John O. Brennan Counterterrorism advisor to President Obama When did his time as a counterterrorism advisor to Obama begin? President Obama then appointed him to be his Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the President's What led to his appointment? In August 2009, Brennan criticized some Bush-administration anti-terror policies, Did he have a hand in any historically significant counterterrorism? Brennan was present in the Situation Room in May 2011 when the United States conducted the military operation What military operation was that? that killed Osama bin Laden. Did he receive any recognition or awards? said that using the second term, which means one who is struggling for a holy goal, gives "these murderers When did he cease to be in that role? In August 2009,
Was the search for Osama bin Laden already underway when he took on his position?
Was the search for Osama bin Laden already underway when Brennan took on the position of Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism?
In late 2008, Brennan was reportedly the top choice to become the next Director of the CIA in the incoming Obama administration. However, Brennan withdrew his name from consideration because of opposition to his CIA service under President George W. Bush and past public statements he had made in support of enhanced interrogation and the transfer of terrorism suspects to countries where they might be tortured (extraordinary rendition). President Obama then appointed him to be his Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, the President's chief counterterrorism advisor and a position that did not require Senate confirmation.  In August 2009, Brennan criticized some Bush-administration anti-terror policies, saying that waterboarding had threatened national security by increasing the recruitment of terrorists and decreasing the willingness of other nations to cooperate with the U.S. He also described the Obama administration's focus as being on "extremists" and not "jihadists". He said that using the second term, which means one who is struggling for a holy goal, gives "these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek" and suggests the US is at war with the religion of Islam.  In an early December 2009 interview with the Bergen Record, Brennan remarked, "the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities have to bat 1.000 every day. The terrorists are trying to be successful just once". At a press conference days after the failed Christmas Day bomb attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Brennan said U.S. intelligence agencies did not miss any signs that could have prevented the attempt but later said he had let the President down by underestimating a small group of Yemeni terrorists and not connecting them to the attempted bomber. Within two weeks after the incident, however, he produced a report highly critical of the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies, concluding that their focus on terrorist attempts aimed at U.S. soil was inadequate. In February 2010, he claimed on Meet the Press that he was tired of Republican lawmakers using national security issues as political footballs, and making allegations where they did not know the facts.  Brennan was present in the Situation Room in May 2011 when the United States conducted the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden. He called President Obama's decision to go forward with the mission one of the "gutsiest calls of any president in memory." In the aftermath of the operation, Brennan said that the U.S. troops in the raid had been "met with a great deal of resistance," and bin Laden had used a woman as a human shield. CANNOTANSWER
Brennan was present in the Situation Room in May 2011 when the United States conducted the military operation that killed Osama
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. The family became the subject of media attention and scrutiny through the activities of one of its members, Osama bin Laden, the former head of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, who is responsible for the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on U.S. government and commercial buildings.

Beginnings
The family traces its origins to Awad bin Laden from the village of al-Rubat, in the Wadi Doan of the Tarim Valley, Hadramout governorate, Yemen. Awad's son was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1908-1967). Mohammed bin Laden was a native of the Shafi'i (Sunni) Hadhramaut coast in southern Yemen, and emigrated to Saudi Arabia prior to World War I. He set up a construction company and came to Abdul Aziz ibn Saud's attention through construction projects, later being awarded contracts for major renovations in Mecca. He made his initial fortune from exclusive rights to construct all mosques and other religious buildings not only in Saudi Arabia, but as far as Ibn Saud's influence reached. Until his death, Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden had exclusive control over restorations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Soon, the bin Laden corporate network extended far beyond construction sites.

Mohammed's special intimacy with the monarchy was inherited by the younger bin Laden generation. Mohammed's sons attended Victoria College, Alexandria, Egypt. Their schoolmates included King Hussein of Jordan, Zaid Al Rifai, the Kashoggi brothers (whose father was one of the king's physicians), Kamal Adham (who ran the General Intelligence Directorate under King Faisal), present-day contractors Mohammed Al Attas, Fahd Shobokshi, Ghassan Sakr, and actor Omar Sharif.

When Mohammed bin Laden died in 1967, his son Salem bin Laden took over the family enterprises, until his own accidental death in 1988.

