Osama Bin Laden told Egyptian reporters for Arabic daily Cairo in 1994 that he had spent some time in Istanbul. He lived and worked in Istanbul, he said, because of “some troubles” with the Kingdom Saudi Arabia which he declined to specify.The report was ignored by most media outlets until recently; Bin Laden’s time in Istanbul became publicly known after the content of a CIA report became known.
Turkish Daily Hurriyet quoted Bin Laden as saying: “When the Soviet Union invaded Kabul, I was residing in Turkey, having left the kingdom because of some differences, which I don’t like to mention now. I was working in trade.”
“During my stay in Istanbul, I got acquainted with many Iranian merchants who had escaped from Iran at the outbreak of the Iraq-Iran war. During that time, Arab mujahidin started going to Afghanistan with the help of the U.S. CIA, which set up a transit camp in Istanbul. Volunteers stayed in the camp and were then dispatched to Afghanistan,” he added.
He also explained what his ‘charity’ organizations were doing, and where they operated. They had, he said, offices in 13 countries: “The Bin Ladin Establishment’s aid covers 13 countries, including Albania, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Netherlands, Britain, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, and some Gulf countries that there is no need to mention. This aid comes in particular from the Human Concern International Society, which was founded in Afghanistan in 1982,” he said during the interview.
Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in Pakistan now. He fled Afghanistan after the war in 2001, which came in response to his terrorist organization’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.