History was split in two on September 11 2001. In the space of just 17 minutes, the time between the first and second planes hitting the Twin Towers, all events in modern history were classified as either pre or post 9/11.
That terrible day saw 2,603 people perish after the two planes, hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists, hit the World Trade Centre in Lower Manhattan, New York City.
In the years after the attack, the death toll rose to 2,996 as a result of the harm caused by exposure to the dust at Ground Zero. Thousands more still suffer long-term health problems, including emergency service workers who risked their lives to rescue as many people as possible.
That’s to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq in the years following 9/11 at the hands of Western coalition forces, which justified the invasions of these nations by claiming they were taking revenge for the terror attacks.
The terror and destruction, and the subsequent deaths, came as a result of the actions of one man: Osama Bin Laden.
Bin Laden founded the terror group responsible for the attack in 1988, and admitted to orchestrating the 9/11 attacks. Satisfied with his work, he went to ground immediately after the attack and was hunted by the US and its intelligence partners for a decade, before being killed in his home and unceremoniously dumped in the sea.
Though the name Bin Laden will forever be associated with terror and fear, the Al-Qaeda leader had many relatives who not only lived very different lives from him, but actively seek to combat the poisonous legacy he left.
takes a look at the Bin Ladens who have spent years working to reclaim their family name.
Wafah Dufour: The glamour model-turned-singer
Wafah Dufour, the niece of Osama Bin Laden, was with her mother in Geneva, Switzerland, on the morning on September 11 2001.
She had spent the summer in the city after getting a master’s degree in law from New York’s Columbia University.
Dufour, now 49, was meant to fly back to the US to stay in her Soho apartment, but was forced to lay low for six months with her mother.
She told GQ in a now-famous story published in 2006: ‘I wanted to disappear. There were a lot of articles saying things about me, and I just couldn’t cope with it.
‘[They were] saying that I fled before, that I knew about the attack and I was living the high life, that I was partying like a mad animal. Yeah, I was partying a bit, after my exams.’
‘I was crying all day. I was saying, ‘How can I be me?’ For me it was an identity crisis, because I didn’t want to be related to something so awful. I’m like the victim, but I’m also part of what hits the target.
‘And in my head, I know exactly where I stand, but it’s so tiring that I always have to explain myself, that I have nothing to do with anything.’
Popping her head above the parapet, she then moved to London for several years where she was heavily scrutinised for her relation to the terrorist mastermind, before moving back to New York in the autumn of 2004.
Here, she planned on breaking into music, taking up hours-long music lessons in songwriting, singing and guitar while trying as hard as possible not to stand out.
She told GQ: ‘I want to be accepted here, but I feel that everybody’s judging me and rejecting me.
‘Come on, where’s the American spirit? Accept me. I want to be embraced, because my values are like yours. And I’m here. I’m not hiding.’
‘I’m not allowed to have fun. Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him. There are 400 other people related to him, but they’re all in Saudi Arabia, so nobody’s going to get tarred with it. I’m the only one here.’
Though she went to great efforts to keep a low profile, she was eventually found out. The New York Post, still reeling from the vicious terror attack, described the terrorist’s niece as a ‘pushy spoiled brat,’ a ‘wannabe’ who ‘wants to be a pop star but no record company will have her.’
In 2006, the same year she is thought to have dated singer John Legend, she was set to appear in a reality show that aimed to document her struggle to get into the music industry, however the project was cancelled due to lingering resentments over her connection with the terrorist.
Dejected, she moved back to London to further her music career and distance herself from the terrorist, recording her first album in 2009.
Ten years later, she became the lead singer of the band Deep Tan, based out of east London.
That year, tracked her down to Peckham Audio where she was fronting punk trio Deep Tan dressed in chrome trousers paired with a plunging black top.
Dufour, who has denounced her uncle in the strongest terms, politely declined to discuss Osama Bin Laden.
Ms Dufour, who had never met her uncle and has long insisted on being called by her mother’s maiden name, refused to speak to the about her ancestry.
Noor Bin Laden: The glamorous and controversial Trump activist
Noor Bin Laden, 37, came out swinging in her first ever public interview in 2020, telling the world that she was fervent Trump supporter.
‘I have been a supporter of President Trump since he announced he was running in the early days in 2015. I have watched from afar and I admire this man’s resolve’, she defiantly told the New York Post.
‘He must be re-elected … It’s vital for the future of not only America, but Western civilization as a whole.’
Her support for the America First president stands in stark contrast to her uncle, who infamously proclaimed in 1999: ‘We believe that the biggest thieves in the world and the terrorists are the Americans.
‘The only way for us to fend off these assaults is to use similar means. We do not worry about American opinion or the fact that they place prices on our heads. We as Muslims believe our fate is set.’
But the ardent Trump supporter instead said that it was ‘radical Islam’ that was to blame for the world’s problems.
