The Bin Ladens

by Steve Coll

  7. “under severe reproaches”: Ger FO 350/217/63 Jeddah to Bonn, April 3, 1963.

  8. “We read…asphalting operations”: Al-Nadwa, November 15, 1961, translated in DOS 59/3100 Jeddah to Washington, November 25, 1961.

  9. All quotations: Ibid.

  10. “One Roadblock”: DOS 59/3567 Jeddah to Washington, May 9, 1963. “problem was…done quickly”: Ibid., Jeddah to Washington, June 11, 1963.

  11. “duty not to delay…shirked”: DOS 59/2810 Jeddah to Washington, August 1, 1962.

  12. “dumping bids”: Ger FO 277/564-2912/56 Jeddah to Bonn, July 28, 1956.

  13. Saudi Weekly, July 24, 1961, describes the Swiss TV crew visit and provides photographs of the construction site near Taif. The clipping is enclosed in DOS 59/2810 Jeddah to Washington, August 14, 1961.

  14. That Faisal and Bin Laden argued: Interview with Khaled Batarfi, February 19, 2005. “the point was…doing it”: Interview with Hermann Eilts, March 29, 2006.

  15. CIA report: Bronson, Thicker Than Oil, p. 83. That Mohamed Bin Laden had slaves, freed them, and was compensated: Interview with Carmen Bin Laden, August 6, 2004. Rally and “We are your brothers!”: DOS 59/4033-4 Jeddah to Washington, April 25, 1963.

  16. “He is evil…closest friend”: Ibid., Jeddah to Washington, February 18, 1963. Faisal asked the American delegation pointedly, “What are you, our friends, going to do about this?…We adhered to your advice and fulfilled our promise to ‘fold our arms’…How long do you think we can go on like this…How long can I face my people with his kind of placidity and inactivity?”

  17. “personally take care…royal intervention”: DOS 59/3567 Dhahran to Washington, September 10, 1963.

  18. Ibid.

  7. A MODERN MAN

  1. Forklift: DOS 59/2810 Dhahran to Washington, December 5, 1962. Aramco paid $3.5 million: Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, p. 218.

  2. Saud’s wealth in exile: DOS RG 59/2472 Jeddah to Washington, May 7, 1967.

  3. “is not the case…whoever was king”: Interview with Turki Al-Faisal, August 2, 2002. “involved a surprisingly small…where necessary”: DOS 59/2642, “The Power Structure in Saudi Arabia,” Jeddah to Washington, March 23, 1965.

  4. Al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, pp. 121–22. House of Saud, op. cit., pp. 257–58.

  5. “formally inaugurated…considerable fanfare”: DOS 59/2642 Jeddah to Washington, August 31, 1965.

  6. Interviews with several friends, employees, and business partners of the Bin Ladens in Lebanon and Egypt, including an interview with Nadim Bou Fakhreddine, former head of Upper Metn Secondary School, April 26, 2006 (RS).

  7. From Yeslam’s interview to the Evening Standard of London, May 26, 2006.

  8. “wanted someone…spoiled”: Interview with Fakhreddine, op. cit.

  9. “Most of us were afraid…somebody up, maybe”: Evening Standard, op. cit.

  10. From Abdullah’s interview published in Bahrain’s newspaper Alayam, December 21, 2001.

  11. Ali’s appearance and role: From several interviews with friends and employees of the family, including an interview with an employee who met Ali in Taif with Mohamed on several occasions during this period.

  12. There is some uncertainty about whether Salem attended Millfield before or after he attended Copford Glebe. Several former Copford classmates said in interviews that he attended Millfield earlier, and briefly, but one former business partner thought it was possible that he had attended Millfield later. It is clear, however, that Salem was at Copford for a prolonged period during the early to mid-1960s.

  13. “amazing sort of pastiche…people there”: Interview with Rupert Armitage, September 19, 2006. The portrait of Salem’s life at Copford in this section is from Armitage and interviews with two other classmates who asked not to be identified.

  8. CROSSWIND

  1. Interviews with Gerald Auerbach, March 10, 2005, and April 7, 2005. Other pilots who knew Bin Laden provide similar accounts.

  2. “It was completely boring”: Times-Picayune, October 13, 2001. Flight logs and photographs from the period 1965 through 1967 reviewed by the author document Bin Laden’s international travel during this period, primarily to Jerusalem, Beirut, and the United Arab Emirates.

  3. “He was the law…judgment”: Ibid.

