On September 11th, Wafah Binladin, a twenty-six-year-old graduate of Columbia Law School, was finishing the summer holidays with her family in Geneva. Wafah’s father, Yeslam, is the Geneva-based head of the Binladin family’s European holding company, the Saudi Investment Company. When she learned of the terror attacks on America, Wafah, who lived in a rented loft in SoHo, became frantic. She knew several people who lived and worked in the area of the World Trade Center, and she repeatedly tried to reach friends in New York. “I was in shock,” she recalled, when I reached her in Switzerland recently. “All I thought about was the people in those buildings. I couldn’t get hold of my friends. . . . I live only ten blocks away. Every night, I’d walk home, down West Broadway, looking up at the Twin Towers. I have pictures of myself there with my friends. We went to Windows on the World. I kept thinking, How can anyone do such a thing?” Later, she says, she heard the news that the prime suspect was her uncle Osama bin Laden. (Some members of the family prefer “Binladin.”) “I thought then, Oh, no! I’ll never be able to go back to the States again.”

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, meanwhile, another uncle, Abdullah bin Laden, a handsome, slightly built graduate of Harvard Law School, learned about the attack while ordering coffee at Starbucks. Abdullah, who is thirty-five and a half brother of Osama bin Laden, rushed back to his apartment to watch the news, arriving just in time to see the second plane crash, into the south tower of the World Trade Center.

By mid-October, Abdullah, who was ordinarily clean-shaven, started to let his beard grow. People who knew him well realized that he was preparing to shed his Western ways. (He lived in an apartment overlooking the Charles River, spent leisure time piloting private planes at nearby Hanscom Airfield, and dreamed of working at a Manhattan law firm.) Instead, he said not long ago, over lunch at an Afghani restaurant in Boston, he was returning home to Saudi Arabia. His mission was to persuade other members of his family—fifty siblings among them—that they had to publicly put more distance between themselves and Osama or risk losing their reputation as honorable businessmen. The bin Laden family owns and runs a five-billion-dollar-a-year global corporation that includes the largest construction firm in the Islamic world, with offices in London and Geneva.

Abdullah is still conferring with many of his siblings at family compounds in Riyadh and Jidda. He has yet to get the family to agree upon a joint public statement. The reason, according to some people who have been in touch with the bin Ladens, is that the family, despite its pro-American reputation, holds loyalties that are more complicated than either Abdullah or the family’s many influential American friends, defenders, and business partners might have known. (The family keeps tens and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars invested in American companies and financial institutions.) “There’s obviously a lot of spin by the Saudi Binladin Group”—the family’s corporate name—“to distinguish itself from Osama,” Vincent Cannistraro, a former C.I.A. counter-terrorism chief, told me. “I’ve been following the bin Ladens for years, and it’s easy to say, ‘We disown him.’ Many in the family have. But blood is usually thicker than water.”

A Washington business partner of the bin Ladens, who does not want his name used, out of fear that his family might be harassed, said, “People keep asking me, ‘Why aren’t they on TV denouncing him? Are they really separate?’ ” Some relatives, such as Wafah and her mother, Carmen, who are estranged from the family (Carmen is seeking a divorce from Yeslam), issued personal statements of grief and regret. But, last week, plans by Yeslam to speak to an American audience through Dan Rather, of CBS, were put on hold, apparently when an older brother counselled against it.

There appear to be two related difficulties in the bin Ladens’ response. According to a knowledgeable source, the Saudi royal family, whose patronage and favor are at the foundation of the bin Laden family fortune, is concerned about possible political repercussions from any statements. As President Bush demands that the countries of the world choose sides, and declare whether they are with the United States or with Osama bin Laden, for some members of the bin Laden family—and for many other conflicted Saudis, too—the situation is so complex that they would have to respond “Both.”

“The Saudi royal family and the bin Laden family are walking the same fine line,” the Washington business partner of the bin Ladens said. “On one hand, the family should hire a great P.R. firm and a great lawyer, and take out ads, like Bayer”—a reference to the pharmaceutical company and its antibiotic Cipro. “But to do that they’d have to denounce Osama.” Some American and European intelligence officials told me that several members of the bin Laden family sympathize with Osama. These officials also acknowledged that with a family that large—it may number as many as six hundred, when one counts all the relatives—conflicts are inevitable.