Family members
American and European intelligence officials estimate that all the relatives of the family may number as many as 600. In 1994, the bin Laden family disowned Osama bin Laden, and the Saudi government revoked his passport. The Saudi government also stripped Osama of his citizenship for publicly speaking out against the government for permitting U.S. troops to be based in Saudi Arabia in preparation for the 1991 Gulf War.

The groupings of the bin Laden family, based on the nationalities of the wives, include the most prominent "Saudi group", a "Syrian group", a "Lebanese group," and an "Egyptian group". The Egyptian group employs 40,000 people, most likely the country's largest private foreign investor. Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's eleventh wife, Hamida al-Attas, who was of Syrian origin, making Osama a member of the Syrian group.

First generation
 Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1908–1967) was the family patriarch and founder; before World War I, Mohammed, originally poor and uneducated, emigrated from Hadhramaut, on the south coast of Yemen, to the Red Sea port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he began to work as a porter. Starting his own business in 1930, Mohammed built his fortune as a building contractor for the Saudi royal family during the 1950s. Married 22 times, with 54 children, his 17th child was Osama bin Laden, who was the son of Hamida al-Attas (born in Syria), Mohammed's eleventh wife. The couple divorced soon after Osama was born, and Hamida was given in marriage to one of the executives of Mohammed's company around 1958. In 1967, Mohammed was killed in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his pilot misjudged a landing.
 Muhammad al-Attas is Osama's stepfather in whose household Osama was raised at Jeddah, and worked at the bin Laden company. The couple had four children in addition to Osama: three boys and a girl, Fatima Mohammed al-Attas.
Abdallah bin Laden is the brother of Mohammed and the uncle of Osama; headed the Saudi Binladin Group (SBG); died in Medina, March 21, 2002, at age 75. He also had over 60 children and was married 6 times.

Second generation
 Salem bin Laden (1946–1988) attended Millfield, the English boarding school. He took over the family empire in 1967 upon the death of his father; also an amateur rock guitarist in the 1970s. He married an English art student, Caroline Carey, whose half-brother, Ambrose, is the son of the Marquess of Queensberry. Salem died outside San Antonio, Texas in 1988, when an experimental ultralight plane that he was flying got tangled in power lines.
 Tarek bin Laden (born 1947); once called "the personification of the dichotomy (conservatism and change) of Saudi Arabia".
 Bakr bin Laden (born 1946) succeeded Salem as the chairman of the Saudi Binladin Group; major power broker in Jeddah.
 Hassan bin Laden, senior vice president of the SBG.
 Yehia bin Laden, also active in the SBG; in 2001, owned 16 percent of Cambridge, MA-based Hybridon, Inc.
 Mahrous bin Laden, implicated in the Grand Mosque Seizure carried out by dissidents against the Saudi ruling family at the Masjid al-Haram in Makka on November 20, 1979. This event shook the Muslim world with the ensuing violence and the killing of hundreds at the holiest of Islamic sites. Trucks owned by the family were reported to have been used to smuggle arms into the tightly controlled city. The bin Laden connection was through the son of a Sultan of Yemen who had been radicalized by Syrian members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mahrous was arrested for a time, but was not beheaded by the Saudi government alongside 63 others who were, with their public executions broadcast live on Saudi television. Later exonerated, he joined the family business and became manager of the Medina branch of the bin Laden enterprises and a member of the board.
 Osama bin Laden (born 1957 in Saudi Arabia, died May 2, 2011, in Pakistan) planned the September 11 attacks against the United States. His death was announced on May 2, 2011. He was one of the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists.
 Najwa Ghanem (born 1959), became the first wife of Osama in 1974. A first cousin, she was his mother's niece. She co-authored Growing Up bin Laden with her son Omar.
 (Shaikha) Mohammed bin Laden (born 1960), half-sister of Osama, married Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. He was the founder of Benevolence International Foundation, in the Philippines in 1988. During this period, Khalifa is believed to have received large donations of cash from outside the country, some of which, intelligence officials suspect, may have been funneled to him by Al-Qaeda. He also ran the International Relations and Information Centre, by which embezzled money was funneled to Ramzi Yousef. In 1993, his business cards were found in the Jersey City, New Jersey apartment that Yousef stayed in while he was involved with the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing plot. Khalifa was first arrested on December 14, 1994, in Mountain View, California, placed in solitary confinement, and the contents of his luggage were logged and edited. In 1995, Khalifa was arrested in San Francisco on charges of violating United States immigration laws. He was detained while the Justice Department tried but failed to gather enough information to charge him in connection with suspected terrorist activities. Eventually, he was deported on May 5, 1995, to Jordan, which had an outstanding warrant for him on charges stemming from the bombing of movie theaters in Amman in 1994, for which he had been under a possible death sentence, convicted in absentia. His conviction was later overturned in a new trial, which resulted in an acquittal. In 1996, Khalifa returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was again arrested after 9/11, but later released. He lived in Saudi Arabia and was assassinated in 2007 in Madagascar.
 Yeslam bin Ladin (born 1950) studied in the 1970s at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles; settled in Switzerland; became a Swiss citizen in 2001; Geneva-based head of the family's European holding company, the Saudi Investment Company; was scrutinized by Swiss and American investigators because of a financial stake he has in a Swiss aviation firm; he has claimed to not have had contact with Osama since 1981
 Abdullah bin Laden (born 1965); a graduate of Harvard Law School, Abdullah lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts on 9/11, and was the only Bin Ladin relative to remain in the United States, staying in Boston for almost a month following the attacks.
 Shafig bin Laden, the half-brother of Osama, was a guest of honour at the Carlyle Group's Washington conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on September 11, 2001, and was among the 13 members of the bin Ladin family to leave the United States on September 19, 2001 aboard flight N521DB.

