JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA—With rumours swirling about Osama bin Laden’s possible death from typhoid fever in Pakistan, Hamida al-Attas, the al-Qaeda leader’s mother, said she is “worried sick” about her son and wished that he would send “some sort of sign” that he is alive.
Al-Hattas just wants to know her son is okay.
“I can’t sleep at night not knowing where he is,” said al-Attas, clutching a framed eighth-grade school portrait of bin Laden in the living room of her Jeddah home.
“He could be dead in a ditch somewhere and I would have no idea,” al-Attas added.
The fact that al-Qaeda has not staged a major attack in over a year, coupled with the new rumors of bin Laden’s death, have increased al-Attas’s anxiety over the whereabouts and welfare of her son.…