Osama bin Laden

Background

Osama Bin Laden was born on March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was the 17th of 52 children of construction magnate Muhammad Awad bin Laden, an immigrant from neighboring Yemen, who ran the construction company the Saudi Binladin Group, and his wife Hamida. Since Islamic law allows men to take multiple wives, the Syrian-born Hamida was one of the elder bin Laden's many wives. However, because she was not born in Mohammed bin Laden's native country of Saudi Arabia, Hamida was looked down upon by bin Laden's other wives.

The two forces that shaped bin Laden's early life were his family's great wealth and their devout religious faith. Though Mohammed bin Laden had come from humble beginnings, he headed one of the largest construction companies in the Arab world, called the Bin Laden Group, by the time Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed was close to Saudi Arabia's ruling family, the al-Sauds, and his relationship helped him win contracts to build major highways and restore several of the great Islamic holy sites in Mecca and Medina, the two cities considered to be the holiest in the Islamic religion. When Mohammed bin Laden died in 1968, the Bin Laden Group was worth billions of dollars. Mohammed bin Laden left control of the business to his eldest son, with the charge to spread the family wealth among his brothers. From the moment he reached adulthood, Osama bin Laden thus had access to many millions of dollars.

From the very beginning, religion played an important role in bin Laden's life. He and his siblings were raised as Sunnis, the leading denomination of Muslims, or believers in the Islamic faith. They all learned to read the Koran (the sacred book of Islam) and respected religious rules that restricted contact between men and women. Over time, Osama proved himself the most devout of any of the bin Ladens. He spent much time in prayer as a youth, and entered into long conversations about religion with teachers and clerics whom he met through his family connections.

Education

After his family split, bin Laden's mother took him to live with her new husband, Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children together, and bin Laden spent most of his childhood living with his step-siblings and attending Al-Thagher Model School - at the time the most prestigious high school in Jedda.

At the age of 14, bin Laden was recognized as an outstanding, if somewhat shy, student at Al-Thagher. As a result, he received a personal invitation to join a small Islamic study group with the promise of earning extra credit. Bin Laden, along with the sons of several prominent Jedda families, were told the group would memorize the entire Koran, a prestigious accomplishment, by the time they graduated from the institution. But the group soon lost its original focus, and during this time bin Laden received the beginnings of education in some of the principles of violent jihad.

The teacher who educated the children, influenced in part by a sect of Islam called The Brotherhood, began instructing his pupils in the importance of instituting a pure, Islamic law around the Arab world. Using parables with often-violent endings, their teacher explained that the most loyal observers of Islam would institute the holy word - even if it meant supporting death and destruction. By the second year of their studies, bin Laden and his friends had openly adopted the attitude and styles of teen Islamic activists. They preached the importance of instituting a pure Islamic law at Al Thagher; grew untrimmed beards; and wore shorter pants and wrinkled shirts in imitation of the Prophet's dress.

Bin Laden was pushed to grow up rather quickly during his time at Al-Thagher. At the age of 18, he married his first cousin, 14-year-old Najwa Ghanem, who had been promised to him. Bin Laden graduated from Al-Thager in 1976, the same year his first child, a son named Abdullah, was born. He then headed to King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, where some say he received a degree in public administration in 1981. Others claim he received a degree in civil engineering, in an effort to join the family business.

Career

Shortly after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, bin Laden, who viewed the invasion as an act of aggression against Islam, began traveling to meet Afghan resistance leaders and raise funds for the resistance. By 1984 his activities were centered mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he collaborated with Azzam to recruit and organize Arab volunteers to fight the Soviet occupation. Bin Laden’s financial resources, along with his reputation for piety and for bravery in combat, enhanced his stature as a militant leader. A computer database he created in 1988 listing the names of volunteers for the Afghan War led to the formation that year of a new militant network named al-Qaeda (Arabic: "the Base"), although the group remained without clear objectives or an operational agenda for several years.

In 1989, following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was initially welcomed as a hero, but he soon came to be regarded by the government as a radical and a potential threat. In 1990 the government denied his requests for permission to use his network of fighters to defend Saudi Arabia against the threat of invasion posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Bin Laden was outraged when Saudi Arabia relied instead on American troops for protection during the Persian Gulf War, leading to a growing rift between bin Laden and the country’s leaders, and in 1991 he left Saudi Arabia, settling in Sudan at the end of the year.

In the early 1990s, bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network began to formulate an agenda of violent struggle against the threat of U.S. dominance in the Muslim world. Bin Laden publicly praised other groups’ attacks on Americans, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. In 1994, as bin Laden expanded his group’s infrastructure in Sudan and trained Islamic militants to participate in conflicts around the world, Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship and froze his assets, forcing him to rely on outside sources for funding.