Third generation
 Wafah Dufour (born 1975), daughter of Yeslam bin Laden, is an American model and aspiring singer-songwriter. She spent the early part of her life in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Dufour, her little sisters Najia (1979) and Noor (1987), her mother (1954) and her father (1950) then moved to Geneva, Switzerland. In 1988, her parents separated. She earned a law diploma at Geneva Law School (Switzerland) and later a master's degree from Columbia Law School in the United States. She lived in Manhattan until around the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, but was staying in Geneva for a summer holiday at the time of the attacks.
 Abdulla Osama bin Laden (born 1976), son of Osama and Najwa. He is reportedly residing in Saudi Arabia, and runs his own firm, called Fame Advertising, in Jeddah; he is closely watched by the Saudi government, which has restricted his travel from the kingdom since 1996; reportedly, he has never disowned his father.
Abdul Rahman bin Laden (born 1979), the second son of Osama and Najwa. As a child he was born with hydrocephalus, and his father took him to the United Kingdom for medical treatment. However, he refused to allow British surgeons to operate on the boy and tried to treat him himself using a folk remedy of honey. He ended up having an intellectual disability and autism. As an adult he moved to Syria with his mother in 2011. 
 Saad bin Laden (1979–2009) son of Osama and Najwa; Saad accompanied Osama on his exile to Sudan from 1991 to 1996, and then to Afghanistan. He was believed to be married to a woman from Yemen. Saad reportedly arrived in Iran in 2002 from Afghanistan, with a fake Iranian passport using the name Saad Mahmoudian. The customs officer immediately recognized that the passport was fake, and searched and questioned Saad briefly. He notified airport security but did not notify the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran (which is also responsible for identifying detained people at airports) as he was supposed to. As a result, the officer found nothing suspicious about his entrance and permitted him to leave Tehran. He was believed to have been heavily responsible for the bombing of a Tunisian synagogue on April 11, 2002. He was then implicated in the May 12, 2003, suicide bombing in Riyadh, and the Morocco bombing four days later. He was put under house arrest by the Iran government, but later escaped by January 2009 and fled to Pakistan. Saad was later killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2009. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri confirmed Saad's death in a videotape three years later.
 Omar bin Laden (born 1981) son of Osama and Najwa; Omar accompanied Osama on his exile to Sudan from 1991 to 1996, and then to Afghanistan. He returned to Saudi Arabia after an apparent falling-out with his father over Omar's disagreement with violence. For a while, Omar ran his own company in Jeddah as a contractor. Omar has one son, Ahmed, by his ex-wife, whom he had divorced 3 times by 2006. In September 2006, he married Zaina and they are now said to be living in a secret location in Qatar. He is now reported to be living in Normandie, France, with his wife.
 Mohammad bin Osama bin Laden (born 1983), the son of Osama and Najwa, married the daughter of al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef in January 2001, at Kandahar, Afghanistan, with footage broadcast by Al-Jazeera, where three of Osama's step-siblings and Osama's mother were in attendance.
 Hamza bin Laden (1989–2017/2019), also the son of Osama, was groomed to be Osama's heir following Saad's death. On February 28, 2019, the U.S. State Department offered a reward of up to $1 million for information on Hamza bin Laden's whereabouts. The announcement described Hamza bin Laden as a "key leader" of Al-Qaeda who had released audio and video messages on the internet calling for attacks on the U.S. and its western allies to avenge his father's killing. On July 31, 2019, it was reported that Hamza bin Laden was believed to have been killed in the first two years of the Trump administration, which began on January 20, 2017. On September 14, 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that Hamza bin Laden was killed in a U.S. counter-terrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. Other details were not disclosed.
 Khaled bin Laden, son of Osama, was killed along with his father at Abbottabad, Pakistan, May 2, 2011.
 Abdul Aziz bin Laden, manages SBG's Egyptian operations; ranked Number 2 in the 2006 UAE National Superstock Bike Championship.

