Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of four books about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

(CNN) For the first time, Osama bin Laden's mother, Alia Ghanem, has given an interview. Conducted in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by Martin Chulov of The Guardian, the interview is noteworthy because bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and his mother were exceptionally close.

What Ghanem says in the interview is largely credible and tracks with the little that is publicly known about her relationship with her son. Ghanem recalls bin Laden as "a very good kid and he loved me so much."

According to Ghanem, who is now in her mid-70s, she was divorced from Mohammed bin Laden, the enormously wealthy bin Laden family patriarch, when Osama was three. Osama was the only child of their union.

Mohammed bin Laden had 53 other children with some 20 wives. He died in a plane crash when Osama was 10.

After his parents' divorce, Ghanem's second husband, Mohammed al-Attas, raised Osama.

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