet general he killed. It is possible that Osama received the machine gun of General Pyotr Shkidchenko (father of the former Minister of Defense of Ukraine Vladimir Shkidchenko). In January 1982, his helicopter was shot down by the Mujahideen.
Personal life
Family
There are many conflicting rumors about the life of Osama bin Laden, including his family life. There were also contradictions in the official “Report No. 15 of the US Congressional Commission to Investigate Terrorist Attacks on the United States (“9-11 Commission”). Thus, in one case, the report states that Osama bin Laden, being a multimillionaire, spent his fortune on war in Afghanistan, and practically on the next page there is refuting information that Osama bin Laden, contrary to popular belief, did not inherit $300 million after the death of his father, and the jihad was financed mainly by Arab philanthropists.
There are also suspicions that some of the false information about Osama bin Laden is being disseminated by the CIA to undermine his authority among Muslims (today, ideological confrontation is considered one of the important measures to combat terrorism associated with Islam).
Wives
- Umm Hamza, a native of Saudi Arabia, “Nasr al-Bahri, Osama's bodyguard from 1997 to 2000 in Kandahar, recalls that Umm Hamza was bin Laden's favorite because of her deep knowledge of Islamic sciences. Osama often consulted with his wife, who was 8 years older than him. According to a former bodyguard, “Umm Hamza was like a mother to almost all jihadists. She solved their family problems and delivered babies to their wives.” She also taught the Koran to all bin Laden’s children.”
- Umm Khaled, a native of Saudi Arabia
- Yemeni Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, whom bin Laden married in the spring of 2000 (she is called bin Laden’s youngest wife)
Bin Laden was married five times. He married his first cousin in 1975. It was rumored that one of his wives was the daughter of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. But in an interview with Hamid Mir, Osama bin Laden said that all of his wives (of which there are three) are of Arab origin, and also said that he was connected with Mullah Omar only by religious duty and mutual respect.
17 sons. Their whereabouts are unknown.
The fourth son, Omar, broke with his father at age 19 and refused to fight with the Taliban. He became involved in the scrap metal trade in Jeddah. He, however, has repeatedly tried to speak to a wider audience in order to show that his father is not a terrorist, but rather a protector, and the very formulation used in relation to him is not correct. Just like Osama bin Laden himself, his son repeatedly tried to explain that the causes of the conflict lie in the aggressive foreign policy of the United States itself; according to Omar, the terrorist attacks were the result of despair - his father did not find a better way to achieve his goals. Omar claimed that he had not seen his father since 2000 and was in no way connected with his activities. In 2007, he married British woman Jane Felix-Brown, 24 years older than him, but they were married for only five months. In November 2008, Omar arrived in Madrid, asking for political asylum in Spain, but the Spanish authorities refused him.
The remaining children, most of whom live in Saudi Arabia, are engaged in legal business. According to another source, all the children of Osama bin Laden are mujahideen (that is, people leading the lifestyle of fighters for the triumph of the ideology of Islam). It should also be noted that according to the same source, Osama bin Laden called one interview (published in one of the Arab newspapers) taken from one of his sons a fake.
Osama's brother Yeslam bin Laden lives in Switzerland. According to him, he has not been to Saudi Arabia since 1987 and has not seen his brother since then. In 1974, Yeslam married Carmen, who is half Iranian and half Swiss. The couple separated after 11 years. After the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's former daughter-in-law recounted her encounter with him: “Someone knocked on the door, I instinctively opened it, and there was this man standing in the doorway. I barely looked at him, after which he turned away, because my face was uncovered and Osama did not want to look at me. I know Osama was very pious. He is the only brother who refused to look at me.” The daughter of Yeslam and Carmen, Wafa Dufur, was born in California, lived for some time in Saudi Arabia, after which she was taken first to Switzerland and then to the USA. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, she took her mother's maiden name and posed semi-nude for GQ men's magazine in 2005.
