Bin Laden always good as a child: Mother

For the first time, Osama bin Laden’s mother has given an interview.  Alia Ghanem, the mother of the most wanted terrorist of the 2000s lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.  She is in her 70s.

Laden shook the US in 2001 when he attacked the WTC centers in New York.  He became a notorious figure worldwide.  He became a household name in India overnight. The Ladens belong to one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia, whose family owns a construction empire and has relations with the Saudi’s power establishment.

Talking about her son, Laden’s mother says that he was always good as a child but was brainwashed by a Muslim Brotherhood leader in his early 20s. “You can call it a cult. They got money for their cause,” she says. His mother always used to dissuade Laden from pursuing the cult.  However, the future terrorist continued to do what he wanted, secretly.

He participated in the Afghanistan-Russia war in the 1980s on Af’s side.  During this phase, his mother was proud of her son.  The war was seen as a legitimate one by many.

While Laden’s mother describes him as a good person, his brothers say that she is not objective in her assessment of the terrorist.  “We always felt ashamed of him,” they say.