“This war in a way is really about himself, and the values of his own family,” said Adil Najam, a professor of international relations at Boston University, who has studied the rise of Osama bin Laden. “His rampage is against the Saudi establishment, which he says is not Islamic enough. But his own family is the Saudi establishment.” Yossef Bodansky, the director of the congressional task force on terrorism and unconventional warfare, and a biographer of bin Laden, sees the situation slightly differently. “Osama isn’t at war against his family,” he said. “He is fighting to save his family. He sees the corruption of his family as one of the manifestations of the reach of the West.” Bodansky continued, “Look, bin Laden is probably right—a value system he cares about dearly is succumbing to the onslaught of Western civilization. . . . He’s absolutely correct in principle. But his conclusion that there is no escape but provoking world war leaves a lot to be desired.”

When, in a 1998 edict, bin Laden commanded his followers to kill Americans and their allies, military and civilian, this presumably included his niece Wafah. She was born an American citizen when Yeslam was studying at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. She was raised for the most part in Switzerland—her father recently became a Swiss citizen—and she grew up so removed from the family’s roots that her first language was French. Last year, she completed an internship at the New York law firm of Schulte Roth & Zabel. A partner at the firm, who asked not to be quoted by name, describes Wafah as “conscientious, serious, and quite ambitious.” In conversation, she sounds much like any high-spirited and opinionated young American. “I love American movies,” she told me. “I love American music, like Destiny’s Child and Mariah Carey. I love Madonna. And Michael and Janet Jackson, too. I like modern men. I love Jennifer Lopez—I think she’s the most beautiful woman in the world!”

Around two dozen other American-based members of the bin Laden family, most of them here to study in colleges and prep schools, were said to be in the United States at the time of the attacks. The New York Times reported that they were quickly called together by officials from the Saudi Embassy, which feared that they might become the victims of American reprisals. With approval from the F.B.I., according to a Saudi official, the bin Ladens flew by private jet from Los Angeles to Orlando, then on to Washington, and finally to Boston. Once the F.A.A. permitted overseas flights, the jet flew to Europe. United States officials apparently needed little persuasion from the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, that the extended bin Laden family included no material witnesses. The Saudi Embassy says that the family coöperated with the F.B.I. The Saudi government has said that the family signed a statement officially disowning Osama in 1994, a year after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The Saudi government also stripped bin Laden of his citizenship, which resulted in self-exile to Sudan. When I asked a senior United States intelligence officer whether anyone had considered detaining members of the family, he replied, “That’s called taking hostages. We don’t do that.”

In criminal cases, it is common practice to bring relatives of defendants before grand juries. But Abdullah, the only relation who had remained in the United States—he stayed in Boston for almost a month—said that he was never questioned in person. He would have been willing to help, he said; an F.B.I. agent telephoned, but they spoke only briefly. Abdullah added that he has not seen Osama for several years, when they attended family gatherings on such occasions as Ramadan, and that he has no more idea how to find him than anyone else does.

During the meal in Boston, Abdullah referred to his brother in embarrassed tones only as “Mr. O.” A number of American acquaintances, including several members of the Harvard faculty, attest to the family’s distance from Osama. (The university has received from the Saudi Binladin Group donations totalling two million dollars to further Islamic scholarship there.) Abdullah said that he admires America, where he has lived periodically for the past decade, and that he abhors terrorism. He disagrees with Osama’s radical fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran; he also accepts the permanent existence of an Israeli state. “Most of my family are moderates,” he said. “We are businesspeople, that’s what we are about.”

While the Saudi government was removing the bin Laden family members from American legal jurisdiction, at home it took other precautions, two sources say. According to Saad Al-Fagih, a London-based surgeon and Saudi dissident, who heads a group called Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, Osama bin Laden’s oldest son is being closely watched by the Saudi government, which has restricted his travel from the kingdom for the past five years. Al-Fagih said that the son, Abdullah Osama bin Laden, who is in his early twenties and works for the family business, is one of some fifteen children that Osama has had with three or four wives. “He is being held as a tool,” Al-Fagih said. “He’s been imprisoned within the boundaries of Saudi Arabia. He lives with the others, but he’s kept from leaving the airport.” Al-Fagih claimed that the Saudis have “sent a message to Osama that ‘If you hurt us, we will hurt your son.’ ”

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of Al-Quds al-Arabi, an Arabic daily newspaper in Britain, interviewed Osama bin Laden in November, 1996, and is well acquainted with people close to bin Laden. He agreed that “the travel of Osama’s eldest son, Abdullah, is restricted,” and that he cannot leave Saudi Arabia easily. Atwan added, “Although the son works with his uncle, he has never disowned his father.”