Family tree

Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden's sons
Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden's (1908–1967) known sons:

 Salem bin Laden (d. 1988) married Caroline Carey
 Ali bin Laden
 Thabet bin Laden (d. 2009)
 Mahrous bin Laden
 Hassan bin Laden
 Bakr bin Laden
 Khalid bin Laden
 Yeslam bin Ladin (born 1950) married Carmen bin Ladin (born 1954)
 Wafah Dufour (born 1978)
 Najia Dufour (born 1979)
 Noor Dufour (born 1987)
 Ghalib bin Laden
 Yahya bin Laden
 Omar bin Laden
 Abdul Aziz bin Laden
 Issa bin Laden
 Tarek bin Laden
 Ahmed bin Laden
 Ibrahim bin Laden
 Shafiq bin Laden
 Osama bin Laden (d. 2011) married Najwa Ghanem (born 1960)
 Khalil bin Ladin
 Saleh bin Ladin
 Haider bin Laden
 Saad bin Laden
 Abdullah bin Laden
 Yasser bin Laden
 Mohammad bin Laden (born 1967)

Osama bin Laden's children
Osama bin Laden's known children, from his respective wives, include:

 by Najwa Ghanem:
Abdallah bin Laden (born 1976)
 Abdul Rahman bin Laden (born 1978)
 Saad bin Laden (1979–2009), killed in a drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region in 2009.
 Omar bin Laden (born 1981), married Zaina Alsabah-Bin Laden 2006 to date.
 Osman bin Laden (born 1983)
 Mohammed bin Osama bin Laden (born 1985)
 Fatima bin Laden (born 1987)
 Iman bin Laden (born 1990)
 Laden "Bakr" bin Laden (born 1993)
 Roqaya bin Laden (born 1997)
 Nour bin Laden (born 1999)
 by Khadijah Sharif:
 Ali bin Laden (born 1986)
 Amer bin Laden (born 1990)
 Aisha bin Laden (born 1992)
 by Khairiah Sabar:
 Hamza bin Laden (1989–late 2010s)
 by Siham Sabar:
 Khalid bin Laden (1988–2011), killed during the Navy SEAL raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
 Kadhija bin Laden (1988–2007), died in childbirth in Pakistan's tribal region, according to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
 Miriam bin Laden (born 1990)
 Sumaiya bin Laden (born 1992)

The bin Laden flights
At least 13 relatives of Osama bin Laden, accompanied by bodyguards and associates, left the United States on a chartered flight with Ryan International Airlines (Ryan International Flight 441) eight days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a passenger manifest released on July 21, 2004. The passenger list was made public by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), who obtained the manifest from officials at Boston's Logan International Airport. None of the flights, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of Sept. 13 and the 9/11 Commission found "no evidence of a political intervention".

Among the passengers with the bin Laden surname were Omar Awad bin Laden, who had lived with Osama's nephew Abdallah Awad bin Laden, who was involved in forming the U.S. branch of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in Alexandria, and Shafig bin Laden, a half brother of Osama's who was reportedly attending the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group.

