JEDDAH/WASHINGTON, 20 March — Osama Bin Laden’s half brother told CNN yesterday that the Al-Qaeda leader is not only alive, but does not suffer from a kidney disease that requires dialysis. Ahmad Muhammad Al-Attas also said that his brother Osama was not behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
“He is my brother. I know him. I lived with him for years. I know how much he fears God,” Ahmad said in an interview with CNN. Ahmad and Bin Laden have the same mother but different fathers as Osama’s mother married Ahmad’s father, Muhammad Al-Attas, after the death of Muhammad Awad Bin Laden. Osama was brought up at Al-Attas house. During the CNN interview, Ahmad did not disclose his family name.
Ahmad said that their mother learned through a telephone call three weeks ago that Osama was well, without revealing the source of the call. However, Ahmad affirmed that the call was true and that his brother Osama is fine.
Informed Bin Laden family sources told Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, that Ahmad’s statement did not represent the family’s views. “It’s his personal opinion,” the sources said. They also pointed out that Ahmad had no relation with the Bin Laden Group’s activities.
Ahmad, 36, owns an advertising and production company as well as a Jeddah-based contracting company. He told CNN that he visited Bin Laden a few times in Sudan, and last year in Afghanistan. He said he was “very worried” about his brother after the United States declared him a wanted man, but that his concerns have since eased.
“It’s easier now. We’ve gotten used to it. We know any minute it’s possible that we will hear some bad news,” he told CNN. Ahmad condemned the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed nearly 3,000 people.
“No Muslim would accept this,” he told CNN. And there is “no way,” he said, that Osama could have been involved. Ahmad said he and his mother last saw Osama at the wedding of one of his sons in Afghanistan in January 2001. It was there, he added, that Osama told him that reports saying he needed kidney dialysis were false.
