Osama Bin Mohamed Bin Awad Bin Laden, Was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Mohammed Bin Awad Bin Laden, a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed Bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview,Bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.
Mohammed Bin Laden divorced hamida soon after Osama Bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an asociate. Al-Attas married Hamida in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and Bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he att ended the elite secular Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at Kind Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. One source described him as "hard working", another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, Bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and Jihad and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading with the works of Field Marshal Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the fortunes of Aresenal F.C.
In 1974, at the age of 17, Bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia; they were divorced befor September 11, 2001. Bin Laden's other known wives were: Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s), Khairiah Sabar (married 1985), Siham Sabar (married 1987), and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to bin Laden was annulled soon after the cermony.Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with wives. Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and as of 2010 Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movement.
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot misjudged a landing. Bin laden's eldest half-brother, Salem Bin Laden, the subsequent head of the Bin laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio,Texas in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between 6 ft. 4 in and 6 ft. 6 in. in height and weighing about 165 pounds . Interviewer Lawrence Wright, on the other hand, described him as quite slender, but not particularly tall Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usaually walking with a cane. he wore a plain white turban and he had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male headdress. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.
