Everything about Osama Bin Laden totally explained
Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden (; born
10 March 1957), most often mentioned as
Osama bin Laden or
Usama bin Laden, is an
Islamic militant, and believed to be the founder of the
Jihadist organization
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
fatawa—
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 their military forces from
Muslim countries and cease their support for the
state of Israel's policies.
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 US
Federal Bureau of Investigation's
Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Although bin Laden hasn't been indicted for the
September 11, 2001 attacks, he's 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 Center in
New York City,
New York, and severe damage to
The Pentagon in
Arlington, Virginia, along with the deaths of 2,974 victims.
Usage variations of bin Laden's name
Because there's 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" isn't 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, 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 "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, Ali bin Laden and Abdullah. Bin Laden has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.
Beliefs and ideology
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 the need for jihad to right what he believes are injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states, the need to eliminate the state of
Israel, and the necessity of forcing the US to withdraw from the
Middle East. He has also called on Americans to "reject the immoral acts of
fornication (and)
homosexuality,
intoxicants,
gambling, and
usury," in an
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."
Shia 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.
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 rejects "chilled
water" on the other.
Militant activity
Mujahideen 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. During this time Bin Laden met his future al-Qaeda collaborator
Ayman al-Zawahiri, who encouraged Osama to split away from Abdullah Azzam. Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.
Formation and structuring of Al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from
Maktab al-Khidamat; while Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, 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. Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 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 Laden 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 the US military. Bin Laden's criticism of the
Saudi monarchy led that
government to attempt to silence him.
Bin Laden moved to
Sudan in 1992 and established a new base for Mujahideen operations in
Khartoum. Due to bin Laden's continuous verbal assault on Saudi
King Fahd, on 5
March 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. 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.
In
May 1996, under increasing pressure from Saudi Arabia,
Egypt and the United States on Sudan, bin Laden returned to Afghanistan and forged a close relationship with Mullah
Mohammed Omar. In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Early attacks and aid for attacks
In the 1990s bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in
Algeria, Egypt and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993 bin Laden sent an emissary,
Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded but the
war that followed killed 150,000-200,000 Algerians and ended with Islamist surrender to the government. Another unsuccessful effort by bin Laden was funding of the
Luxor massacre of November 17 1997, which killed sixty two civilians, but revolted the Egyptian public and turned it against Islamist terror. A later effort that did succeed was an attack on the city of
Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with his hosts the Taliban by sending several hundred of his Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand people
overrunning the city.
It is believed that the first
bombing attack involving bin Laden was the 29
December 1992 bombing of the
Gold Mihor Hotel in
Aden in which two people were killed.
It was after this bombing that al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander 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 which declared the killing of
the North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to "liberate the
al-Aqsa Mosque (in
Jerusalem) and the holy
mosque (in
Mecca) from their grip". At the public announcement of the fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets." He told the attending
journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."
In response to the
1998 United States embassy bombings following the fatwa,
Bill Clinton ordered a freeze on assets that could be linked to bin Laden and signed an
executive order authorizing Laden's arrest or
assassination.
September 11, 2001 attacks
The
Federal Bureau of Investigation has 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.
Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the
September 11, 2001 attacks. On
16 September 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by
Qatar's
Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack.
In a videotape recovered by US forces in November 2001 in
Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with
Khaled al-Harbi in a way indicating foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on
13 December 2001. Some have disputed this translation however. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it's held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it isn't identical with the Arabic."
In the
2004 Osama bin Laden video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he stated he'd personally directed the 19 hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence on the hijacking of the planes on September 11.
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 [5minute 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.
Declarations since September 11, 2001
Since September 11, 2001 messages from Bin Laden are published regularly via Arabic media.
In a message from
Reuters, on March 19, 2008, Bin Laden is cited to have threatened the European Union "with grave punishment for publication of cartoons mocking Islam's Prophet Mohammad. "Your publications of these drawings -- part of a new crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican had a significant role" addressing "those who are wise at the European Union".
The translation of this declaration suggests that Bin Laden regards "the wise" as having initiated the publications.
On March 20, also according to Reuters, "The Pope has urged his priests to be fearless after Osama bin Laden accused him of starting a "new crusade" against Islam."
In the videotape from
March 20 2008 broadcasted by
Al-Jazeera the voice identified as Osama bin Laden declares "
Iraq is the perfect base to set up the
jihad to liberate
Palestine.".
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. US 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 wouldn't tolerate his presence in their country. Also bin Ladin may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he'd 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. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, didn't 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 US-operated Saudi National Guard training center 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 fighters worldwide. 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 US
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 prior to the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, US 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.
After the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001, the Taliban did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third party country in return for the US ending the bombing along with evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This offer was rejected by George W Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable with Bush responding that "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
Attempted capture by the United States
According to
the Washington Post, the US 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 US to commit US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the US 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.
US 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 didn't find either Osama bin Laden or
Ayman al Zawahiri.
Bounty: Immediately after the 9/11 attacks,
US 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.
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 United States military's Combating Terrorism Center 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'm now on a visit to them and I'm writing you this letter as I'm 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 didn't 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's still alive as of March 3, 2008.
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 hadn't been confirmed.
American authorities also can't 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'd 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'd heard no reports that it was specifically typhoid or that he'd died.
November 2007: In an interview with political interviewer
David Frost, taken on
November 2,
2007, the
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 during the remainder of the interview. Omar Chatriwala, a journalist for Al Jazeera English, claims that he chose not to pursue the story at the time because he believes Bhutto misspoke, meaning to say Sheikh murdered
Daniel Pearl and not Osama Bin Laden. The
BBC drew criticism when it rebroadcast the Frost/Bhutto interview on its website, but edited out Bhutto's statement regarding Osama Bin Laden. Later the BBC apologized and replaced the edited version with the complete interview. Bhutto's statement regarding Bin Laden conflicts with an earlier statement in October 2007, where Bhutto stated in an interview that she'd cooperate with the American military in targeting Osama bin Laden.
Rumours
British asylum and football enthusiasm
According to a 2005 story published in the
The Times of London, in late 1995 Bin Laden "asked some of his followers in
London" to see about the possibility of him being granted asylum in the
United Kingdom. The
al-Qaeda leader allegedly wanted to abandon his base in
Sudan. The then Home Secretary
Michael Howard is reported to have told a Times reporters, "we picked up information that bin Laden was very interested in coming to Britain. It was apparently a serious request." Members of the bin Laden family owned properties in London at that time.
According to another report that came out shortly after the 9/11 attack, bin Laden stayed in London in the late 1990s and became "a big fan of"
Arsenal FC. In response to the reports, a club spokesman told a
BBC Sport reporter, "clearly he wouldn't be welcome at Highbury in the future."
Biographical books of Bin Laden such as
The Looming Tower by
Lawrence Wright and
The Osama Bin Laden I Know, An Oral History Of Al Qaeda's Leader by
Peter Bergen, have found no evidence of Bin Laden ever traveling outside of the Muslim world.
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.
Further Information
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