Thebin Laden family (Arabic:عائلة بن لادن,romanized: ʿāʾila bin Lādin), also spelledbin Ladin, is a wealthySaudi Arabian family intimately connected with the innermost circles of theSaudi royal family. It is the namesake and controlling shareholder of theSaudi Binladin Group, a multinational construction firm. Following theSeptember 11 attacks in 2001, the family became the subject of media attention and scrutiny due to the activities ofOsama bin Laden, the former head ofal-Qaeda; they had publicly disowned him in 1994.
The family traces its origins to Awad bin Laden from the village of al-Rubat, in the Wadi Doan of theTarim Valley,Hadramout governorate,Yemen.[1] Awad's son wasMohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1908–1967), a native of theHadhramaut region in easternYemen, who, like many otherHadharem, emigrated toSaudi Arabia prior toWorld War I. He set up a construction company and came toAbdul Aziz ibn Saud's attention throughconstruction projects, later being awarded contracts for major renovations inMecca. He made his initial fortune from exclusive rights to construct all mosques and other religious buildings not only in Saudi Arabia, but as far asIbn Saud's influence reached. Until his death, Mohammed had exclusive control over restorations at theJami Al-Aqsa inJerusalem. Soon, the bin Laden corporate network extended far beyond just construction sites.
Western intelligence officials estimate that all the relatives of the family may number as many as 600. In 1994, the bin Laden family disownedOsama bin Laden, and the Saudi government revoked his passport.[2] The Saudi government also stripped Osama of hiscitizenship[2] for publicly speaking out against the government for permitting U.S. troops to be based in Saudi Arabia in preparation for theGulf War (1990–1991).
The groupings of the bin Laden family, based on the nationalities of the wives, include the most prominent "Saudi group", a "Syrian group", a "Lebanese group", and an "Egyptian group". The Egyptian group employs 40,000 people, most likely the country's largest private foreign investor. Osama was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife,Hamida al-Attas,[3] who was of Syrian origin,[4] making Osama a member of the Syrian group.
Muhammed bin Awad bin Laden (1908–1967) was the family patriarch and founder; before World War I, Muhammed, originally poor and uneducated, emigrated fromHadhramaut, on the south coast of Yemen, to theRed Sea port ofJeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he began to work as a porter. Starting his own business in 1930, Muhammed built his fortune as a building contractor for the Saudi royal family during the 1950s. Married 22 times, with 54 children, his 17th child wasOsama bin Laden, who was the son of Hamida al-Attas (born in Syria), Muhammed’s tenth wife. The couple divorced soon after Osama was born, and Hamida was given in marriage to one of the executives of Muhammed's company around 1958.[3] In 1967, Muhammed was killed in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his pilot misjudged a landing.
Muhammad al-Attas is Osama's stepfather in whose household Osama was raised at Jeddah, and worked at the bin Laden company. The couple had four children in addition to Osama: three boys and a girl, Fatima Mohammed al-Attas.
Abdallah bin Laden is the brother of Mohammed and the uncle of Osama; headed theSaudi Binladin Group (SBG); died in Medina, March 21, 2002, at age 75.[5] He also had over 60 children and was married 6 times.
Salem bin Laden (1946–1988) attendedMillfield, the English boarding school. He took over the family empire in 1967 upon the death of his father; also an amateur rock guitarist in the 1970s. He married an English art student, Caroline Carey, whose half-brother, Ambrose, is the son of theMarquess of Queensberry. Salem died outsideSan Antonio, Texas in 1988, when an experimentalultralight plane that he was flying got tangled in power lines.
Tarek bin Laden (born 1947); once called "the personification of the dichotomy (conservatism and change) of Saudi Arabia".[6]
Hassan bin Laden, senior vice president of the SBG.
