How old is bin ladens youngest wife

Ibrahim, who ostensibly owned the property, his brother, Abrar, and their wives and children regularly came and went. But they resided in a small annex, not in the main building. The brothers followed strict operational security measures to keep a low profile.

The bin Ladens rarely if ever left the compound — except for Amal, who had gone twice to a local hospital to give birth under an assumed name, showing fake identification papers and feigning deafness to avoid awkward questions. The property had many unusual features that made CIA analysts take note.

It had no telephone lines or Internet service — despite the fact that whoever built it was surely wealthy enough to afford such necessities. While neighbors put their trash out for regular garbage pickups, the compound dwellers burned all their refuse.

The acre of land enclosed within the walls contained a small farm that produced apples, vegetables, grapes, and honey and housed chickens and even cows — food that was apparently being consumed by unseen residents. That was enough for Panetta. On Dec. Agents never managed to capture a clearly identifiable image of bin Laden to prove they had finally uncovered his hiding place. On chairs nearby sit two of her surviving sons, Ahmad and Hassan, and her second husband, Mohammed al-Attas, the man who raised all three brothers.

Everyone in the family has their own story to tell about the man linked to the rise of global terrorism; but it is Ghanem who holds court today, describing a man who is, to her, still a beloved son who somehow lost his way. He was a good man, and he was good to Osama. The family have gathered in a corner of the mansion they now share in Jeddah, the Saudi Arabian city that has been home to the Bin Laden clan for generations.

The Bin Laden home reflects their fortune and influence, a large spiral staircase at its centre leading to cavernous rooms.

Ramadan has come and gone, and the bowls of dates and chocolates that mark the three-day festival that follows it sit on tabletops throughout the house. For years, Ghanem has refused to talk about Osama, as has his wider family — throughout his two-decade reign as al-Qaida leader, a period that saw the strikes on New York and Washington DC , and ended more than nine years later with his death in Pakistan. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.

But after several days of discussion, they are willing to talk. When we meet on a hot day in early June, a minder from the Saudi government sits in the room, though she makes no attempt to influence the conversation.

We are also joined by a translator. He became a strong, driven, pious figure in his early 20s, she says, while studying economics at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, where he was also radicalised.

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. In the early s, Osama travelled to Afghanistan to fight the Russian occupation. Even the Saudi government would treat him in a very noble, respectful way. And then came Osama the mujahid. A long uncomfortable silence follows, as Hassan struggles to explain the transformation from zealot to global jihadist.

He reached superstardom on a global stage, and it was all for nothing. Very good at school. He really liked to study. He spent all his money on Afghanistan — he would sneak off under the guise of family business. I did not want any of this to happen.

Why would he throw it all away like that? The family say they last saw Osama in Afghanistan in , a year in which they visited him twice at his base just outside Kandahar. He was showing us around every day we were there.

He killed an animal and we had a feast, and he invited everyone. Ghanem begins to relax, and talks about her childhood in the coastal Syrian city of Latakia, where she grew up in a family of Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam. An al Qaeda figure in Yemen named Sheikh Rashed Mohammed Saeed Ismail said he arranged the marriageand told the Yemen Post in that he was "the matchmaker" and that al-Sadah was one of his students, describing her as "religious and pious enough.

The marriage was apparently a political alliance to shore up bin Laden's support in the land of his ancestors. At first, Yemeni authorities didn't seem aware that they were giving al-Sadah a passport in for the purpose of marrying bin Laden in Afghanistan, Ahmed said. The family is still being watched and have been interrogated dozens of times. Her father also went through a lot. According to Pakistani officials this week, Safiyah was inside the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound where bin Laden was killed Monday by U.

Navy SEALs, and she probably saw her father shot dead. Ahmed asserted that al-Sadah and bin Laden also bore other children, but he couldn't provide details in his brief interview with CNN. Mir said bin Laden had told him that he had plans for his youngest daughter, Safiyah.

My daughter will kill enemies of Islam like Safiyah. In the aftermath of bin Laden's death, al-Sadah has told interrogators that for five years, she didn't venture outside the walled compound, according to a Pakistani military spokesman. Al-Sadah, now 29, who was wounded in the raid, said she lived in the compound in Abbottabad with eight of bin Laden's children and five others from another family, Maj. Athar Abbas told CNN this week.

All of them have been in Pakistani custody since the pre-dawn U. With five wives, bin Laden had a total of 20 children, and one of his adult sons was also reported killed in the commando assault.