Two weeks ago, a London-based Arabic newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, carried an interview with Abdullah, who confirmed that he works with the family construction company in Jidda. He spoke of his “allegiance to the Kingdom’s leadership,” but he defended his father, whom he said he had not seen for six years. He was not asked whether the government had imposed any restraints on him; he said that he had travelled to Europe as a tourist. He blamed the media for giving the world a “wrong impression” of his father. “My father is a calm and quiet person by nature,” he contended. “They have even linked the spread of anthrax to him without any proof or evidence.” With the family’s blessing, Abdullah said, he had married a relative, and now has two young children.

Cannistraro, the former C.I.A. antiterror expert, believes that many family members have cut off all contact with Osama, and revile his tactics. But there is also, he suggested, “an interconnectedness” among others in the family which frustrates and tantalizes American investigators. He told me that as recently as nine months ago an allied intelligence agency had seen two of Osama’s sisters apparently taking cash to an airport in Abu Dhabi, where they are suspected of handing it to a member of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda organization. (Tim Metz, the family spokesman, said that the intelligence report was “unfair and impossible to check without more detail.”) “Some of the sisters are very religious,” Al-Fagih said, “and they believe that even if your brother is a real criminal he is your brother. He’s got to live comfortably.” Under Shariah, Islamic law, Al-Fagih said, it is unjust to deprive any member of a family of his rightful inheritance. Some of Osama’s siblings are troubled by a decision that the Saudi government made, in 1994, to freeze his assets, including part of an inheritance, estimated at thirty million dollars, that Osama, like all the sons in the family, received. (The daughters, in accordance with Islamic law, each inherited half as much.) “Many of Osama’s brothers and sisters think it is sinful if they keep any of his inheritance money,” Al-Fagih said.

According to Cannistraro, Saudi sources observed several of Osama’s children travelling between Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan without restrictions. He doubts news reports that Osama spoke with his mother shortly before the September 11th attack. Rather, Cannistraro said, he has been told that the Saudis have conveyed messages from her to her son in recent years, begging him to quit his terrorist campaign.

Both Al-Fagih and Abdel Bari Atwan claim that bin Laden’s mother has twice met with her son since he moved to Afghanistan, in 1996. Atwan said that a trip in the spring of 1998 was arranged by Prince Turki al-Faisal, then the head of Saudi intelligence. Turki was in charge of the “Afghanistan file,” and had long-standing ties to bin Laden and the Taliban. Indeed, Osama, before becoming an enemy of the state, had been something of a Turki protégé, according to his biographers. Prince Turki, Al-Fagih said, “made arrangements for Osama’s mother and his stepfather to visit him and persuade him to stop what he was doing.” When Al-Fagih was asked about bin Laden’s response, he said, “He is very close to his mother, so he thought it was nice to see his mother. It’s a free trip. He tries not to discuss his views with his mother. They talk about health, and children. But he didn’t promise anything.”

The second trip, according to Al-Fagih, occurred last spring. “The royal family approved it,” Al-Fagih, who is eager to turn the United States against the Saudi royal family, told me. “It was not just a family affair. It was to try to approach and influence him. They wanted to find out his intentions concerning the royal family. They gave him the impression that they wouldn’t crack down on his followers in Saudi Arabia” as long as he set his sights on targets outside the desert kingdom. Last January, the Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera broadcast footage of what was purported to be the wedding of bin Laden’s son Muhammad. Three siblings from a later marriage of Osama’s mother were in attendance.

Cannistraro believes that Prince Turki made two trips to meet with bin Laden, although he said that he was unaware of any role played by Osama’s mother. He also said that he had been able to verify independently that on one of the trips the Saudis made “a large monetary offer” to bin Laden, consisting of tens of millions of dollars, if he would agree to end his murderous political rebellion.

Gaafar Allagany, the director of the Saudi information office at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, said that he knew of no restrictions on the travel of any bin Laden family members, or of any contacts between them and bin Laden since his move to Afghanistan. “These are private citizens,” Allagany said. “I don’t know what they do. I can’t find out, either.” Allagany also said that “nobody in the Saudi government has facilitated any meeting or communication between members of the bin Laden family and Osama bin Laden since he moved from Sudan to Afghanistan.”