Yehia bin Laden, also active in the SBG; in 2001, owned 16 percent ofCambridge, MA-basedAceragen Inc..[7]
Mahrous bin Laden, implicated in theGrand Mosque Seizure carried out by dissidents against the Saudi ruling family at theMasjid al-Haram inMakkah on November 20, 1979. This event shook the Muslim world with the ensuing violence and the killing of hundreds at the holiest of Islamic sites. Trucks owned by the family were reported to have been used to smuggle arms into the tightly controlled city. The bin Laden connection was through the son of a Sultan of Yemen who had been radicalized by Syrian members of theMuslim Brotherhood. Mahrous was arrested for a time, but was not beheaded by the Saudi government alongside 63 others who were, with their public executions broadcast live on Saudi television. Later exonerated, he joined the family business and became manager of theMedina branch of the bin Laden enterprises and a member of the board.
Najwa Ghanem (born 1958), became the first wife of Osama in 1974. A first cousin, she was his mother's niece. She co-authoredGrowing Up bin Laden with her son Omar.
Shaikha bint Laden (born 1960), half-sister of Osama, marriedMohammed Jamal Khalifa. He was the founder ofBenevolence International Foundation, in thePhilippines in 1988. During this period, Khalifa is believed to have received large donations of cash from outside the country, some of which, intelligence officials suspect, may have been funneled to him byAl-Qaeda. He also ran the International Relations and Information Centre, by which embezzled money was funneled toRamzi Yousef. In 1993, his business cards were found in theJersey City, New Jersey apartment that Yousef stayed in while he was involved with the1993 World Trade Centre bombing plot. Khalifa was first arrested on December 14, 1994, inMountain View, California, placed in solitary confinement, and the contents of his luggage were logged and edited. In 1995, Khalifa was arrested in San Francisco on charges of violating United States immigration laws. He was detained while the Justice Department tried but failed to gather enough information to charge him in connection with suspected terrorist activities. Eventually, he was deported on May 5, 1995, toJordan, which had an outstanding warrant for him on charges stemming from the bombing of movie theaters inAmman in 1994, for which he had been under a possible death sentence, convicted in absentia. His conviction was later overturned in a new trial, which resulted in an acquittal. In 1996, Khalifa returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was again arrested after 9/11, but later released. He lived in Saudi Arabia and was assassinated in 2007 inMadagascar.
Yeslam bin Ladin (born 1950) studied in the 1970s at theUniversity of Southern California, in Los Angeles; settled inSwitzerland; became a Swiss citizen in 2001;Geneva-based head of the family's European holding company, theSaudi Investment Company; was scrutinized by Swiss and American investigators because of a financial stake he has in a Swiss aviation firm; he has claimed to not have had contact with Osama since 1981[9]
Shafig bin Laden, the half-brother of Osama, was a guest of honour at theCarlyle Group's Washington conference at theRitz-Carlton Hotel on September 11, 2001, and was among the 13 members of the family to leave the United States on September 19, 2001, aboard flight N521DB.[10][11][12][13][14]
Wafah Dufour (born 1975), daughter ofYeslam bin Laden, is an American model and aspiring singer-songwriter. She spent the early part of her life in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Dufour, her little sisters Najia (1981) and Noor (1987), her mother (1955) and her father (1950) then moved toGeneva, Switzerland. In 1988, her parents separated. She earned a law diploma at Geneva Law School (Switzerland) and later a master's degree fromColumbia Law School in the United States. She lived inManhattan until around the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, but was staying in Geneva for a summer holiday at the time of the attacks.