Also on board was Akberali Moawalla, an official with the investment company run by Yeslam bin Ladin, another of Osama bin Laden's half brothers. Records show that a passenger, Kholoud Kurdi, lived in Northern Virginia with a bin Laden relative.

The bin Laden flight has received fresh publicity because it was a topic in Michael Moore's controversial documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

The 9/11 Commission found that the "FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United States on charter flights. The Saudi government was advised of and agreed to the FBI's requirements that passengers be identified and checked against various databases before the flights departed. The Federal Aviation Administration representative working in the FBI operations center made sure that the FBI was aware of the flights of Saudi nationals and was able to screen the passengers before they were allowed to depart."

References

Further reading

 
 Bin Laden's daughter free to leave Tehran: Iran FM (AFP December 25, 2009)

 
Business families
Kinda
Saudi Arabian families Hamza bin Osama bin Mohammed bin 'Awad bin Laden (; 1989 – c. 2019), 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, he was described as an emerging leader within the group.

Early life and family
Hamza bin Laden was believed to have been born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, sometime in 1989. His paternal grandmother is the Syrian national, Hamida al-Attas. 

In January 2001, Hamza, his father and other family members attended the wedding of his brother Mohammed bin Laden in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Video footage shot in Ghazni province in November of the same year shows Hamza bin Laden and some of his siblings handling U.S. helicopter wreckage and working alongside the Taliban.

In March 2003, it was claimed that Hamza bin Laden and his brother Saad bin Laden had been wounded and captured in Ribat, Afghanistan. This claim eventually proved false. However, Hamza bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders sought refuge in Iran after the 9/11 attacks.

Bin Laden married a daughter of Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah when he was 17 years old.

In August 2018, The Guardian quoted bin Laden's uncles as saying he had married a daughter of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. However, Hamza's brother Omar bin Laden denied the report.

Al-Qaeda activities
In a 2005 video titled The Mujahideen of Waziristan, Hamza bin Laden is shown participating in an al-Qaeda assault on Pakistani security forces in the south Waziristan tribal region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In September 2007, it was reported that he was again in the tribal belt which encompasses the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region taking a senior role with al-Qaeda forces.

In July 2008, a translation of a poem said to be written by bin Laden was made available, which had been published on an extremist Islamic Web site. In the poem bin Laden wrote "Accelerate the destruction of America, Britain, France and Denmark." In response British MP Patrick Mercer dubbed Hamza bin Laden the Crown Prince of Terror.

Bin Laden was implicated in the 2007 assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. However, according to an interrogation of former al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, bin Laden was under house arrest in Iran when Bhutto was assassinated and was not released until 2010, or in 2011, when he and other bin Laden family members were freed in exchange for an Iranian diplomat held in Pakistan.

On 14 August 2015, he released an audio message for the very first time. He called upon followers in Kabul, Baghdad and Gaza to wage jihad, or holy war, on Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv.

It was reported on 11 May 2016 he had released an audio message focused on the issues of Palestine and the Syrian Civil War. He said the "blessed Syrian revolution" had made the prospect of "liberating" Jerusalem more likely. "The Islamic umma (nation) should focus on jihad in al-Sham (Syria) … and unite the ranks of mujahedin," he said. "There is no longer an excuse for those who insist on division and disputes now that the whole world has mobilised against Muslims."

In July 2016, media reported that he had issued an audio message threatening the United States in revenge for his father's death. In the 21-minute speech entitled "We Are All Osama", he said "We will continue striking you and targeting you in your country and abroad in response to your oppression of the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Muslim lands that did not survive your oppression," Hamza bin Laden said. "As for the revenge by the Islamic nation for Sheikh Osama, may Allah have mercy on him, it is not revenge for Osama the person but it is revenge for those who defended Islam." In May 2017, a recording by Hamza bin Laden was published by As-Sahab, encouraging terrorist attacks against Western targets.

It is rumored that he pledged allegiance to Jama'at Ansar al-Furqan in Bilad al Sham in 2017. In the light of his growing influence within al-Qaeda, the United States classified Hamza bin Laden as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in January 2017. This designation effectively put him on a blacklist which was aimed at restricting his movement and economic abilities.

