Hamida al-Attas
Last updatedHamida al-Attasحميدة العطاس | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1934 (age 88–89) |
| Spouses |
|
| Children | Osama bin Laden |
| Relatives |
|
Hamida al-Attas (Arabic : حميدة العطاس, Ḥamīdah al-Attas), born A'alia Ghanem (Arabic : عالية غانم; [4] 1934), [5] is the mother of the deceased al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden.
Contents
Biography
Hamida al-Attas came from a Syrian family of citrus farmers, with two brothers and another sister, living in two small coastal villages, Omraneya and Babryon, outside the port of Latakia. [2] : 72 [3] [6] [7] [8] [9] : 55 She grew up in a family of Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam. [10] At age 14, she married Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden in Latakia in 1956 and moved to Saudi Arabia with her husband. [2] : 72 [4] She was the tenth wife of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. [11] Her husband had many wives and he divorced most of them, as having only four wives at once was in accordance with Muslim law. [12] It has been reported that she was a concubine rather than wife of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. [12] She was more cosmopolitan than Mohammed's first three Saudi wives. [13]
Osama bin Laden was her only child with Mohammad bin Laden, and they divorced soon after his birth in 1957; Osama was somewhere between the 17th and the 22nd of the 24 sons which Mohammad would sire. [14] [15] She often spent summers at her brother Naji's home in Latakia and Osama went with her until he was 17. [4] In 1974, when Osama was 17, he married her brother's daughter, 14-year-old Najwa Ghanem, who had been promised to him. [4]
Hamida later married Mohammed al-Attas, [9] [16] a Hadhrami administrator in the fledgling Bin Laden empire, when Osama was four or five; [2] : 73 they had three sons and a daughter [1] including Ahmad Mohammed. [12] Osama took an active part in raising his half siblings. [2] : 74
It has been reported that, in the spring or summer of 2001, Osama bin Laden placed a phone call to his mother and in a "very brief conversation" told her "that he [will] not be able to call again for a long time," adding that "great events are about to take place." Following the September 11 attacks, Hamida has said "I disapprove of the ambitions the press ascribe to him, but I am satisfied with Osama, and I pray to God that He will guide him along the right path." [11] She later stated "My life was very difficult because he was so far away from me. [Osama] was a very good kid and he loved me so much." She continued "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." The person Osama met in college was Abdullah Azzam. [10]
See also
Related Research Articles
Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta was an Egyptian terrorist hijacker. He was the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks and served as the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which he crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the coordinated attacks. Having turned 33 just ten days earlier, he was the oldest of the 19 hijackers who took part in the mission.
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was a Saudi-born militant who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda from 1988 until his death. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various other countries.
Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh is a Yemeni citizen currently being held by the U.S. as an enemy combatant detainee at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He is accused of being a "key facilitator for the September 11 attacks" in 2001 in the United States.
Ayman al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian-born militant and physician who served as the second general emir of al-Qaeda from June 2011 until his death in July 2022.
Said Bahaji, was a citizen of Germany, electrical engineer, and an alleged member of the Hamburg cell that provided money and material support to the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks.
The Bin Laden family, also spelled Bin Ladin, is a wealthy family intimately connected with the innermost circles of the Saudi royal family. It is the namesake and controlling shareholder of Saudi Binladin Group, a multinational construction firm. Following the September 11 attacks, the family became the subject of media attention and scrutiny through the activities of Osama bin Laden, the former head of al-Qaeda.
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah was a high-ranking Egyptian member of al-Qaeda. He has been described as al-Qaeda's most experienced operational planner and was said to be the second-in-command in the organization at the time of his death.
The Hamburg cell or Hamburg terror cell was, according to U.S. and German intelligence agencies, a group of radical Islamists based in Hamburg, Germany, that included students from different Arab countries who eventually came to be key operatives in the 9/11 attacks. Important members included Mohamed Atta, who led the four hijacking teams in 2001 and piloted American Airlines Flight 11; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who conspired with the other three members but was unable to enter the United States; Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted United Airlines Flight 175; and Ziad Jarrah, who piloted United Airlines Flight 93 and failed to hit a target in Washington, D.C.. Other members included Said Bahaji, Zakariya Essabar, Mounir el-Motassadeq, and Abdelghani Mzoudi.
Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was a Yemeni-born Saudi billionaire businessman working primarily in the construction industry. He founded what is today the Saudi Binladin Group and became the wealthiest non-royal Saudi, establishing the wealth and prestige of the Bin Laden family. He was the son of Awad bin Laden and the father of terrorist Osama bin Laden.
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists took control of four commercial aircraft and used them as suicide weapons in a series of four coordinated acts of terrorism to strike the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and an additional target in Washington, D.C. Two aircraft hit the World Trade Center while the third hit the Pentagon. A fourth plane did not arrive at its target, but crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt. The intended target is believed to have been the United States Capitol. As a result, 2,977 victims were killed, making it the deadliest foreign attack on U.S. soil, exceeding Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, which killed 2,335 members of the United States Armed Forces and 68 civilians. The effort was carefully planned by al-Qaeda, which sent 19 terrorists to take over Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 aircraft, operated by American Airlines and United Airlines.
Wafah Dufour is an American singer-songwriter, socialite, and model.
Saʻd bin ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin, better known as Saad bin Laden, was one of Osama bin Laden's sons. He continued in his father's footsteps by being active in Al Qaeda, and was being groomed to be his heir apparent. He was killed in an American drone strike in 2009.
Najwa Ghanem, is a Syrian woman who was the first wife and first cousin of Osama bin Laden, being the daughter of his mother's brother. She is also known as Um Abdallah.
Hamza bin Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, better known as Hamza bin Laden, was a Saudi Arabian-born member of Al-Qaeda. He was a son of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and, following his father's death in 2011 and the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, he was described as an emerging leader of the Al-Qaeda organization.
Osama bin Laden (1957–2011), a militant and founder of Al-Qaeda in 1988, believed Muslims should kill civilians and military personnel from the United States and allied countries until they withdrew support for Israel and withdrew military forces from Islamic countries. He was indicted in United States federal court for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and was on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Omar bin Osama bin Mohammed bin 'Awad bin Laden, better known as Omar bin Laden, is a Saudi artist, author, cultural ambassador, and businessman, and fourth-eldest son of Osama bin Laden, with his first cousin and first wife Najwa Ghanhem. He has been living in Normandy, France for several years.
Rashad Mohammed Saeed Ismael, also known as Abu Al-Fida, is a citizen of Yemen alleged to be a close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. According to The Times he worked with bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
At around 9:30 pm on September 11, 2001, George Tenet, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) told President George W. Bush and U.S. senior officials that the CIA's Counterterrorism Center had determined that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible for the September 11 attacks. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected the hijackers to al-Qaeda, a militant Salafist Islamist multi-national organization. In a number of video, audio, interview and printed statements, senior members of al-Qaeda have also asserted responsibility for organizing the September 11 attacks.
Mohammed Atef was a prominent military chief of al-Qaeda, and a deputy of Osama bin Laden, although Atef's role in the organization was not well known by intelligence agencies for years. He was killed in a US airstrike in November 2001.
References
- 1 2 "Osama brought up with three half brothers and a half sister". The News International . 8 May 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2018.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Wright, Lawrence (2006). The Looming Tower . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 9780307266088.
- 1 2 Comras, Victor D. (30 November 2010). Flawed Diplomacy: The United Nations & the War on Terrorism. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books. p. 36. ISBN 9781597974387.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Bar'el, Zvi (13 September 2002). "Qaida's Lebanese Hydra". Haaretz . Retrieved 31 January 2018.
- ↑ Bergen, Peter (2021). The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden. pp. x. ISBN 978-1-9821-7052-3.
- ↑ "Taking Out a Terrorist: The Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi". Anderson Cooper 360° (transcript). 8 June 2006. Retrieved 31 January 2018.