Abdullah Osama bin Laden (born 1976), son of Osama and Najwa. Although, as the eldest son his father originally showed him some favor, taking him into Afghanistan in 1984 when he was only eight, Abdullah later became disgusted with life in Sudan, moved back to Jiddah to marry his first cousin, refused to rejoin his father in Sudan, except for a brief, unpleasant visit, and never saw or communicated with his father again after 1995.[15] Abdullah resides in Jiddah, where he runs his own firm, called Fame Advertising;[3] he has been closely watched by the Saudi government, which restricted his travel from the kingdom after 1996, at least for a time; he stated that the media have misrepresented his father.[16]
Abdul Rahman bin Laden (born 1979), the second son of Osama and Najwa. As a child he was born withhydrocephalus, and his father took him to theUnited Kingdom for medical treatment. However, he refused to allow British surgeons to operate on the boy and tried to treat him himself using a folk remedy ofhoney. He ended up having anintellectual disability andautism.[17][18] As an adult he moved to Syria with his mother in 2011.[18]
Saad bin Laden (1979–2009) son of Osama and Najwa. An irrepressible chatterbox who sometimes blurted out intimate personal information, Saad was somewhat autistic, impulsive, unrestrained, anxious, easily confused, and thus completely unfit for clandestine action.[19] With all of Osama's other children, Saad accompanied Osama on his exile to Sudan from 1991 to 1996, and then to Afghanistan. In Sudan in 1998, he married Wafa', a Sudanese woman born of Yemeni parents.[20] In September 2001, Saad was sent away by his father with his father's other three wives and the younger children. In March 2002, they made their way into Iran at Zabol. As stated by Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, “As the oldest son present, Saad was nominally head of the Bin Laden family party, but given his mental issues his aunt, Osama’s wife Khairiah, took charge.”[21] Saad was erroneously blamed for the bombing of aTunisian synagogue on April 11, 2002 and then implicated in the May 12, 2003, suicide bombing inRiyadh, and theMorocco bombing four days later, all of which was impossible as he was neither personally able to order or command anything, and he was also held in Iran, mostly in prison-like conditions, for almost six and a half years, from March 2002 to August 2008.[22] Saad escaped[22] from Iran in August 2008[23] and fled to Pakistan,[23] where he wandered haplessly for eleven months hoping to find his father, who, however, did not want him to come, for fear he would reveal his hiding place.[24] Saad was later killed incidentally, without being specifically targeted, in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan on 17 July 2009.[25][26] Al-Qaeda leaderAyman al-Zawahiri confirmed Saad's death in a videotape three years later.[27][28]
Omar bin Laden (born 1981) son of Osama and Najwa; Omar accompanied Osama on his exile to Sudan from 1991 to 1996, and then to Afghanistan. He returned to Saudi Arabia after an apparent falling-out with his father over Omar's disagreement with violence. For a while, Omar ran his own company in Jeddah as a contractor. Omar has one son, Ahmed, by his ex-wife, whom he had divorced 3 times by 2006. In September 2006, he married Zaina and they are now said to be living in a secret location in Qatar. He is now reported to be living in Normandie,[29] France, with his wife.[30]
Mohammad bin Osama bin Laden (born 1983), the son of Osama and Najwa, married the daughter of al-Qaeda leaderMohammed Atef in January 2001, atKandahar, Afghanistan, with footage broadcast byAl-Jazeera, where three of Osama's step-siblings and Osama's mother were in attendance.
Hamza bin Laden (1989–2017/2019), also the son of Osama, was groomed to be Osama's heir following Saad's death.[26] On February 28, 2019, the U.S. State Department offered a reward of up to $1 million for information on Hamza bin Laden's whereabouts. The announcement described Hamza bin Laden as a "key leader" of Al-Qaeda who had released audio and video messages on the internet calling for attacks on the U.S. and its western allies to avenge his father's killing.[31] On July 31, 2019, it was reported that Hamza bin Laden was believed to have been killed in the first two years of thefirst Trump administration, which began on January 20, 2017.[32] On September 14, 2019, U.S.President Donald Trump confirmed that Hamza bin Laden was killed in a U.S. counter-terrorism operation in theAfghanistan/Pakistan region. Other details were not disclosed.[33]
Khaled bin Laden, son of Osama, was killed along with his father atAbbottabad, Pakistan, May 2, 2011.[34]
Abdul Aziz bin Laden, manages the SBG's Egyptian operations; ranked Number 2 in the 2006 UAE National Superstock Bike Championship.[35]
Mariah bin Laden, grandson of Osama. Not much else is known about him.
