ALIA Ghanem, the mother of Osama Bin Laden has revealed her anguish at the way her son’s life turned out.

In an interview with Guardian, Ghamen said; “My life was very difficult because he was so far away from me. He was a very good kid and he loved me so much.”

Ghamen alleged that her firstborn son changed during his days in the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, where he studied Economics.

“The people at university changed him. He became a different man.  He was a very good child until he met some people who pretty much brainwashed him in his early 20s. You can call it a cult. They got money for their cause. I would always tell him to stay away from them, and he would never admit to me what he was doing because he loved me so much.”

Did she ever suspect Osama would become a jihadist? Ghamen said, “It never crossed my mind.”

She went on to reveal, how sad she was that her son had become a jihadist,”I did not want any of this to happen. Why would he throw it all away like that?”

Ghanem moved to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1950s, where the family is still based and Osama was born in Riyadh in 1957.

She divorced his father three years later, and married al-Attas, with whom, she had two other sons. – Punch

– Aug. 3, 2018 @ 18:47 GMT |