Osama bin Laden

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Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎)
March 10, 1957 (1957-03-10)
Image:DN-SD-04-12769.jpg Propaganda poster of Osama Bin Laden found by a USN SEAL Team in Eastern Afganistan. 14 January 2002.
Place of birth	Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Years of service	1979–present
Battles/wars	Afghan Jihad War on Terrorism

Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎; born 10 March 1957), most often mentioned as Osama bin Laden or Usama bin Laden, is a militant Islamist and is reported to be the founder of the terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda. He is a member of the prestigious and wealthy bin Laden family. In conjunction with several other Islamic militant leaders, bin Laden issued two fatwas— in 1996 and then again in 1998—that Muslims should kill civilians and military personnel from the United States and allied countries until they withdraw support for Israel and withdraw military forces from Islamic countries.

He has been indicted in United States federal court for his alleged involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and is on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

Although bin Laden has not been indicted for the September 11, 2001 attacks, he has claimed responsibility for them in videos released to the public. The attacks involved the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77, and the subsequent destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York City, New York, and severe damage to The Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C., along with the deaths of 2,974 victims.

Usage variations of bin Laden's name

Because there is no universally accepted standard in the West for transliterating Arabic words and names into English, bin Laden's name is transliterated in many ways. The version often used by most English-language mass media is Osama bin Laden. Most American government agencies, including the FBI and CIA, use either Usama bin Laden or Usama bin Ladin, both of which are often abbreviated to UBL. Less common renderings include Ussamah Bin Ladin and Oussama Ben Laden (French-language mass media). The latter part of the name can also be found as Binladen or Binladin.

Strictly speaking, Arabic linguistic conventions dictate that he be referred to as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden," as "Bin Laden," is not used as a surname in the western manner, but simply as part of his name, which in its entirety means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of 'Awad, son of Laden". However, the bin Laden family (or "Binladin", as they prefer to be known) do generally use the name as a surname in the Western style. Consequently "bin Laden" has become nearly universal in Western references to him, Arabic convention notwithstanding.

Bin Laden also has several commonly used aliases and nicknames, including the Prince, the Sheikh, Al-Amir, Abu Abdallah, Sheikh Al-Mujahid, the Lion Sheik, the Director, Imam Mehdi and Samaritan.

Childhood, education and personal life

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In a 1998 interview, later televised on Al Jazeera, he gave his birth date as 10 March 1957. His father Muhammed Awad bin Laden was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family. Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas. Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born, according to Khaled M. Batarfi. Osama's mother then married Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three stepbrothers and one stepsister.

Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976 he attended the "élite" secular Al-Thager Model School. Bin Laden studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest bin Laden earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Other sources describe him as having left university during his third year, never completing a college degree, though "hard working." At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both in "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.

In 1974, at the age of seventeen, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia. Bin Laden is reported to have married four other women and divorced two, Umm Ali bin Laden and Umm Abdullah. Bin Laden has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.

Beliefs and ideology

Like other Islamists and Islamic fundamentalists, Bin Laden believes that the restoration of Sharia law will set things right in the Muslim world, and that all other ideologies - " pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy" - must be opposed.. He believes Afghanistan under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. He has consistently dwelt on need for jihad to right what he believes are injustices against Muslims perpetrated the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states, the need to eliminate the state of Israel, and the necessity of forcing the U.S. to withdraw from the Middle East. He has also called on Americans to "reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury," in a October 2002 letter.

Probably the most controversial part of Bin Laden's ideology is that civilians, including women and children, can be killed in jihad. " Bin Laden is anti-Jewish, and has delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Al-Qaeda ideology classes list Shia along with "Heretics, ... America and Israel," as the four principle "enemies of Islam".

As a Wahhabi, bin Laden opposes music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology, is mixed. He is interested in "earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants, on the one hand," but rejecting "chilled water on the other."

Militant activity

Jihad in Afghanistan

After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and lived for a time in Peshawar. By 1984, with Azzam, bin Laden established Maktab al-Khadamat, which funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the Arabic world into the Afghan war. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. In running al-Khadamat, bin Laden set up a network of couriers traveling between Afghanistan and Peshawar. During this time Bin Laden met his future al-Qaeda collaborator Ayman al-Zawahiri. For a while Osama worked at the Services Office working with Abdullah Azzam on Jihad Magazine, a magazine that gave information about the war with the Soviets and interviewed mujahideen. Over time, Ayman al-Zawahiri encouraged Osama to split away from Abdullah Azzam. Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.

Formation of Al-Qaeda

By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat due to strategic differences. While Azzam and his MAK organization acted as support for Afghan fighters and provided relief to refugees and the injured, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main leading points to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was the insistence of Azzam that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming their separate fighting force. In 1989, Azzam died in a car bombing.