09/26/2001 "Unfortunate love made bin Laden an enemy of America. And his brothers and sisters live and thrive in the USA"
Andrey Kabannikov
Bin Laden lives in Los Angeles, in a two-story pink mansion with 13 bedrooms next door to Russell Crowe and Julia Roberts, just a few blocks from the homes of former President Ronald Reagan and Hollywood legend Liz Taylor. True, his name is not Osama, but Ibrahim. But he is the half-brother of the No. 1 terrorist and the world's most wanted man.
While America is preparing for the big hunt for Osama, his numerous relatives are hiding from the press behind the fences of estates in the most prestigious areas of California, Massachusetts and Florida. The authorities have no complaints against them. They are law-abiding Americans cursing the family outcast Osama.
As a child, “terrorist No. 1” was teased as a mullah
“Father would turn over in his grave if he had one,” says Ibrahim bin Laden. “But he simply disappeared, and from this, it seems, the misfortunes of our family began.” Sheikh Mohammed bin Laden crashed his plane near Jeddah in 1970. An American pilot sat at its helm.
The father of America's current arch-enemy founded the bin Ladens' $5 billion construction empire by moving to Saudi Arabia from Yemen and establishing close relations with the royal court. Two years before his death, he was made the country's minister of road construction. The sheikh had 10 wives and 53 children. “He made a lot of American friends, and his children loved America,” recalls the wife of one of bin Laden Sr.’s pilots, Grace Wellman. “Osama’s brothers Salim and Khali came to our house, changed into jeans, took a guitar and played rock and roll.” The notorious and devout Osama was ignored and teased by Salim and Khali as a mullah. He was the despised 17th son of a sheikh and his not-so-loved Syrian wife, who was called a “slave” in the family.
Before declaring jihad, Osama visited brothels
Having become a student, Osama temporarily became familiar with the joys of civilization. He often visited the Lebanese capital, which was considered the “Paris of the East.” He learned to drink, went to brothels and fought over women.
But the 1975 civil war in Lebanon seemed to him like Allah’s punishment for depravity. The war in Afghanistan showed him the battlefield with the infidels.
There is another well-known version that explains the origin of Osama’s fierce hatred of America. Former State Department expert on counterterrorism issues Larry Johnson insists on its authenticity. According to him, bin Laden experienced an extremely unsuccessful love for an American woman from Chicago who lived in Beirut.
Due to childhood illnesses, Osama's reproductive organs remained underdeveloped. The American simply ridiculed him on their first night. Since then, bin Laden has taken four wives and fathered two dozen children, but has never gotten rid of his complexes.
Peaceful bin Ladens send wives and children to Switzerland
One way or another, since the beginning of the 80s, the bin Laden clan began to avoid Osama like the plague. “Now we are very, very distant relatives. Leave us alone! - one of the inhabitants of Ibrahim bin Laden’s house shouted into the telephone receiver. After the death of his father, Osama received his share of the inheritance of 80 million dollars. Having devoted himself to jihad, he did not forget about business, increasing his capital to 300 million.
Now, just in case, Boston police have set up 24-hour security at a luxury million-dollar apartment building overlooking the city's port. In the city from which Osama's people hijacked the two sacrificed planes, his sister and two brothers live. Two nephews, studying at the prestigious law school at Harvard University, also come here. Several years ago, Harvard accepted a $2 million donation from the bin Laden clan to research the history of Islam.
Law-abiding Americans who have the misfortune of being relatives of the main enemy of their country could recall that it was the US authorities in the 80s, in the name of the fight against communism, who nurtured Osama, raised, armed and trained his fanatical thugs who have now woven a worldwide terrorist network. But the peaceful bin Ladens only fearfully hide behind the walls of luxurious American mansions and, waiting for the resumption of flights, send their numerous wives and children abroad to calm Switzerland until better times.
By the way. Are they looking for a replacement for “Terrorist No. 1”?
