My Son, Osama: The al-Qaida Leader's Mother Speaks For The First Time

Osama bin Laden’s mother, Alia Ghanem, talks to a journalist for the first time. The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent managed to set up an interview in her home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after getting the permission from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

After several days of discussion, she, her two other sons and her second husband are willing to talk. Ghanem divorced Bin Laden’s father after three years of marriage. He went on to have 54 children with at least 11 wives. The Bin Laden clan are one of the kingdom’s wealthiest families.

Ghanem grew up in Syria, remarkably in a family of Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam – something Bin Laden wouldn’t have been proud of (they are considered by many Muslims to be heretics). She talks about her childhood, Syrian cuisine, the weather.

About her son, she says:

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.

More interesting than her words are the photos taken by David Levene in her home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Her remarkably colourful patterned dress and pink headscarf – so different from how her famous son and his friends thought is right – her thick layers of make-up and the typical Arab home furnishings with a lot of gold and the mandatory tissue box.

Bin Laden’s half-brothers are more critical:

I don’t think I’m very proud of him as a man. He reached superstardom on a global stage, and it was all for nothing.

When their mother has left the room, they say it’s important to remember that a mother is rarely an objective witness.

She remains in denial about Osama. She loved him so much and refuses to blame him. Instead, she blames those around him. She only knows the good boy side, the side we all saw. She never got to know the jihadist side.