OSAMA BIN LADEN

Osama bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎ Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin; with numerous variations) (born 10 March 1957) is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and the founder of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and is also the FBI's most wanted person in the world.[1] Al-Qaeda has also been associated with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian targets.

Since 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization have been major targets of the United States' "War on Terrorism." Bin Laden and fellow Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal

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 spelled 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 (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 was 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, the Sheikh, Al-Amir, Abu Abdallah, Sheikh Al-Mujahid, the Lion Sheik,[2] the Director, Imam Mehdi and Samaritan.[3]

Childhood, education and personal life
Main article: Childhood, education and personal life of Osama bin Laden
See also: Bin Laden family

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.[4] In a 1998 interview, he gave his birth date as 10 March 1957.[5] His father Muhammed Awad bin Laden was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family.[6] Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas.[7] 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 stepbrothers and one stepsister.[8]

Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.[9] From 1968 to 1976 he attended the "élite" secular Al-Thager Model School.[10] Bin Laden studied economics and business administration[11] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest bin Laden earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,[12] or a degree in public administration in 1981.[13] Other sources describe him as having left university during his third year,[14] never completing a college degree, though "hard working."[15] At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.[16] He also writes poetry.[17]

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia.[18][19] According to CNN national security correspondent David Ensore, as of 2002 bin Laden had married four women and fathered roughly 25 or 26 children.[20] Other sources report that he has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.[21]

Beliefs and ideology
Main article: Beliefs and ideology of Osama bin Laden

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.[22] These beliefs, along with violent expansive jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism. [23] He believes Afghanistan under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world.[24] Bin Laden has 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,[25] 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.[26]

Probably the most infamous part of Bin Laden's ideology is that civilians, including women and children, are legitimate targets of jihad.[27][28] Bin Laden is antisemitic, 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."[29] 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.[30]

In keeping with Wahhabi beliefs,[31] bin Laden opposes music on religious grounds,[32] 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.[33] His viewpoints and methods of achieving them have led to him been designated as a terrorist by scholars,[34][35] journalists from the New York Times,[36][37] the British Broadcasting Corporation,[38] and Qatari news station Al Jazeera,[39] analysts such as Peter Bergen,[40]Michael Scheuer,[41] Marc Sageman,[42] and Bruce Hoffman[43][44] and he was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.[45]

Militant activity
Main article: Militant activity of Osama bin Laden

Mujahideen in Afghanistan

After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan[46] and lived for a time in Peshawar.[47]

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[48] paid for air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. He moved to Peshawar in 1994, and during this time met his future collaborator Ayman al-Zawahiri, who encouraged Osama to split away from Azzam.[citation needed] Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.

It was during his time in Peshawar that he began to wear 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.[49]

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.[50] 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.[51] However, during this time Iraq invaded Kuwait and Laden met with Sultan, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops and offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed and after the American offer to help was accepted he 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.

Balkan wars

One of the former State Department officials has described Bosnia and Herzegovina of that time as a safe haven for terrorists, after it was revealed that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists include hard-core terrorists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden.[52] In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an "all-mujahedeen unit" called El Moujahed, which was headquartered in Zenica[citation needed] in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall. According to Middle East intelligence reports. Bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the USA.[53] He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials.[54][55] He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.[56] A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former mujahideen who are linked to the same Algerian group or to other suspected terrorist groups and who have lived in this area 60 miles north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama Bin Laden. In its 26 June 1997 Report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslims forces. Further, the terrorists also admitted to ties with Osama Bin Laden. In 1999 it was revealed that Osama bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passport in 1993 by the Government in Sarajevo. This information was denied by Bosnian government following the 9/11 attacks but it was later found out that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation new explanation was given that bin Laden "did not personally collect his Bosnian passport" and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.[57][58][59] The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed linked to be linked to Osama Bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.[60]

In 1998 it was reported that bin Laden is operating his terrorist network out of Albania. The Charleston Gazette quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Confirmation of these activities came from Claude Kader, a French national who said he was a member of Bin Laden's Albanian network. He claimed he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo.[61] In 2000 bin Laden was operating from Kosovo planning the terrorist activities during the Insurgency in the Preševo Valley.[62]

Connections between bin Laden and National Liberation Army, an insurgent, terrorist, and guerrilla organization that operated in the Republic of Macedonia in 2001 were also drawn. According to the Washington Times the NLA was fighting to keep control over the region’s drug trafficking, which had grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since the Kosovo war and that in addition to drug money, the NLA also had another prominent venture capitalist, Osama Bin Laden. According to a documents written by the chief commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, bin Laden was financing the rebel group through a representative in Macedonia. Osama Bin Laden, paid $6 to $7 million for the needs of the National Liberation Army through his representative. Osama Bin Laden was planning to gain control over Macedonia so that he could control the distribution of oil to the United States through the pipeline that was planned to stretch from Bulgaria to Albania ports.[63]

Sudan

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 King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, 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.[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.

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 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."

The 9/11 Commission Report further 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. 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."[65]

In May 1996, under increasing pressure from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States on Sudan, bin Laden returned to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered jet and forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar.[66][67] In Afghanistan, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).[68] When Bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.[69]

Early attacks and aid for attacks

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.[70]

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.[71] The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.

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 effort by bin Laden was the funding of the Luxor massacre of November 17 1997, [72][73][74] which killed sixty two civilians, but so revolted the Egyptian public that it turned against Islamist terror. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing Bin Laden to abandon his Nazim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.[75]

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 Hazaras overrunning the city.[76]

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".[77][78] 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."[79]

September 11, 2001 attacks
See also: September 11 attacks
Sister project Wikinews has related news: Wikileaks obtains 10 years of messages, interviews from Osama bin Laden translated by CIA

Osama bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.[80][81][82] The attacks involved the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 11, and American Airlines Flight 77; the subsequent destruction of those planes and the World Trade Center in New York City, New York; severe damage to The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia;[83] and the deaths of 2,974 people excluding the nineteen hijackers.[84] In response to the attacks, the United States launched a War on Terrorism to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future 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.[85] 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.[86] 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.[87]

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 that indicates foreknowledge.[88] The tape was broadcast on various news networks on 13 December 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "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."[89]

In the 2004 Osama bin Laden video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he stated he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers.[81][90] 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.[81]

According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.[91]

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

I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers … I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers … with the raids [5 minute audiotape broadcast 23 May 2006],[92]

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 7 September 2006).[93]
Criminal charges

On 16 March 1998, Libya issued the first official international Interpol arrest warrant against Bin Laden and three other people for killing two German citizens in Libya on 10 March 1994, one of which is thought to have been a German counter-intelligence officer. Bin Laden is still wanted by the Libyan government. [94][95] Osama bin Laden was first indicted by the United States on 8 June 1998, when a grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the 14 November 1995 truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh.[96] 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.[96] Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack. On November 4, 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 US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death[97] 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.[98]

Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added to the list on 7 June 1999, 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.[99] 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 top 22 FBI 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.

Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradict Osama Bin Laden. It wasn't until after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial, in return for the US ending the bombing and providing 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."[100]