  4. Kilo 170 is from interviews with Auerbach, op. cit., who flew there regularly.

  5. Bin Laden’s work on the Trucial coast road from Sharjah to Ras al-Khayma is documented in British and American diplomatic cables during 1966 and 1967. The figure of $6.7 million is from DOS 59/761 Jeddah to Washington, September 19, 1966.

  6. Interviews with Auerbach, op. cit. The figure of $120 million and the report that he agreed not to take on additional highway work are from DOS 59/761 Jeddah to Washington, May 24, 1966. The cable calls Bin Laden “The Old Master of Saudi highway construction.”

  7. The $100 million Military Construction Project: DOS RG 59/2643 Jeddah to Washington, June 2, 1965. British military sales, missile and radar deployments: “At a glance—Saudi Arabia/November 1967,” a report then classified secret, in Burdett, Records of Saudi Arabia, 1966–1971, Volume 2: 1967, Part I.

  8. Sequence of attacks and “terrorist infiltrators and saboteurs”: British report of January 12, 1967, in Burdett, op. cit.

  9. Hawker Siddeley purchase: Interviews with Auerbach, op. cit. History of Kilo 7 complex: Bin Laden, Inside the Kingdom, p. 36.

  10. Heacock: Interview with a daughter of the pilot. “I took him out…riverbeds”: Interviews with Auerbach, op. cit.

  11. All quotations in this section are from interviews with Auerbach, op. cit. The author failed to locate any of Harrington’s surviving family. Auerbach flew to the crash site with a team of pilots and other personnel on September 4, 1967, the day after the accident occurred. Mike Ameen, then working in Aramco’s political department, said he had heard that Bin Laden intended to remarry in Asir at the time of his death. Identified from his watch: Interview with Nadim Bou Fakhreddine, April 26, 2006 (RS).

  9. THE GUARDIANS

  1. Interview with Nadim Bou Fakhreddine, April 26, 2006 (RS). For a thorough account of Hejazi funeral and mourning rituals, see Yamani, Cradle of Islam, pp. 102–10.

  2. Interview with Rupert Armitage, September 19, 2006, as well as a second friend who visited Salem at the flat. Armitage recalled that Salem thought nothing about sitting around naked with his male friends and that he had the memorable habit of displaying his erect penis, which he had nicknamed “Lucky.”

  3. Salem’s transformational flight: Interview with Gerald Auerbach, April 7, 2005. That Salem did not know all of his half-siblings and that he met some brothers and sisters for the first time: Interviews with Mohamed Ashmawi, November 26, 2005 (RS), and Robert Freeman, April 27, 2006.

  4. DOS 59 Jeddah to Washington, September 7, 1967.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Koranic principle about male and female heirs: Surah 4, verse 11. Islamic inheritance law: Interview with a Saudi lawyer who has worked for the Bin Laden family. See also Almidhar, “International Succession Laws.”

  8. Interview with Adel Toraifi, February 9, 2005.

  9. That the boys received 2.27 percent: Declaration of Barbara L. Irshay, January 21, 1993, Christine Hartunian v. IbrahimBinladin, Los Angeles County Superior Court, BD058156. The five heirs other than the children is from shareholder lists submitted by the family in In Re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, 03 MDL 1570. The 9/11 Commission dates Osama Bin Laden’s first cash dividend to 1973, six years after Mohamed’s death. This would have been a time when more of the boys were reaching adulthood and oil revenue in the kingdom began to boom because of the Arab embargo. Salem was then running his own company and was gaining influence at his father’s firm. It is clear that a regular system of annual dividends to all Mohamed’s children evolved at some point during this period; the 9/11 Commission’s date is drawn from submissions made to the U.S. Treasury Department by fami
ly representatives prior to the September 11 attacks.

  10. Interview with Michael Pochna, August 31, 2006. Interview with Gerald Auerbach, March 10, 2005.

  11. “I am going to be your father now”: from Yeslam Bin Laden, quoted by The Australian, December 17, 2001.

  12. Royal Ordinance: DOS RG 59 Jeddah to Washington, September 25, 1967. “was mostly in equipment…started taking over”: Interview with Turki Al-Faisal, August 2, 2002.

  13. “legal situation”: DOS RG 59 Jeddah to Washington, September 22, 1967. “in an entirely personal…company going”: Ibid., Jeddah to Washington, September 25, 1967.

  14. Interview with Bassim Alim, February 21, 2005. Alim is Mohamed Bahareth’s grandson. Bahareth died in 2004.

  15. “He wanted…get control”: Interview with Francis Hunnewell, August 9, 2006.

