The mother of the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has said in her first interview with Western media that her infamous son was "brainwashed" into a life of extremism.
Alia Ghanem said in the interview published by The Guardian newspaper on August 3 that "the people at university changed him. He became a different man," referring to the time when bin Laden was in his early 20s and an economics student in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
She appeared to blame Abdullah Azzam, a Muslim Brotherhood member who became bin Laden's spiritual adviser at the university.
Ghanem, speaking from the family home in Jeddah, said prior to that time, the future terror leader had been a shy and academically capable student.
"He was a very good child until he met some people who pretty much brainwashed him in his early 20s," Ghanem said.
"You can call it a cult. They got money for their cause," she said. "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."
The United States invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 because the Taliban-led government had protected Al-Qaeda and bin Laden, who organized the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.
The Taliban was driven from power, and bin Laden, hiding in the northern Pakistani city of Abbotabad, was killed in a U.S. raid in 2011.
