Osama Bin Laden

Osama Bin Laden (1957- ), Saudi Arabian multi-millionaire suspected of planning terrorist attacks against the United States. Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the son of a successful construction magnate, who left him a substantial fortune after his death in 1970. He was educated at an engineering college in Jiddah, where his teachers included the Palestinian Abdulla Azzam, a major figure in the Muslim Brotherhood (an organization committed to the spread of Islam).

Bin Laden aided the mujahedin resistance to the occupation forces in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion of 1979, through involvement with Azzam’s organization, the Jihad Service Bureau. Based in a guesthouse in Peshawar, it was a stopping place for Arabs from all over the Middle East on their journey to join the resistance in Afghanistan. Through this organization, Bin Laden provided funds and supplies, built guerrilla training camps, trenches, and roads, and recruited and transported large numbers of military volunteers from Arab nations. In 1984 he became leader of the expanding organization, and on at least six occasions led the “Arab Afghans” into battle against the Soviets. In 1988 Bin Laden restructured the organization and renamed it Al-Qaeda: “the base”.

After Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. There he warned the Saudi royal family of the aggressive intentions of Saddam Hussein, and following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait offered his forces in the defence of his homeland. Instead the Saudi government invited a United States-led coalition into Saudi Arabia, which expelled the Iraqis from Kuwait in the Gulf War. Bin Laden was angered by the continued presence of the US military after the end of hostilities. He considers the United States to be an enemy of Islam, and that the basing of their military forces near Mecca and Medina, two of Islam’s holiest sites, is an insult to Muslims worldwide. Bin Laden led criticism of the Saudi monarchy and in 1992 left Saudi Arabia for Sudan, where an Islamic fundamentalist regime had taken power. There he set up training camps and strengthened the international structure of Al-Qaeda. Two years later, the Saudi government revoked his citizenship and froze his assets in Saudi Arabia. In 1996, under pressure from US and Saudi governments, Sudan expelled Bin Laden. He went into hiding in Afghanistan, where he supported the Taliban takeover.

In 1996 Bin Laden issued the first of several calls for a jihad, generally translated as “holy war”, against the US and its presence abroad. Al-Qaeda has stated its goals as driving US forces from the Arabian Peninsula, overthrowing the Saudi government, and supporting Islamic revolutionary groups around the world. Al-Qaeda is widely believed to be funding and coordinating terrorist cells in dozens of countries around the world. It is highly decentralized—thousands of Arabs and other Muslims from across the Islamic world have attended Al-Qaeda training camps—making criminal proof against them and Bin Laden difficult to obtain.

Since 1993 Bin Laden has been accused of involvement in a series of attacks against United States’ interests. These attacks include the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; a 1996 bombing of an apartment complex that housed US servicemen in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998; and a suicide bombing in 2000 of the USS Cole off Yemen. As a result, a number of attempts have been made by the United States to assassinate him: in 1997 a special forces mission failed, and a cruise missile attack in 1998 upon his Afghan training camps in the wake of the embassy bombings succeeded only in killing some 40 of his followers.

The US government named Bin Laden as the primary suspect behind the hijacking of aeroplanes that were deliberately crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the twin towers of the World Trade Center in September 2001. Following the refusal of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to hand over Bin Laden, the United States, with support from its allies (chiefly Britain), launched a sustained aerial bombardment of the country in October. By the end of December and with the aid of anti-Taliban forces, this military action had secured the overthrow of the regime and the establishment of an interim government hostile to Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden. However, Bin Laden evaded capture, despite the efforts of US and British special forces in searching several heavily defended cave complexes in the mountains of Afghanistan.