  16. Interviews with several friends and employees of Salem who asked not to be identified.

  17. The plane on display: Interview with Peter Blum, who later served as Salem’s personal assistant, March 5, 2006. Salem’s travel to Dubai is from flight logs examined by the author.

  18. Interview with Auerbach, op. cit.

  19. That Ali wrote a letter to King Faisal: Interview with a person close to the Bin Laden family, who asked not to be identified. Also, on the struggle with Ali: Interviews with Carmen Bin Laden, August 6, 2004, and Fakhreddine, op. cit.

  20. Sheikha’s appearance, languages: Interview with Auerbach, op. cit. The date of their marriage is uncertain, but it occurred before May 1973.

  21. DOS 59/553 Jeddah to Washington, August 30, 1969; September 3, 1969; September 10, 1969; November 5, 1970; March 19, 1971; March 27, 1972; April 7, 1972.

  22. Saudi loan, deal terms, Ali to U.S.: Ibid., November 5, 1970.

  23. “difficult ownership…foreign ownership”: Ibid., March 27, 1972. “uneasiness…Ben Ladin organization”: Ibid., November 5, 1970. The correspondence also quotes Anwar Ali as emphasizing the Saudi government’s need to complete defense and infrastructure projects in Asir on which the Bin Laden company had been at work.

  24. Interview with Hermann Eilts, March 29, 2006.

  25. The advertisement for “Tarik Mohammed Bin Ladin Organization For General Civil Contracting and Crushing” appeared in a Financial Times survey of Saudi Arabia published December 28, 1970. It was filed in FCO 8/1742. A number of employees and business partners date the founding of Binladen Brothers to the early 1970s; an entry in the Graham & Whiteside Ltd. Business database dates the founding to 1972.

  26. “What surprised me…each other”: Interview with Carmen Bin Laden, op. cit.

  27. Interviews with Hunnewell, Pochna, and Armitage, op. cit., as well as other Bin Laden employees who asked not to be identified.

  28. “liked what we called…Mick Jagger”: Interview with Joe Ashkar, April 22, 2006 (RS).

  29. “They wore…anything for anybody”: Telephone interview with Shirley Cottam Bowman, April 18, 2006 (RS).

  30. Ibid.

  31. Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know, p. 12.

  32. “They were so elegantly…cellophane”: Quoted in the Melbourne Herald Sun, September 25, 2001.

  10. YOUNG OSAMA

  1. “would lie at her feet…about something”: Interview with Khaled Batarfi, February 19, 2005.

  2. “a shy kid…neighbors and teachers”: Transcript of interview supplied by Khaled Batarfi to the author. Excerpts from this interview appeared in several publications under Batarfi’s byline. That his Syrian relatives recalled his shyness: Interviews published in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas, November 14, 2001. Also, “Bin Laden, World’s Most Wanted Man, Was a Quiet, Shy Child,” Agence France-Presse, November 15, 2001.

  3. “If there was no agricultural reform…anything”: In Al-Qabas, op. cit. “I used to love it…live there”: Ibid.

  4. “He considered him…gives orders”: Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know, p. 17.

  5. Batarfi interview text, op. cit.

  6. “He was quiet…worked hard”: Interview with Emile Sawaya, April 22, 2006 (RS).

  7. All quotations: Ibid.

  8. “He used to…karate movies”: Interview with David Ensor, CNN, broadcast March 19, 2002.

  9. “affected…very solitary”: Agence France-Presse, op. cit. “She was all…to his father”: Interview with Batarfi, op. cit.

  10. The author visited Al-Thaghr twice, including once in the company of Osama’s schoolmate, who described in detail the school’s layout during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The schoolmate’s descriptions of the school were corroborated by the accounts of Fyfield-Shayler and Seamus O’Brien, two teachers there during this period.

  11. Saudi funding: DOS 59/906 Jeddah to Washington, November 17, 1966, reports on the Saudi national budget and cites a line item of 2.9 million riyals for “subsidy” to Al-Thaghr. Mohamed’s appearance at the school for fundraisers: Interview with Brian Fyfield-Shayler, February 23, 2007 (RS).

  12. Kamal Adham’s discussions about the school with British authorities are described in DOS 59/2813 Jeddah to Washington, November 7, 1962. The school uniform is from photographs and the memories of several former students.

  13. These details and many that follow are drawn from a series of interviews with the schoolmate of Osama, who joined his after-school Islamic study group, and who asked not to be identified. The author conducted many discussions and interviews with the schoolmate over the course of two years, and is very grateful for his contributions. The authenticity of the schoolmate’s recollections, in the author’s judgment, is beyond reasonable doubt.