In 1990, Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion, "had brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union. However, during this time Iraq invaded Kuwait and bin Laden was alarmed that foreign non-Muslim troops would enter the kingdom to fight Iraq. He met the Sultan, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops and offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was rebuffed and publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on U.S. military. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led the government to attempt to silence him.

In Sudan

Laden moved to Sudan in 1992 and established a new base for mujahideen operations in Khartoum. Bin Laden continued his verbal assault on Saudi King Fahd. On 5 March 1994, the King retaliated by personally revoking his citizenship and sending an embassary to Sudan to demand bin Laden's passport so that he could no longer travel. His family was persuaded to cut off his monthly stipend equivalent of about $7 million a year. By now bin Laden was strongly associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) who made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 EIJ attempted to assassinate Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed and a backlash ensued, and the EIJ was abruptly expelled from Sudan.

Refuge in Afghanistan

In May 1996, under increasing pressure from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States, Sudan asked bin Laden to leave. bin Laden was forced to make a distress sale of his assets in Sudan that left him with almost nothing. Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan and forged a close relationship Mullah Mohammed Omar. bin Laden supported the Taliban regime with financial and paramilitary assistance and, in 1997, he moved to Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold. In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). This was done at old al-Qaeda camps in Khost which ISI had persuaded the Taliban to return to al-Qaeda control.

Early aid for attacks

In 1992 or 93 bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists there and warn them against compromise with the impious government. Total war did follow involving massacres of civilians and a declaration of takfir of Algerians by one of the Islamist factions (the GIA). 150,000-200,000 Algerians were killed by the end of the war, but the government prevailed over the Islamists. Another unsuccessful effort by bin Laden was the Luxor massacre of November 17 1997, which Swiss federal police are reported to have found was funded by bin Laden. The attack by six al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya militants killed 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians at Luxor Temple, but it turned the Egyptian public against Islamist terror. A later attack that did succeed, at least temporarily, was on Mazar-e-Sharif. While in Afghanistan, bin Laden helped cement his alliance with his hosts the ruling Taliban by sending several hundred of his Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban overrun Mazar-e-Sharif. The city fell.

It is believed that the first terrorist attack involving bin Laden was the 29 December 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden, Yemen. The attack was intended to kill American troops on the way to Somalia, but the soldiers were staying in a different hotel. The bombs killed a Yemeni hotel employee and an Austrian national and injured the Austrian's wife.

It was after this bombing that al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people, such as two bystanders at the hotel. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander, like the Yemini hotel worker, will find their proper reward in death, going to Paradise if they were good Muslims and to hell if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.

In 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, declaring:

“

[t]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'.

”

Attacks on United States targets

In response to the 1998 United States embassy bombings following the fatwa, President Bill Clinton ordered a freeze on assets that could be linked to bin Laden. Clinton also signed an executive order, authorizing bin Laden's arrest or assassination. In August 1998, the U.S. launched an attack using cruise missiles. The attack failed to harm bin Laden but killed 19 people.

September 11, 2001 attacks

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated that evidence linking Al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable. The Government of the United Kingdom reached the same conclusion regarding Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11, 2001, attacks. However, a "White Paper" by the U.S. government, documenting the case against bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization concerning the September 11 attacks, publicly promised by Secretary of State Colin Powell, was never published. In 2006, Rex Tomb of the FBI's public affairs unit said, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11". So far, the U.S. Justice Department has not sought formal criminal charges against bin Laden (or anyone but Zacarias Moussaoui) for the 9/11 attacks. Two separate indictments were made against bin Laden by two separate grand juries in 1998 for two separate terrorist acts, though no indictments have been filed against him for the events of 9/11.

Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks while praising them effusely, explaining their motivation, and dismissing American accusations of his involvement as an example of its hatred for Islam. On 16 September 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel saying:

I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation.

God has struck America at its Achilles heel and destroyed its greatest buildings, praise and blessing to Him.

In November 2001, U.S. forces recovered a videotape in Jalalabad. In it, bin Laden discusses the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way indicating foreknowledge of the attack. "We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy;" and "We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event [the 9/11 attack] would take place that day." The tape was broadcast on various news networks on 13 December 2001. Some have disputed this translation however. On 20 December 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast its analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the show Monitor, two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House's translation to be not only inaccurate, but also "manipulative". Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini, one of the translators, stated: "I have carefully examined the Pentagon's translation. This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."

Shortly before the U.S. presidential election in 2004, another taped statement was released and aired on Al Jazeera in which bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he told viewers he had personally directed the 19 hijackers, and gave what he claimed was his motivation:

I will explain to you the reasons behind these events, and I will tell you the truth about the moments when this decision was taken, so that you can reflect on it. God knows that the plan of striking the towers had not occurred to us, but the idea came to me when things went just too far with the American-Israeli alliance's oppression and atrocities against our people in Palestine and Lebanon.

According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Centre after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.