Maxim Chikin
If the operation to physically destroy Osama bin Laden is successful, this will not mean that his terrorist organization will be defeated. Who can lead it after Osama? Some experts believe that his son Mohammed bin Laden will become the leader of al-Qaeda. Others name 50-year-old Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri as a possible successor. At one time he headed the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and in 1998 his movement joined al-Qaeda. Al-Zawahiri was involved in the assassination of Egyptian President Sadat and many high-profile terrorist attacks by Muslim extremists.
Al-Zawahiri, a former doctor, left Egypt in 1986 and lived in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Sudan and Afghanistan. In 1999, he was sentenced to death in absentia in Cairo for bombing the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan. The American court also accuses him of participating in terrorist attacks against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Original of this material
© Lenta.Ru, 09/26/01, “The Russian mafia is helping bin Laden create a nuclear bomb”
US security services have reported that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group al-Qaeda are purchasing components from the Russian mafia to create weapons of mass destruction, The Washington Post reports.
American experts believe that bin Laden's group has well-established contacts with Russian criminal groups that purchase drugs from him and help launder money.
According to some reports, these groups may also supply bin Laden's terrorists with the components necessary to create nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons.
It is believed that somewhere in Afghanistan, bin Laden has a secret laboratory in which work is underway to create nuclear weapons. It is also known that bin Laden's people are conducting experiments to produce sarin, a substance with a nerve agent.
Meanwhile, there is no evidence yet that bin Laden actually has nuclear, chemical or bacteriological weapons of mass destruction.
Note: According to information received from Omar bin Laden, his father's name is misspelled. Should write: Ossama Binladen. However, in this edition we still decided to use the spelling already accepted in print.
Parents
Alliya Ghanem
Osama's mother, Alliya Ghanem, was born in 1943 in Latakia (Syria). After her marriage to Mohammed bin Laden in 1956, she moved to Saudi Arabia, where their only child, Osama, was born on February 15, 1957, in Riyadh. When Osama was only a year old, Alliya became pregnant for the second time, but lost the child after an accident.
Soon Alliya asked her husband for a divorce. She married Mohammed al-Attas for the second time.
Alliya and Muhammad al-Attas gave birth to four children in their marriage - three sons and a daughter. Osama lived with his mother, stepfather, three brothers and a sister in the Mashraf area of Jeddah, where he grew up and where he brought his cousin and first wife, Najwa.
They say that Alliya, as a loving mother, still cannot accept the fact that her son is connected with the events of September 11, 2001. Until the beginning of 2009, Alliya and Muhammad lived in the very house where Osama was born.
Mohammed bin Laden
Although there are no official birth records for Mohammed bin Laden, Osama's father is believed to have been born between 1906 and 1908 in Rubat, in Hadhramaut province, in southeastern Yemen. In addition, Omar bin Laden said that, according to his father, the real name of their family was al-Qahtani. However, Muhammad bin Laden has not officially registered this name anywhere, and no document or other written source mentions this name.
After the unexpected death of his father, Muhammad and his younger brother, Abdullah, settled in Saudi Arabia, where Muhammad managed to win the trust of the king of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz al-Saud. With the support of the king, Mohammed soon founded the Saudi bin Laden company, which grew into one of the largest companies in the country, and later began operating in other countries in the region. Muhammad bin Laden married many times and fathered a large number of children: twenty-two sons and thirty-three daughters. Mohammed bin Laden died in 1967 from injuries received in a plane crash.
Muhammad al-Attas
Osama's stepfather is from Jeddah, from an old family of traders. Omar says Muhammad is a gentle and kind man who is loved and respected by everyone who knows him, including his stepson, Osama.