In 1996, under heavy international pressure, Sudan expelled bin Laden, and he returned to Afghanistan, where he received protection from its ruling Taliban militia. Later that year bin Laden issued the first of two fatwās (Arabic: "religious opinions") declaring a holy war against the United States, which he accused, among other things, of looting the natural resources of the Muslim world, occupying the Arabian Peninsula, including the holy sites of Islam, and supporting governments servile to U.S. interests in the Middle East. Bin Laden’s apparent goal was to draw the United States into a large-scale war in the Muslim world that would overthrow the existing world order and establish a single Islamic state.

To this end, al-Qaeda trained militants and funded terrorist attacks. In 1998 bin Laden issued his most aggressive statement ever against the United States. This statement was called a fatwa, which was typically a statement of religious law issued by an Islamic cleric. This fatwa was published in newspapers throughout the Islamic world. Throughout the Middle East, people marched in support of bin Laden's fatwa. Many Muslim religious leaders spoke in support. Through his actions, bin Laden had encouraged a substantial number of Muslims to support open violence against all Americans.

Based in his mountain outpost in Kandahar, Afghanistan, bin Laden ordered ever more damaging attacks. In 1998 Al Qaeda operatives attacked United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing a total of 224 people and injuring more than five thousand. United States forces struck back at training camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, but bin Laden himself was never in danger. In 1999 an Al Qaeda operative nearly succeeded in bringing a bomb into the United States from Canada as part of a foiled Millennium Plot to destroy the Los Angeles Airport and various targets around the world on December 31, 1999. And on October 12, 2000, terrorists pulled their small boat alongside the USS Cole, a navy destroyer based in Yemen, and detonated a bomb that ripped a huge hole in the side of the ship. The bomb killed seventeen crewmen and injured thirty-nine. Al Qaeda was proving ever more successful at striking U.S. targets anywhere in the world. But few could have predicted the attack that was to come.

On September 11, 2001, in the largest terrorist attack ever launched on American soil, nineteen Al Qaeda operatives hijacked four United States commercial jetliners and guided them toward targets in New York City and Washington, D.C. Two of the jetliners flew directly into the side of the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. The explosions and fire soon toppled both structures, killing over three thousand people. Another jet smashed into the side of the Pentagon, the United States military headquarters in Washington, D.C. A fourth jet, destined for an unknown target, crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside when passengers attacked the hijackers. All of the passengers on the flights died, as did the hijackers. The entire nation was stunned.

After 9/11 (as the attacks soon became known), the United States changed its policy toward terrorism. President George W. Bush declared a "war on terror," and launched a military offensive in Afghanistan. The goal was to remove the Taliban from power and to capture Osama bin Laden, who had been identified as the mastermind of the attacks of 9/11. They achieved their first goal very quickly, ending Taliban rule in Afghanistan by December 2001.

Meanwhile, U.S. forces had continued to hunt for bin Laden, who was still thought possibly to be hiding either in Afghanistan or in the tribal regions of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. United States intelligence eventually located him in Pakistan, living in a secure compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city near Islamabad. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed when a small United States force transported by helicopters raided the compound. His body, identified visually at the site of the raid, was taken out of Pakistan by United States forces for examination and DNA identification and soon after was given a sea burial. Hours after its confirmation, bin Laden’s death was announced by Obama in a televised address. Several days after Obama’s announcement, al-Qaeda released a statement publicly acknowledging bin Laden’s death and vowing revenge.

Later that month al-Qaeda released a final audio message said to be from bin Laden, purportedly recorded by him shortly before he was killed. In the message, bin Laden praised the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of early 2011 and called on al-Qaeda followers to help people struggling against unjust governments.

Achievements

• Osama bin Laden was one of the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists. Bin Laden had become a public hero to many people in Muslim countries. He had united disparate militant groups, from Egypt to the Philippines, under the banner of Al Qaeda and his ideal of a borderless brotherhood of radical Islam. He appeared to be the one person able and willing to resist the United States, which was viewed by many as the power behind undemocratic, harsh governments. And in a region where religion plays an important role in the daily lives of millions of people, bin Laden represented Muslims conducting a holy war for Islam against the "infidel," the United States.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden

    (Despite the saturation of global media coverage, Osama bi...)

    2005

Religion

For bin Laden, Islam was more than just a religion: It shaped his political beliefs and influenced every decision he made. While he was at college in the late 1970s, he became a follower of the radical pan-Islamist scholar Abdullah Azzam, who believed that all Muslims should rise up in jihad, or holy war, to create a single Islamic state. This idea appealed to the young bin Laden, who resented what he saw as a growing Western influence on Middle Eastern life.

Politics

Bin Laden's exposure to the teachings of conservative Islamist scholars in Saudi Arabia and his work with Arab militants in Afghanistan provided the theological and ideological basis for his belief in the desirability of puritanical Salafist Islamic reform in Muslim societies and the necessity of armed resistance in the face of perceived aggression - a concept Al Qaeda has since associated with a communally-binding Islamic principle known as "defensive jihad."