In two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announces,

I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers … I was responsible for entrusting the 19 brothers … with the raids [5 minute audiotape broadcast May 23, 2006],

and is seen with Ramzi Binalshibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they make preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006).

Despite this, bin Laden is reported to have complained as recently as November 2007 of the lack "of evidence admissible in court" tying him and his organization to the 9/11 attack.

Criminal charges and attempted extradition

The 9/11 Commission Report concludes, "In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel bin Ladin to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. U.S. officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted bin Ladin expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also bin Ladin may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, or both. On 19 May 1996, bin Ladin left Sudan—significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills. He returned to Afghanistan." The 9/11 Commission Report further states "In late 1995, when Bin Ladin was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Ladin. U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Ladin, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan’s minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Ladin over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding."

On 8 June 1998, a United States grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the 13 November 1995, truck bombing of a U.S.-operated Saudi National Guard training centre in Riyadh. Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic terrorists worldwide. Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack.

On 4 November 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former Al Qaeda members and satellite phone records.

On 7 June 1999, bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks.

Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure. In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.

Years later, on 10 October 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the attacks of 9/11, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.

Attempted capture by the U.S.

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the U.S. to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the U.S. in the war against al Qaeda. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.

The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit dedicated to capturing Osama was shut down in late 2005.

U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between 14 August and 16 August 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri.

Bounty

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On 13 July 2007, this figure was doubled to $50 million.

The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association are offering an additional $2 million reward.

Current whereabouts

Claims as to the location of Osama bin Laden have been made since December 2001, although none have been definitively proven and some have placed Osama in different locations during overlapping time periods.

A 11 December 2005, letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicates that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the military's Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point, "Atiyah" instructs Zarqawi to "send messengers from your end to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership … I am now on a visit to them and I am writing you this letter as I am with them…" Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are "weak" and "have many of their own problems." The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to the Washington Post.

In 2001, according to a spokesman for a company producing fingerprint scanners for San Francisco International Airport, the United States probably did not have Osama bin Laden's fingerprints on file.

Reports of his death

Reports alleging Osama bin Laden's death have circulated since late 2001. In the months following the 9/11 terrorist attack, many people believed that bin Laden was dead. This belief was perpetuated by subsequent media reports often referencing bin Laden's serious health problems, though there has been evidence to suggest that he is still alive.

April 2005

The Sydney Morning Herald stated "Dr Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University, says documents provided by an Indian colleague suggested bin Laden died of massive organ failure in April last year … 'It's hard to prove or disprove these things because there hasn't really been anything that allows you to make a judgment one way or the other', Dr. Williams said."

August 2006

On 23 September 2006, the French newspaper L'Est Républicain quoted a report from the French secret service ( DGSE) stating that Osama bin Laden had died in Pakistan on 23 August 2006, after contracting a case of typhoid fever that paralyzed his lower limbs. According to the newspaper, Saudi security services first heard of bin Laden's alleged death on 4 September 2006. The alleged death was reported by the Saudi Arabian secret service to its government, which reported it to the French secret service. The French defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie expressed her regret that the report had been published while French President Jacques Chirac declared that bin Laden's death had not been confirmed. American authorities also cannot confirm reports of bin Laden's death, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying only, "No comment, and no knowledge." Later, CNN's Nic Robertson said that he had received confirmation from an anonymous Saudi source that the Saudi intelligence community has known for a while that bin Laden has a water-borne illness, but that he had heard no reports that it was specifically typhoid or that he had died.

November 2007

In an interview with political interviewer David Frost, taken on November 2, 2007, the recently assassinated Pakistani politician, and Pakistan Peoples Party chairwoman, Benazir Bhutto, claimed that bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh. During her answer to a question pertaining to the identities of those who had previously attempted her own assassination, Bhutto named Sheikh as a possible suspect while referring to him as "the man who murdered Osama bin Laden." Despite the weight of such a statement, neither Bhutto nor Frost attempted to clarify it and no other mainstream media appears to have further inquired about it. Footage of the exchange can be viewed here.

Criticism

Among Salafist Muslims who have criticized bin Laden for adherence to Qutbism (the ideology of Sayyid Qutb), takfir and Khaarijite deviance, are said to include Muhammad Ibn Haadee al-Madkhalee , Abd-al-Aziz ibn Abd-Allah ibn Baaz, Shaykh Saalih al-Fawzaan and Muqbil bin Haadi al-Waadi'ee.

Official video/audio releases

• On 6 September 2007, bin Laden's image was posted at a banner advertisement on an Islamic militant Web site (where al-Qaida's media arm, Al-Sahab posts messages). In the image, bin Laden's beard had been dyed (a popular practice among Arab leaders). Al-Sahab said that bin Laden will release a new video ahead of the 6th anniversary of the 11 September attacks (the first new images in 3 years). The video was released on 7 September 2007.