Najwa Ghanem
Najwa Ghanem was born in 1958 in Latakia (Syria), in the family of Ibrahim and Nabiha. Before his marriage to Nabiha, Ibrahim was married five times, but these were monogamous unions. From previous marriages there was only one son, Ali. Nabiha became the sixth and last wife. Ibrahim and Nabiha had five children. They were born in the following order: Naji, Najwa, Nabil, Ahmed and Leila. Najwa married her cousin Osama in 1974.
Najwa and Osama had eleven children. Najwa moved with her husband from Saudi Arabia to Sudan and then to Afghanistan. Between 7 and 9 September 2001, Najwa left Afghanistan. She now lives with her family in Syria.
Khadija Sharif
Khadija is nine years older than her ex-husband, Osama. A highly educated woman from the family of the Prophet Muhammad, she worked as a teacher before marrying Osama bin Laden in 1983. After having three children and moving to Sudan, she divorced her husband and returned to Saudi Arabia, where she still lives. Her eldest son, Ali, is in prison in Saudi Arabia - he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison on charges of illegal possession of weapons.
Hariya Sabar
Hariya also comes from a family that traces its roots back to the Prophet Muhammad. She received a specialty as a teacher for deaf and mute children. In 1985 she became Osama's third wife. She gave birth to her only son, Hamza, and remained with her husband in Afghanistan after the events of September 11, 2001. It is unknown whether Hariya and her son survived the American bombings in October and November 2001.
Siham Sabar
Siham also comes from a family of descendants of the prophet, the sister of Saad, a Saudi soldier who fought under Osama and was married to one of Osama's nieces. Siham became Osama's fourth wife in 1987 and bore him four children. Siham remained in Afghanistan with her husband and children after the events of September 11, 2001. Nothing is known about the further fate of Siham and her children.
Fifth wife
Osama's fifth marriage took place in Khartoum, Sudan, shortly after divorcing his second wife and returning to Saudi Arabia. However, according to Najwa bin Laden, it was a non-marital marriage and was annulled after forty-eight hours.
Amal al-Sahad
Amal became the wife of Osama bin Laden, presumably at the age of seventeen, in late 2000 or early 2001. Najwa knows very little about her. The wedding took place in Kandahar. Amal gave birth to a daughter, Safiya. No one knows whether she returned to Yemen with her child before September 11, 2001, or whether she remained in Afghanistan during the American bombing and then fled with her husband to Pakistan.
Children from Najwa Ghanem
Najwa's first child and her eldest son were born in Jeddah in 1976. As the eldest son, Abdullah occupied the most honorable position among the children of Osama bin Laden. As a teenager, Abdullah expressed his own opinions regarding what was happening in the family and events affecting the lives of his loved ones. Abdullah left his family in Khartoum in 1995, when he went to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and married his cousin, Tiaiba Mohammed bin Laden. Abdullah chose to stay in Jeddah with his wife and children, where he founded a small business. He now lives a quiet life, avoids the press and publicity, but remains close to his mother and often visits her in Syria.
Abdul-Rahman
Najwa's second child and second son was born in Jeddah in 1978. According to Omar, his brother Abdul Rahman was a special child and experienced difficulties in personal development. Abdul-Rahman left Afghanistan with his mother in September 2001. Since then, Abdul-Rahman has failed to regain his Saudi citizenship. Without official documents, he still has difficulty finding a job and cannot get married. Abdul-Rahman is a talented horseman, he lives alone with his mother in Latakia, avoiding publicity, like his older brother.
Najwa's third child and third son was born in Jeddah in 1979. Osama prevented Saad and his Sudanese wife from leaving Afghanistan with Najwa in 2001. Since then, there have been reports that Saad was arrested while passing through Iran and may be being held in prison in that country, although there is no hard evidence of his imprisonment. Recently there were reports that Saad had been released and left Iran, but no one, including Najwa, knows exactly what the fate of her third son is.
Najwa's fourth child and fourth son was born in Jeddah in 1981. Of all the sons, he had the closest relationship with his mother. He rebelled most decisively against his father and his jihad. Omar even dreams of creating a peaceful movement to oppose his father's violent jihad, in order to find a more reasonable way to overcome cultural and religious differences.
