LAHORE: In a 1998 interview to the Qatar-based Arabic-language news network, Al Jazeera Television, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden revealed he had lived the initial part of his life with three stepbrothers and one stepsister; writes Sabir Shah. On air since November 1996, Al Jazeera television had initially gained fame by broadcasting one of the first interviews of Osama bin Laden which was translated and reproduced later by “The Guardian” on October 8, 2001 and “The New Yorker” on December 12, 2005.
In his original interview to Al Jazeera, Osama had revealed that his birth date was March 10, 1957, besides disclosing the lesser-known fact that his parents (Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden and Hamida al-Attas or Alia Ghanem) divorced after his birth, following which his mother had gone on to marry a man named Muhammad al-Attas, who worked at her former husband’s company.
In this interview, Osama stated that his mother had four children from her second husband, Muhammad al-Attas, and that his natural father had more than 50 children by more than a dozen wives. Osama had himself married six times.
According to Osama, his natural father had died on September 3, 1967, when twin-engine Beechcraft, flown by an American chartered pilot, crashed as it attempted to land on a mountain airstrip in Saudi Arabia’s Asir province.
Osama’s eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, had also died in a plane crash near Texas State in 1988, when his plane rammed into power lines.
Measuring between 6 ft. 4 inches and 6 ft. 6 inches in height and weighing about 165 pounds, according to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the left-handed Osama had studied Economics and Business Administration at King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah.