Bin Laden Family In Boston

BOSTON, Monday - Terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden has strong family ties and a group of supporters in Boston, where the two hijacked airliners that demolished the World Trade Center took off. One of bin Laden’s brothers set up scholarship funds at Harvard, while another relative owns six condominiums in an expensive complex in the Charlestown section of Boston. Two bin Laden associates once worked as Boston cab drivers, including one who was jailed in Jordan on charges of plotting to blow up a hotel full of Americans and Israelis. Bin Laden’s ties to Boston are now being closely scrutinised as authorities focus their investigation on terrorist cells with possible ties to him, said Robert Fitzpatrick, the former second-in-command at the FBI’s Boston office. “The activity of this group here is obviously significant,” Fitzpatrick said Wednesday. Investigators are interviewing drivers from Boston Cab Co., where two known associates of bin Laden once worked, to see if they had ties to baggage handlers, who in turn may have supplied weapons to the hijackers, Fitzpatrick said. “They are going to look at the cab drivers again - since they are predominantly Middle Eastern,’’ Fitzpatrick said. Last year, the FBI investigated the Boston activities of the two cab drivers, Bassam A. Kanj, a Lebanese native, and Raed M. Hijazi, a Palestinian. The men were tied by investigators to separate military and terrorist plots financed by bin Laden. Both men lived for years in Boston. Kanj, 35, was killed in Lebanon last year in an attack against the Lebanese army. Hijazi was charged in Jordan with plotting a hotel bombing. Bin Laden also has had family members living in the Boston area for the past decade. In 1994, one of his brothers, Sheik Bakr Mohammed bin Laden, made a large donation to Harvard Law School to fund research in Islamic legal studies. Harvard officials were quick to distance the school from Osama bin Laden, emphasising that he has no role in the scholarship programmes. Another relative, Mohammed M. bin Laden, owns six condominiums in the ritzy Flagship Wharf condominium complex in Charlestown. His relation to bin Laden could not immediately be determined. A woman who answered the telephone refused to answer questions. Ends