In May 2017, a video was released in which he calls on his followers to carry out lone wolf attacks against Jews, Americans, Westerners and Russians  with whatever means are available to them.

On 28 February 2019, the United States Department of State offered a reward of up to US$1 million for information leading to the identification or location in any country of bin Laden.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced on 1 March 2019 that it had revoked bin Laden's citizenship through a royal decree signed in November 2018.

May 2011 raid
Hamza bin Laden was the son of Khairiah Sabar of Saudi Arabia, one of Osama bin Laden's three wives who were living in the Abbottabad compound.

Interrogation of the surviving wives of Osama bin Laden by Pakistani intelligence after the raid on the Abbottabad compound revealed Hamza was the only person missing. He was not among those killed or injured.  The raid conducted by the SEAL team was thorough: infrared technology, as well as ground troops, remained confident nobody inside the compound had escaped. There were no hidden exit tunnels from the compound.

In a letter confiscated in the raid, written by Osama bin Laden and addressed to his "Chief of Staff" Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, bin Laden mentions his desire that his son Hamza would be educated in Qatar as a religious scholar so that he could "refute the wrong and the suspicions raised around Jihad." The same letter revealed that Hamza did not escape the raid because he was not even present in Abbottabad.  Letters from the compound also confirmed that Osama was apparently grooming his son to be his heir, following the death of Hamza's older brother Saad bin Laden in a 2009 US drone strike.

Death

On 31 July 2019, The New York Times and other news organizations quoted unnamed American officials as saying that bin Laden was said to have been killed in the first two years of the Trump administration, which began on January 20, 2017. At the time, intelligence agencies were unable to confirm his death and, in February 2019, the U.S. State Department issued a $1 million reward for information leading to bin Laden's whereabouts. On September 14, 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that bin Laden had been killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. Other details were not disclosed.

Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary stated that bin Laden was most likely killed in Geru district in Ghazni province of Afghanistan.

Maryam, Hamza bin Laden's widow and the daughter of the Egyptian high-ranking member of al-Qaeda and its bombmaker Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah (nom de guerre Abu Muhammed al-Masri), was killed in August 2020 in Tehran, Iran alongside her father. This has however been denied by Iran.

See also

Bin Laden family

References

External links
  Jon Gambrell, Born into al-Qaida: Hamza bin Laden’s rise to prominence, Associated Press, March 17, 2019

1989 births
2010s deaths
Al-Qaeda propagandists
Saudi Arabian propagandists
Assassinated al-Qaeda leaders
Hamza
Individuals designated as terrorists by the United States government
Osama bin Laden
People from Jeddah
People of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda members
Stateless people
Date of death unknown
Saudi Arabian people of Yemeni descent
Saudi Arabian people of Syrian descent Since the early 1990s, several interviews of Osama bin Laden have appeared in the global media. Among these was an interview by Middle East specialist Robert Fisk. In the interviews, Bin Laden acknowledges having instigated bombings in Khobar and Riyadh, but denies involvement with both the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the WTC towers in New York.

Like the videos of Osama bin Laden, the interviews' authenticity is sometimes regarded as suspect.

Bin Laden himself mentioned some of the interviews directly in a 2004 video, saying "you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott [Macleod] in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Miller in 1998."

The Independent: 1993, 1996 and 1997

Robert Fisk interviewed Osama bin Laden on three occasions, reporting the interviews in articles published by The Independent on 6 December 1993, 10 July 1996, and 22 March 1997. 

Bin Laden gave his first interview to the Independent newspaper's Robert Fisk in 1993. This was the first he had ever given to a Western journalist. It was titled "Anti-Soviet warrior puts his army on the road to peace," and related to bin Laden and his recruited mujahideen's road building in Sudan overseeing construction and agricultural projects.  Also during Fisk's first interview in 1993, he wrote of Osama Bin Laden: "With his high cheekbones, narrow eyes and long brown robe, Mr Bin Laden looks every inch the mountain warrior of mujahedin legend. Chadored children danced in front of him, preachers acknowledged his wisdom" while noting that he was accused of "training for further jihad wars". When asked about United States support for the Arab mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war, bin Laden responded "Personally neither I nor my brothers saw evidence of American help."

