RIYADH, 18 March 2003 — The mother of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden denied in remarks published yesterday that she has links with the terror network, but said she was concerned about her son.
“I have no links with Al-Qaeda organization,” the mother of the world’s most wanted man the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, a sister publication of Arab News.
“I am concerned about my son and his news,” said the mother, who is now married to a second man, Mohammad ibn Omar Al-Attas, and leading a normal life in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
She has three sons and one daughter from her second marriage, all of them married and living in Jeddah, the mother said, adding that a number of Osama’s children were living with her “under my personal care.”
She denied that restrictions had been imposed on her movements inside and outside the Kingdom and reports that her properties had been confiscated.
Bin Laden’s elder son Abdullah, his wife and several sons and daughters have been living normally in Jeddah since arriving from Sudan in 1996.
Saudi Arabia withdrew Osama’s citizenship in 1994 over his activities.
The Jeddah-based Binladen family, one of the wealthiest in the Kingdom, has condemned the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington blamed on Osama.