‘You look at all the terrorist attacks that have happened in Europe over the past 19 years. They have completely shaken us to the core … [Radical Islam] has completely infiltrated our society. In the US it’s very worrying that the left has aligned itself completely with the people who share that ideology.’
In 2021, she was seen waving a ‘Trump Won’ flag while on a boat in Geneva, referring to the claim that the 2020 election stolen from the current Republican nominee by Joe Biden.
Noor, the sister of glamour model Wafah, was raised in Switzerland by her mother, author Carmen Dufour
Unlike her sister, however, she kept a relatively low profile until 2020, earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Geneva, a master’s in commercial law from the University of London.
‘My life would have been very different had I been raised in Saudi Arabia,’ she said. ‘I really grew up with this deep appreciation for freedom and basic individual rights.’
She was just 14 when her uncle carried out the 9/11 attack. Even at that tender age, she knew her life would never be the same.
‘I was so devastated,’ she recalled. ‘I had been going to the States with my mom several times a year from the age of 3 onwards. I considered the US my second home.’
Omar Bin Laden: The artist groomed to take his father’s role as Al-Qaeda’s leader
Omar Bin Laden, 43, spent years living a quiet life as an artist in Normandy, northern France. But he was this week banned from re-entering France, after authorities accused him of glorifying terrorism via social media.
French officials said that he published comments on social media on the anniversary of Bin Laden’s death in May last year that glorified ‘terrorism and al Qaeda.’
While Omar denied being the author of the ‘reprehensible comments’ he did not delete or condemn them, and eventually left ‘voluntarily’ in October 2023.
Though Omar was the son of the infamous terrorist, he knew from a very early age that he could not follow in his father’s footsteps, escaping at the age of 19. He revealed in 2022 that his father was a vicious and cruel man, who raised him to be the heir to his empire.
That meant beatings, desert survival sessions, and the trauma of hearing how chemical weapons were tested on his pet puppies.
He told VICE in 2021 that despite his father’s cruelty, he tapped into his mother’s side to fuel his creativity.
He told the outlet: ‘Some of my mum’s side of the family are very artistic. My mum loves painting, and so does one of my sisters. My uncle was also a very good artist. So the need to draw and paint runs in my blood.’
He eventually met and married British citizen Zaina Mohamed Al-Sabah – born Jane Felix-Browne. They met in 2006, and spent hours making art with each other, and he eventually began selling his work, much of it drawing inspiration from his childhood.
‘I miss the fun times I had, the times when I was too young to know and too innocent to see the world around me. I miss the vast stretches of desert dunes and rolling seas. I miss the peace of childhood’, he told the magazine.
Though he initially tried to move to the UK in 2020, he has failed to get a visa several times.
He told the Sun in 2020: ‘When I put my foot on English soil [border guards] took us straight away to the questioning room for many hours.
‘But they were very kind and very respectful.’
Bakr Bin Laden: Businessman accused of corruption by MBS
Bakr Bin Laden, currently in his late 70s, shares little more than a father with his half-brother, Osama.
While Osama dedicated his life to raising hell on the Middle East and the wider world through the terror group he founded, Bakr found his calling in the world of business.
As an American-educated civil engineer, he took control of his family’s construction business, the Saudi Binladen Group, in 1988, following his father’s untimely death caused by a plane crash.
Developing the already-strong relationship his family and company had with Saudi royalty, he substantially grew the firm by winning more and more contracts to build the infrastructure in the rapidly developing nation.
Wall Street Journal reporters Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck wrote in their book ‘Blood and Oil’ that Bakr was helped immensely in the wake of the 9/11 terror attack by the country’s then-ruler Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, the crown prince , who refused to punish the Bin Laden family for Osama’s crime.
He pulled this off ‘thanks in part to a keen understanding of what the Al Saud wanted,’ just as his father and Salem had done, Hope and Justin Scheck wrote.
‘If that meant building a palace for a new wife in a matter of months, they’d get the job done. Payment could come much later or never at all; the Bin Ladens wouldn’t make a peep’, they added.
But this once-thriving relationship with the Saudi ruling family came crashing down in 2017, when he and his brothers were arrested in 2017 as part of a mass anti-corruption purge ordered by newly-ascendant crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
He was held without trial, first at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh then at a publicly unknown location, for years, before being released in January 2019.
Though he was freed, he paid a severe price while under arrest.
In April 2018, a year into his detention, he transferred his investment stake of SBG, more than a third of the company, to the government of Saudi Arabia, 30 years after he took control of the firm.
Since then, he has gone almost completely off the radar.
Though, as the New Yorker put it in 2021, this may not be a bad thing for the now-reviled family.
‘If there is any benefit in the reversals that M.B.S. has forced upon the Bin Ladens, it may be that they will hasten their retreat from prominence and allow them, over time, some measure of anonymity.
‘They may fade away, but the family will always offer a more interesting story of Arabia in the oil age than the notorious member who defiled their name.’