Fisk interviewed Bin Laden again in 1996, Bin Laden had just been exiled from Sudan and was back in Afghanistan. The interview was conducted 10 days after a bombing in al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. soldiers, and though responsibility for that attack has been attributed to both al-Qaeda and Iran, Bin Laden told Fisk that, “This doesn’t mean declaring war against the West and Western people but against the American regime which is against every American…The explosion in al-Khobar did not come as a direct reaction to the American occupation, but as a result of American behavior against Muslims, its support of Jews in Palestine, and of the massacres of Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon…”. 

During one of Fisk's interviews with Bin Laden, Fisk noted an attempt by Bin Laden to convert him. Bin Laden said; "Mr Robert, one of our brothers had a dream...that you were a spiritual person ... this means you are a true Muslim". Fisk replied; "Sheikh Osama, I am not a Muslim. ... I am a journalist [whose] task is to tell the truth". Bin Laden replied: "If you tell the truth, that means you are a good Muslim". 

Fisk again interviewed Bin Laden on March 22, 1997; Bin Laden said of his operations at the time "We are still at the beginning of our military action against the American forces." Also during the final interview in 1997, Bin Laden said he sought God's help "to turn America into a shadow of itself".

Time: 1996

In 1996, Scott MacLeod of Time interviewed Bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan at a building on the outskirts of the city.

Abdel Bari Atwan: 1996

In 1996, Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi interviewed bin Laden. He had to travel through the mountains, dressed in Afghan clothing. He later called the experience his "most frightening trip". His impression of bin Laden was that he is "a phenomenon, extreme". Atwan stayed in the caves for two days, sleeping in primitive conditions in sub-zero temperatures.

CNN: 1997
Peter Arnett of CNN interviewed bin Laden in March 1997 after Bin Laden declared jihad on the United States. Asked by Arnett, "What are your future plans?", Bin Laden said, "You'll see them and hear about them in the media, God willing".

CNN producer Peter Bergen who produced bin Laden's interview with Arnett, was also present during this interview, and it became the inter first television interview, in which Bin Laden declared war against the United States for the first time to a Western audience.

Hamid Mir: 1997, 1998 and 2001

Hamid Mir was the first Pakistani journalist to interview Osama bin Laden. He first interviewed Bin Laden for the Daily Pakistan in March 1997, in a cave of Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan. 
In a 1997 interview Bin Laden claimed, “If Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and China get united, the United States and India will become ineffective.” Mir interviewed Bin Laden for the second time for Ausaf in May 1998, in a hideout near the Kandahar International Airport. Mir was the first and the last journalist to interview Bin Laden after September 11 attacks. He interviewed Bin Laden for the third time for Dawn and Ausaf on 8 November 2001, at an undisclosed location near Kabul.

ABC: 1998
A recorded interview in May 1998, a little over two months before the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, shows bin Laden answering questions posed by some of his followers at a mountaintop camp in southern Afghanistan. In the latter part of the interview, ABC reporter John Miller asks further questions.

Time: 1999
Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist for Pakistan's The News International, TIME, and ABC News, in 1999 secured a four-hour interview with bin Laden in Afghanistan's Helmand province. During Yusufzai's late-night conversation, bin Laden appeared to be in good health, though he admitted to a sore throat and a bad back. He continually sipped water from a cup, and Yusufzai caught him on videotape walking with the aid of a stick. This latter footage was erased by bin Laden's bodyguards. The interview appeared in the 11 January 1999 issue of Time Asia.

Ummat: 2001
The Daily Ummat interviewed Osama bin Laden on September 28, 2001, weeks after the September 11 attacks on the United States. In the interview bin Laden denies his involvement in the attacks; the interview was relayed in English by the BBC monitoring service.

Al Jazeera: 2001 
Tayseer Allouni of Al Jazeera conducted an interview with Bin Laden on October 21, 2001. However, the network did not broadcast the interview.

See also
Motivations of the September 11 attacks

References

Further reading

External links
 NIDA'UL ISLAM Interview, 1996
 Arnett interview, March 1997
 Fisk interview transcript, 1997

Interviews
Works about Osama bin Laden