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The Real bin Laden, an Oral History By PETER L BERGEN Osama bin Laden has been seen largely as a symbol, rather than as a man. Now an unprecedented portrait emerges from interviews with bin Laden's family and inner circle. In an excerpt from his new book, the author reveals the influences that led a privileged young Saudi to form his own army and eventually take advantage of what he saw as inevitable: the US invasion of Iraq Excerpted from The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader, by Peter L Bergen, to be published this month by Free Press; At a 2002 press conference, President Bush remarked that Osama bin Laden was "a person who's now been marginalized." Some have even joked that bin Laden is, in fact, Bin Forgotten. Far from being marginalized, al-Qaeda's leader continues to exert considerable authority over the global jihadist movement, which he had a large role in creating. It's not simply that each day that bin Laden remains a free man is a morale booster for his followers around the world, but also that al-Qaeda's leader continues to supply the overall strategy for his organization's actions and for the broader ideological movement it has spawned. Since the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden has released around 20 statements on video or audiotape, which have reached audiences of tens of millions via the BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, and other television networks, and which have had a direct effect on world events. The attacks in London in July that killed 56--including the four suicide bombers--were a response to bin Laden's repeated calls to fight countries participating in the coalition in Iraq, as were the attacks in Madrid a year earlier that killed 191. An indicator of bin Laden's continued influence is that in 2004 the most feared insurgent commander in Iraq, the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pledged his allegiance to al-Qaeda's leader. For millions of Muslims around the world, bin Laden remains an inspirational figure. A worldwide opinion poll taken by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2004 found that he is viewed favorably by large percentages in Pakistan (65 percent), Jordan (55 percent), and Morocco (45 percent)--all key US allies in the war on terrorism. Despite his impact on history, bin Laden remains shrouded in a fog of myth, propaganda, and half-truths. For eight years I have been interviewing people close to him and gathering documents in order to fill out the picture of this mysterious man. Some questions I have attempted to answer: What is he really like? Was bin Laden ever associated with or sympathetic to Saddam Hussein? What is his significance today, and his possible legacy? I THE MAN Osama bin Laden grew up during the 1960s and 1970s in Jidda, a port on the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia, 30 miles from Mecca. He came of age as the Muslim world was experiencing an awakening known as the Sahwa. This peaked in 1979 with a series of seismic events that profoundly influenced bin Laden and other future members of al-Qaeda: the overthrow of the Shah of Iran by the cleric Ayatollah Khomeini; the armed takeover of Islam's holy of holies, the mosque in Mecca, by Saudi militants;
Then God blessed him and bestowed on him an honor that no other building contractor has known. He built the holy Mecca mosque and at the same time--because of God's blessings to him--he built the holy mosque in Medina.
He was not with his father much, because his father died when he was 10 years old. He was very busy--a lot of children, a lot of houses--so he just met them officially. he's the only child from his mother and Muhammad bin Laden. Brian Fyfield-Shayler, a British citizen who lived in Saudi Arabia and taught English to a number of the bin Laden boys: All the sons are very good-looking. Since his father never had more than four wives at any one time, he was constantly divorcing the third and the fourth and taking in new ones.
two-thirds of the way back on the window side that looked out onto sports fields and playing grounds. First of all, I would have noticed because of his name, because of the family, and, of course, when you walked into a class of anyone of his age, he was literally outstanding because he was taller than his contemporaries, and so he was very noticeable.
A relative of the bin Laden family: Salem was a unique individual by any standard. He played guitar--60s hits like "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" He acted as sort of a court jester to King Fahd and was part of Fahd's inner circle. One time he buzzed the king's camp in the desert with one of his planes, which went down badly, but he was always taken back into the fold. Salem took control of the business beginning in '73-'74. If King Fahd wanted a palace built, Salem would build it for him. This raises the question of how much money Osama bin Laden inherited from his family. Certainly far less than the $200 million or more mentioned in the media after 9/11. In fact, according to someone designated by the family to speak to me, bin Laden benefited from the distribution of his father's estate according to Sharia law, which says that sons receive twice as much as daughters. However, with 54 children, even Muhammad bin Laden's vast fortune did not go too far. Until Osama's family cut him off, in 1994, he had probably received something like $20 million. Christina Akerblad, former owner of the Hotel Astoria in the town of Falun, Sweden, recalling how in 1970 Salem bin Laden, in his mid-20s, and his younger brother Osama paid a visit: They came with a big Rolls-Royce, and it was forbidden to park the car outside the building in this street.
for every day and every hour you are staying outside this hotel, but they said, "Oh, it doesn't matter--it's so funny to go to the police station and to talk with the police. They had so much money they didn't know how much money they had. I asked them how they had managed to come to Sweden with this enormous Rolls-Royce. They slept in one bed and on the other bed they had their bags. On Sunday, I had no cleaner at the hotel, so I took care of the room myself, and I was shocked because in the big bag they had lots of white, expensive shirts from Dior and Yves Saint Laurent.
Khaled Batarfi, three years younger than bin Laden, met him when Osama was in his teens and they lived next door to each other in Jidda: I was the soccer captain even though Osama was older than me. Because he was tall, he used to play forward to use his head and put in the goals.
So Osama was different, but then, he was different in a quiet way. He would bother his brothers sometimes for looking at the maid or things like that. Of course, he woke them for prayers in the morning, and that was good--nobody complained. But sometimes he was kind of upset if something is not done in an Islamic way. "Don't wear short sleeves, don't do this, don't do that."
And then he went to the university and I saw less of him. Jamal Khalifa, recalling his years with bin Laden at Jidda's King Abdul Aziz University: In '76, I met Osama. At that time we were religious and very much conservative. Of course, no girls--don't even talk about it--and no photographs. I was photographed in high school, but when I became religious I threw everything away.
polygamy, and we recalled our fathers, how they practiced polygamy. We found that they were practicing it in a wrong way, where they married and divorced, married and divorced--a lot of wives. Some of those practicing polygamy will, if they marry the second one, neglect the first one--not the Islamic way at all. And we look at polygamy as solving a social problem, especially when it's confirmed that there are more women than men in the society. It's not fun, it's not a matter of just having women with you to sleep with--it's a solution for a problem.
The only difference which set him apart from me and others, he was more religious, more literal, more fundamentalist. Even though he comes from a rich family, he lives in a very s...
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