Go on, I’ll give you a second to try and pick out Osama bin Laden from that picture up top. No, he’s not that super-stylish chap in what looks like a purple onesie.

OK, you can see Osama second from the right, with that picture taken on a visit to Falun, Sweden, in 1971.

The Guardian’s Martin Chulov sat down for an interview with Alia Ghanem, who is Osama bin Laden’s mother, and it’s a long and lengthy look at what led her child to become one of the most infamous men in the world.

The interview was conducted in Jeddah, the Saudi Arabian city that has been home to the Bin Laden clan for generations, and we’ve picked out a few points that bear mentioning:

…it is Ghanem [below] who holds court today, describing a man who is, to her, still a beloved son who somehow lost his way. “My life was very difficult because he was so far away from me,” she says, speaking confidently. “He was a very good kid and he loved me so much.”

Oh, by the way, the bin Laden family is exceptionally wealthy:

They remain one of the kingdom’s wealthiest families: their dynastic construction empire built much of modern Saudi Arabia, and is deeply woven into the country’s establishment. The Bin Laden home reflects their fortune and influence, a large spiral staircase at its centre leading to cavernous rooms.

The interview itself is something of a PR stunt by Saudi Arabia:

Osama’s legacy is as grave a blight on the kingdom as it is on his family, and senior officials believe that, by allowing the Bin Ladens to tell their story, they can demonstrate that an outcast – not an agent – was responsible for 9/11. Saudi Arabia’s critics have long alleged that Osama had state support, and the families of a number of 9/11 victims have launched (so far unsuccessful) legal actions against the kingdom. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.

Ghanem says her son was radicalised at university:

“The people at university changed him,” Ghanem says. “He became a different man.” One of the men he met there was Abdullah Azzam, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was later exiled from Saudi Arabia and became Osama’s spiritual adviser. “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.”

In the 1980’s, Osama went to Afghanistan to fight the Russian occupation, a decision that his family was very proud of.

Then things took a turn for the worse, leaving the family shocked:

Did she ever suspect he might become a jihadist? “It never crossed my mind.” How did it feel when she realised he had? “We were extremely upset. I did not want any of this to happen. Why would he throw it all away like that?”

When Ghanem stepped out of the room, Osama’s brothers chimed in:

“It has been 17 years now [since 9/11] and she remains in denial about Osama,” Ahmad [below right] says. “She loved him so much and refuses to blame him. Instead, she blames those around him. She only knows the good boy side, the side we all saw. She never got to know the jihadist side.

“I was shocked, stunned,” he says now of the early reports from New York. “It was a very strange feeling. We knew from the beginning [that it was Osama], within the first 48 hours. From the youngest to the eldest, we all felt ashamed of him. We knew all of us were going to face horrible consequences. Our family abroad all came back to Saudi.”

Unfortunately, it seems that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree, because Osama’s son has taken up the mantle:

…Bin Laden’s youngest son, 29-year-old Hamza, is thought to be in Afghanistan. Last year, he was officially designated a “global terrorist” by the US and appears to have taken up the mantle of his father, under the auspices of al-Qaida’s new leader, and Osama’s former deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

His uncles shake their heads. “We thought everyone was over this,” Hassan says. “Then the next thing I knew, Hamza was saying, ‘I am going to avenge my father.’ I don’t want to go through that again. If Hamza was in front of me now, I would tell him, ‘God guide you. Think twice about what you are doing. Don’t retake the steps of your father. You are entering horrible parts of your soul.’”

Seems the cycle is set to continue, which is terrible news for those wanting to revamp Saudi Arabia’s international image:

Hamza bin Laden’s continued rise may well cloud the family’s attempts to shake off their past. It may also hinder the crown prince’s efforts to shape a new era in which Bin Laden is cast as a generational aberration, and in which the hardline doctrines once sanctioned by the kingdom no longer offer legitimacy to extremism. While change has been attempted in Saudi Arabia before, it has been nowhere near as extensive as the current reforms…

Saudia Arabia’s allies are optimistic, but offer a note of caution. The British intelligence officer I spoke to told me, “If [new crown price Mohammed bin] Salman doesn’t break through, there will be many more Osamas. And I’m not sure they’ll be able to shake the curse.”

Cool, maybe once they’ve sorted out their bin Laden problem they can work on their LGBT rights, which can still see same-sex relationships punished with fines, floggings, life in prison, death, and torture.

You can read the full interview here.

[source:guardian]