In the early 1990s, Bin Laden emphasized his desire to secure the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops from Saudi Arabia at all costs. Bin Laden criticized the Saudi royal family publicly and alleged that their invitation of foreign troops to the Arabian peninsula constituted an affront to the sanctity of the birthplace of Islam and a betrayal of the global Islamic community. Finding his rhetoric and efforts rebuffed by Saudi leaders, Bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia and his ire increasingly focused on the United States. Following a period of exile in Sudan and Afghanistan in which his radical views sharpened, Bin Laden issued a "declaration of jihad" against the United States in 1996 that signaled his emergence as an internationally recognizable figure and offered a full account of his main critiques of an enemy he described as the "alliance of Jews, Christians, and their agents." Adopting the sensitive historical and religious imagery of Islamic resistance to the European Crusades, Bin Laden condemned the United States military presence in Saudi Arabia, criticized the international sanctions regime on Iraq, and voiced his opposition to United States support for Israel. The declaration also cited "massacres in Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, the Philippines, Fatani [as transliterated], Ogaden, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnya, and Bosnia-Herzegovina" as examples of a growing war on Islam for which the United States should be punished (Bin Laden did not recognize the humanitarian aspects of United States efforts in Bosnia and Somalia explicitly).

Although he possesses no traditional Islamic religious credentials or authority, Bin Laden issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in 1998 that claimed that the United States had made "a clear declaration of war on God, his messenger, and Muslims" through its policies in the Islamic world. The fatwa made use of the principle of defensive jihad to argue that U.S. aggression made armed resistance and the targeting of American civilians and military personnel incumbent upon all Muslims. The statement also announced the formation of "The World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders," which consisted of a tacit alliance between Bin Laden, his supporters, and a number of regional Islamic militant groups. Following Al Qaeda's bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998) and the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen (2000), Bin Laden refused to take direct responsibility for the attacks, but claimed that he approved of the strikes and shared the motivations of the individuals who had carried them out. Bin Laden argued that the bombings should be seen by Americans and the world as retribution for United States policy and compared them to alleged "massacres" of Palestinians in historic cases familiar to many Muslims and Arabs.

Osama Bin Laden's longstanding threats to strike the United States came to fruition on September 11, 2001, and Bin Laden and others subsequently issued several statements confirming Al Qaeda's responsibility for the attacks on New York and Washington. Following an established pattern, Bin Laden acknowledged his support for the hijackers and repeated his claim that strikes on American targets should be viewed by Muslims and Americans as a defensively motivated response to perceived American aggression in the Islamic world. Statements attributed to Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri since 2001 have promised further attacks and sought to justify Al Qaeda's targeting of American and British civilians by arguing that Western societies are morally corrupt, recent democratic reform and human rights initiatives are insincere or bankrupt, and American and British civilians should be held accountable for the policies of their democratically elected governments in the Middle East that Al Qaeda finds objectionable or unjust.

Views

According to bin Laden's ideology, non-Islamic believers may be deliberately killed in support of jihadism. Besides, he was heavily anti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions.

Since bin Laden has consciously broadened his message to appeal to the poor and alienated, many of whom are furious with what they see as U.S. imperialism, he has attracted significant numbers of devotees all over the world.

Quotations: "Look at Vietnam, look at Lebanon. Whenever soldiers start coming home in body bags, Americans panic and retreat. Such a country needs only to be confronted with two or three sharp blows, then it will flee in panic, as it always has."

"In today's wars, there are no morals. We believe the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets."

"I'm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God. Our fight now is against the Americans."

"Every Muslim must rise to defend his religion. The wind of faith is blowing."

"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in - and the West in general - into an unbearable hell and a choking life."

"We say our terror against America is blessed terror in order to put an end to suppression, in order for the United States to stop its support to Israel."

Membership

• 

  Al-Qaeda

Personality

The growth of al-Qaeda was attributed in part to bin Laden’s charisma. He was known to be a skilled orator, able to manipulate a variety of rhetorical strategies and to make his message easily accessible even to the uneducated. At the end of the 20th century, bin Laden was thought to have had thousands of militant followers worldwide, in places as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Bosnia, Chechnya, and the Philippines.

Bin Laden was particularly interested in France and had a large number of texts about the country on various subjects, including culture, economics, and wage inequality.

Physical Characteristics: Osama Bin Laden's height was 1.95 m. and his weight was about 75 kg. He was left-handed.

