Alleged Involvement of The Bin Laden Family
The bin Laden family and business resources were allegedly involved in this conflict. Dr. Daly, an adjunct scholar at Washington's Middle East Institute and author for Jane's Intelligence Review, says, "It has been reported that one of Osama's half brothers was arrested as a sympathizer of the takeover but was later exonerated."
According to Cooperative Research:
In the 1960s Osama bin Laden's half-brother Mahrous bin Laden joined a rebel group opposed to the Saudi government. With his assistance, in 1979 the rebels smuggled weapons into Mecca, Saudi Arabia, using trucks belonging to the bin Laden family company. 500 rebels then seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca (sic), Islam's holiest mosque in its holiest city. They try, but fail, to overthrow the Saudi royal family. All the men who took part are later beheaded except Mahrous. Eventually he is released from prison because of the close ties between the bin Ladens and the Saudi royal family. Mahrous apparently abandons the rebel cause and joins the family business. He is eventually made a head of the Medina branch and a member of the board. He will still hold these positions on 9/11. But a newspaper reports that "his past not forgiven and most important decisions in the are made without Mahrous' input."
Lawrence Wright reports that the bin Laden family actually provided important assistance in taking back the mosque by providing maps and technical information about the mosque critical in the assault.
Steve Coll's Ghost Wars states that the weapons were transported into the mosque prior to the takeover. Bin Laden company trucks were a common sight in the mosque, as the company won a contract to renovate and modernize the mosque in 1973. The bin Ladens did help the regime during the takeover, by giving Saudi security forces the architectural plans for the site.
Read more about this topic: Grand Mosque Seizure
Famous quotes containing the words alleged, involvement, laden and/or family:
“Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They have remained standing with the symptoms and have interpreted these in manifold and contrary ways. Some have regarded it as a merely local ill. The most ingenious opponents have pressed for castration. They well noticed that this alleged illness is nothing other than the crisis of beginning puberty.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)
“The mother whose self-image is dependent on her children places on those children the responsibility for her own identity, and her involvement in the details of their lives can put great pressure on the children. A child suffers when everything he or she does is extremely important to a parent; this kind of over-involvement can turn even a small problem into a crisis.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“The family: I believe more unhappiness comes from this source than from any other—I mean the attempt to prolong family connection unduly, and to make people hang together artificially who would never naturally do so.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)