Since leaving Afghanistan for the last time in 2001, Omar has endured many hardships. He managed to regain his Saudi citizenship, but found it difficult to find his place in the business world. Omar married and had a son, Ahmed. While traveling in Egypt, Omar met an Englishwoman, Jane Felix-Brown. They fell in love and this ended the first marriage. During this time, Omar became even more passionate about the struggle for peace: he calls for an end to violence and dreams that, thanks to his activities, the name bin Laden will no longer be associated with terrorism. Wanting to join his wife in the UK, where he believed it would be easier for him to start a peace movement, Omar applied for a spousal visa. However, since the visa application included a request for political asylum, problems arose. Eventually, thanks to the generosity of the Qatari government, Omar and his wife settled there while awaiting their visa. As of this writing, Omar has returned to Saudi Arabia, the country he loves most.
Najwa's fifth child and fifth son was born in Jeddah in 1983. In 2001, Osman married the daughter of Egyptian Mohammed Shawki al-Islambuli, a senior member of Sheikh Omar's al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya group, which is closely linked to al-Qaeda. Osman's father-in-law, along with 107 other defendants, was charged in 1997 by the Egyptian government with plotting to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak as well as other Egyptian leaders. Al-Islambuli's brother, Khalid, is notorious as the main perpetrator of the assassination of President Anwar Sadat on October 6, 1981. Khalid shouted, “Death to Pharaoh,” as he ran up to Sadat to shoot him. Khalid was arrested, found guilty and executed in April 1982.
Osama did not allow Osman and his wife to leave Afghanistan with Najwa. There were rumors that Osman fled Afghanistan in October-November 2001, during the bombings, along with Dr. al-Zawahiri, but there is no hard evidence. Najwa does not know the fate of her fifth son and his wife.
Muhammad
Najwa's sixth child and sixth son was born in Jeddah in 1985. Omar said Muhammad was his father's second choice to succeed him as head of al-Qaeda (he was the first to succeed him before he told his father he disapproved of violence). Omar also says that of all the brothers, Muhammad is the only one who has the necessary qualities to take an important position in his father's organization. Having married Abu Hafs's daughter in 2000, Muhammad was the happiest of all the sons to remain with his father in Afghanistan.
Najwa's seventh child and first daughter was born in Medina in 1987. After Omar chose her groom, Osama arranged Fatima's marriage to a Saudi militant named Muhammad, whom she married in 1999 at the age of twelve. Her husband was killed in American bombings in October - November 2001. Najwa knows nothing about her daughter's fate, but hopes that she is hiding in remote areas of Pakistan with her father.
Najwa's eighth child and second daughter was born in Jeddah in 1990. Iman was only eleven when her mother left Afghanistan. Osama refused Najwa's request to take his young daughter with him. Najwa knows nothing about her fate, only speculates that if she survived the 2001 bombings, then her father arranged her marriage after reaching puberty. And then, most likely, she lives in Pakistan next to her father and husband.
Ladin (Bakr)
Najwa's ninth child and seventh son was born in Jeddah in 1993 - Najwa, who then lived in Khartoum, specially flew to Saudi Arabia to give birth to him. Ladin was just seven when Najwa left Afghanistan in 2001. Osama did not allow her to take her youngest son with her. Najwa knows nothing of his fate.
Najwa's tenth child and third daughter, Rukhaiya, was born in Jalalabad, Afghanistan in 1997. Because she was so young, Osama allowed Najwa to take her with him when she left Afghanistan. Rukhayya lives with her mother in Syria.
The eleventh child and fourth daughter was born in Latakia, Syria, in 1999. The girl was named Noor in honor of Osama's half-sister, who died a few years earlier. Osama allowed Najwa to take her along with Rukhayyah and Abdul Rahman. Nour lives with his mother in Syria.