Around 13 members of the bin Laden family, alongside their associates and bodyguards, flew out of the United States on a chartered flight withRyan International Airlines (Ryan International Flight 441),[39] eight days after theSeptember 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a passenger manifest released on July 21, 2004.[40] The passenger list was obtained and released by SenatorFrank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who acquired it from officials at Boston'sLogan International Airport. None of the flights, domestic or international, took place before thereopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13 and the 9/11 Commission found "no evidence of a political intervention".[41]
Among the passengers with the bin Laden surname wereOmar Awad bin Laden, who had lived with Osama's son Abdallah Awad bin Laden, who was involved in forming the U.S. branch of theWorld Assembly of Muslim Youth in Alexandria, and Shafig bin Laden, a half brother of Osama's who was reportedly attending the annual investor conference of theCarlyle Group.[40] Also on board was Akberali Moawalla, an official with the investment company run byYeslam bin Ladin, another of Osama bin Laden's half brothers. Records show that a passenger, Kholoud Kurdi, lived in Northern Virginia with a bin Laden relative.[40]
The9/11 Commission found that the "FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United States on charter flights. The Saudi government was advised of and agreed to the FBI's requirements that passengers be identified and checked against various databases before the flights departed. The Federal Aviation Administration representative working in the FBI operations center made sure that the FBI was aware of the flights of Saudi nationals and was able to screen the passengers before they were allowed to depart."[41]
^Eric Alterman, Mark J. Green (2004).The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America.Penguin.ISBN9781101200810. RetrievedFebruary 22, 2014.The extremely influential Carlyle Group has arranged similar gatherings during the previous fourteen years, beneath the radar of most of the mass media, between former politicians like Bush, James Baker, John Major, former World Bank treasurer Afsaneh Masheyekhi, and interested parties looking for some extremely expensive, high-powered lobbying services. On September 11, 2001, the Group happened to be hosting a conference at a Washington hotel. Among the guest of honor: investor Shafig bin Laden, another brother to Osama.
^"The Carlyle Group: C for Capitalism".The Economist. June 26, 2003.Archived from the original on December 12, 2005. RetrievedFebruary 22, 2014.ON the day Osama bin Laden's men attacked America, Shafiq bin Laden, described as an estranged brother of the terrorist, was at an investment conference in Washington, DC, along with two people who are close to President George Bush: his father, the first President Bush, and James Baker, the former secretary of state who masterminded the legal campaign that secured Dubya's move to the White House.
^Ed Vulliamy (May 16, 2002)."Dark heart of the American dream".The Guardian.Archived from the original on September 17, 2008. RetrievedFebruary 22, 2014.On 11 September, while Al-Qaeda's planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Carlyle Group hosted a conference at a Washington hotel. Among the guests of honour was a valued investor: Shafig bin Laden, brother to Osama.
^Michel Chossudovsky (April 13, 2013)."Is Kissing a "State Sponsor of Terrorism" a "Terrorist Act"? Political Satire". NSNBC. Archived fromthe original on May 2, 2013. RetrievedFebruary 22, 2014.There is nothing wrong, therefore, in socialising and doing business with family members of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, including the late Salem bin Laden and Shafiq bin Laden of the Carlyle Group.
^Peter L. Bergen,The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2021, pp. 32, 64, 242; Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden and Jean Sasson,Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama’s Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010, pp. 77, 122, 127-128, 294.
^Wright, Lawrence (2011).The looming tower : Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11 (First Vintage books edition, [revised] ed.). New York.ISBN978-0-525-56436-2.OCLC761224415.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Bin Laden, bin Laden, and Sasson, pp. 63, 180, 231; Cathy Scott-Clark & Adrian Levy,The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight, New York: Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 21, 103, 324, 511.
^Bin Laden, bin Laden, and Sasson, 230-231, 234; Scott-Clark & Levy, 101.