Quotes from others about the person

• "In May 2011 the United States finally got bin Laden. I felt a great sense of relief and pride as well as gratitude to President Obama for the bold decision to launch the raid that had led to the killing. And I felt vindication for putting into place many of the tools that had led to that day. I always believed that we would get bin Laden." - Condoleezza Rice
  
  "We should give him credit for only one thing: unlike other vile tyrants, he did not live in golden palaces, but avoided them." - Gabriele Romagnoli
  
  "On the existential plain, Bin Laden was marginalized, out of play, but inside the chrysalis of myth that he had spun about himself he was becoming a representative of all persecuted and humiliated Muslims. His life and the symbols in which he cloaked himself powerfully embodied the pervasive sense of dispossession that characterized the modern Muslim world. In his own miserable exile, he absorbed the misery of his fellow believers, his loss entitled him to speak for theirs, his vengeance would sanctify their suffering." - Lawrence Wright
  
  "For over two decades, Bin Laden has been Al Qaeda's leader and symbol. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat Al-Qaeda. But his death does not mark the end of our effort. There's no doubt that Al-Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad." - Barack Obama

Interests

• writing poetry, reading, cartoons
  
  Video games: Street Fighter, Pac-Man, Fantasy’95, Perestroika Girls

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Noam Chomsky, Mahatma Gandhi

• Politicians

  Charles de Gaulle

• Writers

  Bob Woodward, Fritz Springmeier, Jeffrey Record

• Sport & Clubs

  Arsenal Football Club, football

• Music & Bands

  Enrico Macias, Bollywood music

Connections

Osama married at the age of 17 to Najwa Ghanem who was a relative. He was also married to Khadijah Sharif, Khairiah Sabar, Siham Sabar, and Amal al-Sadah. Between 20 and 26 children were born in these marriages. In 2009 Najwa Ghanem and eldest son of Osama writing memoirs titled 'Growing Up Bin Laden.'

Father:

Muhammad bin Laden

Mother:

Hamida al-Attas

Wife:

Najwa Ghanem

Wife:

Khadijah Sharif

Wife:

Khairiah Sabar

Wife:

Siham Sabar

Wife:

Amal al-Sadah

Son:

Abdallah bin Laden

born 1976

Son:

Abdul Rahman bin Laden

born 1978

Son:

Saad bin Laden

1979-2009

Like his father, Saad bin Laden was a member of al-Qaeda. He was killed in 2009.

Son:

Omar bin Laden

born 1981

Son:

Osman bin Laden

born 1983

Son:

Mohammed bin Osama bin Laden

born 1985

Daughter:

Fatima bin Laden

born 1987

Daughter:

Iman bin Laden

born 1990

Son:

Laden "Bakr" bin Laden

born 1993

Daughter:

Roqaya bin Laden

born 1997

Son:

Ali bin Laden

born 1986

Son:

Amer bin Laden

born 1990

Daughter:

Aisha bin Laden

born 1992

Son:

Hamza bin Laden

1989–2019

Like his father, Hamza bin Laden was a member of Al-Qaeda. He was killed in 2019.

Son:

Khalid bin Laden

1988–2011

Daughter:

Khadija bin Laden

1988–2007

Daughter:

Miriam bin Laden

born 1990

Daughter:

Sumaiya bin Laden

born 1992

ally:

Abdullah Azzam

Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (1941-November 24, 1989) was a highly influential Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian, and a central figure in preaching for defensive jihad by Muslims to help the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet invaders.

Acquaintance:

Robert Fisk

The only person to have interviewed bin Laden 3 times between 1993 and 1997 was the Beirut-based British reporter Robert Fisk.

bodyguard:

Abu Jandal

References

• Osama Bin Laden The first head of the CIA's bin Laden Unit, where he led the effort to track down bin Laden, Scheuer draws from a wealth of information about bin Laden and his evolution from peaceful Saudi dissident to America's Most Wanted. Shedding light on his development as a theologian, media manipulator, and paramilitary commander, Scheuer makes use of all the speeches and interviews bin Laden has given as well as lengthy interviews, testimony, and previously untranslated documents written by those who grew up with bin Laden in Saudi Arabia, served as his bodyguards and drivers, and fought alongside him against the Soviets.
  2000
• Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 Based on scrupulous research and firsthand accounts by key government, intelligence, and military personnel both foreign and American, Ghost Wars details the secret history of the CIA’s role in Afghanistan (including its covert operations against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989), the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of bin Laden, and the failed efforts by American forces to find and assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.
  2004
• The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader No one knows more about Osama bin Laden than Peter Bergen. In 1997, well before the West suddenly became aware of the world's most sought-after terrorist, Bergen met with him and has followed his activities ever since.
  2006
• The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden From Mark Bowden, the preeminent chronicler of our military and special forces comes The Finish, a gripping account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With access to key sources, Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded.
  2012
• The Al Qaeda Reader: The Essential Texts of Osama Bin Laden's Terrorist Organization Now, for the first time, The Al Qaeda Reader gathers together the essential texts and documents that trace the origin, history, and evolution of the ideas of al-Qaeda founders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. 
  2007