Osama bin Laden
أسامة بن لادن
Place of death Abbottabad, Pakistan,
Allegiance AL-Qaeeda
Battles/wars Soviet war in Afghanistan
War on Terror:
* War in Afghanistan
* War in North-West Pakistan
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن, ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 1, 2011[1][2]) was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family and the founder of the jihadist terrorist[3] organization al-Qaeeda, responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. As a result of his dealings in and advocacy of violent extremist jihad, Osama bin Laden lost his Saudi citizenship and was disowned by his billionaire family.[4]
Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists due to his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.[5][6][7]
Since 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization had been major targets of the U.S. War on Terror. Bin Laden and fellow al-Qaeeda leaders were believed to be hiding near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
On May 1, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced on national television that bin Laden had been killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by American military forces[1][8] and that his body was in U.S. custody.[2]
Variations of bin Laden's name
There is no universally accepted standard in the West for transliterating Arabic words and names into English, so bin Laden's name is spelled in many different ways. The version translation most often used by 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 last two words of the name can also be found as "Binladen" or (as used by his family in the West) "Binladin". The spelling with "o" and "e" comes from a Persian-influenced pronunciation used in Afghanistan where he lived for a long time.
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 long form means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of 'Awad, son of Laden". Still, "bin Laden" has become nearly universal in Western references to him.
Bin Laden's admirers commonly use several aliases and nicknames, including the Prince/Al-Amir, the Sheikh, Abu Abdallah, Sheikh Al-Mujahid, the Lion Sheik,[9] the Director.[10]
Childhood, education and personal life
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.[11] In a 1998 interview, he gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.[12] His father Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family.[13] Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas.[14] Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born; Osama's mother then married Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.[14]
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.[15] From 1968 to 1976 he attended the "élite" secular Al-Thager Model School along with lifelong friends Anthony Kardous and Enos Fingy.[14][16] Bin Laden studied economics and business administration[17] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest bin Laden earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,[18] or a degree in public administration in 1981.[19] Other sources describe him as having left university during his third year,[20] never completing a college degree, though "hard working."[21] At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.[22] He also wrote poetry.[23]
In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia.[24] According to CNN national security correspondent David Ensore, as of 2002 bin Laden had married four women and fathered roughly 25 or 26 children.[25] Other sources report that he has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.[26]
His father, Muhammed bin Laden, was killed in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot misjudged a landing.[27] His eldest half-brother and head of the bin Laden family, Salem bin Laden, was killed in 1988 when he accidentally flew a plane into powerlines near San Antonio, Texas, USA.
Beliefs and ideology
Bin Laden believed 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.[28] These beliefs, along with violent expansive jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism.[29] He believed Afghanistan under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world.[30] Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believes are injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states,[31] the need to eliminate the state of Israel, and the necessity of forcing the US to withdraw from the Middle East. He also called on Americans to "reject the immoral acts of fornication (and) homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury," in an October 2002 letter.[32]
Probably the most infamous part of Bin Laden's ideology was that civilians, including women and children, are legitimate targets of jihad.[33][34] Bin Laden was antisemitic, and 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."[35] Shia Muslims have been listed along with "Heretics,... America and Israel," as the four principal "enemies of Islam" at ideology classes of bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization.[36]
In keeping with Wahhabi beliefs,[37] bin Laden opposed music on religious grounds,[38] and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in "earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants" on the one hand, but rejected "chilled water" on the other.[39]
His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a "terrorist" by scholars,[40][41] journalists from the New York Times,[42][43] the BBC,[44] and Qatari news station Al Jazeera,[45] analysts such as Peter Bergen,[46] Michael Scheuer,[47] Marc Sageman,[48] and Bruce Hoffman[49][50] and he was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.[51]
Militant activity
After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan[52] and lived for a time in Peshawar.[53]
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[54] paid for air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.
It was during his time in Peshawar that he began wearing camouflage-print jackets and carrying a captured Soviet assault rifle, which urban legends claimed he had obtained by killing a Russian soldier with his bare hands.[55]
Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for mujahideen operations, in Khartoum.
Bin Laden continued his verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and in response, on March 5, 1994, Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan demanding bin Laden's passport. His family was persuaded to cut off his monthly stipend, the equivalent of $7 million a year.[64] By now bin Laden was strongly associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and the EIJ was expelled from Sudan.
Sudan also began efforts to expel bin Laden. The 9/11 Commission Report states:
"In late 1995, when Bin Laden 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 Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in the Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization.[65] US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan’s minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden 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 Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding."[66]
The 9/11 Commission Report further states:
"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 Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden 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."
In May 1996, under increasing pressure on Sudan, from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden returned to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight, and there forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar.[67][68] When Bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.[69] In Afghanistan, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters .[70]