BREAKING NEWS

Bin Laden's brother dies in Saudi Arabia

In a full-page notice on Sunday in Al-Riyadh newspaper, the family said Thabet bin Laden passed away and the funeral is scheduled that afternoon in the holy city of Mecca. The notice said he died Saturday but did not give the cause of death or his age. Thabet bin Laden was one of 54 children born to Mohammed bin Laden, a poor Yemeni immigrant who started the family contracting business in the 1930s that grew into a multi-million dollar construction empire. The bin Laden family disavowed any links with Osama bin Laden in 1994, when Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship after he called for the overthrow of the royal family.