  14. “I was trying…making mistakes”: Fyfield-Shayler quoted in Meeting Osama Bin Laden, WGBH, 2004. “extraordinarily courteous…other students”: The Osama Bin Laden I Know, pp. 8–9. “a nice fellow…run deep”: Interview with Seamus O’Brien, November 28, 2005. “in the middle”: From an interview with Ahmed Badeeb by Orbit Television in early 2002; a tape of the interview was provided by Badeeb to the author, who had it translated by a private firm, The Language Doctors, in Washington, D.C. From his unlikely beginnings as a biology teacher at Al-Thaghr, Badeeb became chief of staff to the director of Saudi intelligence, Turki Al-Faisal, a position that brought him into regular contact with Osama during the war in Afghanistan.

  15. The Brotherhood’s influence in Saudi Arabia: Interviews with several Saudi analysts who asked not to be identified, and Saudi government consultant Khalil A. Khalil, February 10, 2005. Faisal’s skepticism: DOS 59/4944 Jeddah to Washington, May 5, 1959, reports on a meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Mecca and notes, “King Saud looks with favor upon the Brotherhood, but Crown Prince Faisal does not.” A dispatch the following day on the same subject reported that Saud “possibly contributes to its coffers” and that “Members of the Brotherhood are permitted to travel freely in and out of Saudi Arabia.”

  16. See note 13. All quotations here and following are from the same schoolmate.

  17. “joined the religious committee”: Badeeb, Orbit, 2002, op. cit. “He was a prominent member…this philosophy”: Interview with Batarfi, op. cit. “started as a Muslim Brother”: Interview with Jamal Khashoggi, February 2, 2002.

  18. “is a membership…the movement”: Interview with Khashoggi, op. cit. Classes of membership and preference for adults: A research report on Brotherhood recruiting provided to the author by an American government contractor who asked not to be identified.

  19. “a more…agenda”: Interview with Batarfi, op. cit. “misused…underhandedly”: Quoted in “The House of Saud,” Frontline, 2005.

  20. FCO 8/2122 June 30, 1973, Departmental Series, Middle East Department.

  21. Interview with Batarfi, op. cit.; author’s visit to the house, in Batarfi’s company.

  22. All quotations from interview with Batarfi, op. cit.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Ibid. Also, Batarfi as quoted in Sunday Mirror, April 21, 2002. Details about Fury and its characters from www.brokenwheelranch.com, examined and typed, March 2, 200
7.

  25. “visit his Mohamed Bin Laden brothers”: Interview with Batarfi, op. cit. “several”: Interview with Fyfield-Shayler, op. cit.

  26. The trip to Afghanistan is from flight logs and an interview with pilot Gerald Auerbach, April 7, 2005.

  11. REALM OF CONSPIRACY

  1. “impudent gang” and “desecration”: DOS 59/2472 Jeddah to Washington, February 24, 1969. The cable reports: “Faisal said ‘Jerusalem cries out for salvation’…He called for jihad to liberate holy places.” That Osama identified with his campaign: Interview with Khaled Batarfi, February 19, 2005. Bin Laden’s mother also reported that Osama frequently spoke about the Palestinian cause as a young man.

  2. Faisal’s routine: Algosaibi, “Arabian Essays”; Alireza, “The Late King Faisal…”; Sheean, Faisal; Gros, Feisal of Arabia; Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, pp. 202–3.

  3. Iffat’s biography, travels, shopping: DOS 59/2643 Dhahran to Washington, August 17, 1966, “Biographic Information on Wife of King Faysal.” Also House of Saud, op. cit., p. 203.

  4. “the basic causes…political expression”: DOS 59/2472 Research Memorandum, Director of Intelligence and Research, August 21, 1969.

  5. Lippman, Inside the Mirage, p. 221.

  6. FCO 8/2109 Memo prepared in 1973 for a visit to Saudi Arabia by the governor of the Bank of England.

  7. “even put forward…Palestinian terrorists”: Quoted in House of Saud, op. cit., p. 359. “dual conspiracy”: Inside the Mirage, op. cit., p. 221.

  8. Gross domestic product: House of Saud, op. cit., p. 390. $102 billion: Inside the Mirage, op. cit., p. 160. Safeway: Carmen Bin Laden, Inside the Kingdom, pp. 94–95. “I’ve never seen so many cranes”: “The House of Saud,” Algeria Productions, 2004. “you’d go away…a little bit crazy”: Quoted ibid.