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Usage 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 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" is not 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,[19] the Director, Imam Mehdi and Samaritan.[20]
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.[21] In a 1998 interview, he gave his birth date as 10 March 1957.[22] His father Muhammed Awad bin Laden was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family.[23] Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas.[24] 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.[25]
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim.[26] From 1968 to 1976 he attended the "élite" secular Al-Thager Model School.[27] Bin Laden studied economics and business administration[28] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest bin Laden earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,[29] or a degree in public administration in 1981.[30] Other sources describe him as having left university during his third year,[31] never completing a college degree, though "hard working."[32] At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.[33] He is also a poet.[34]
In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia.[35][36] According to CNN national security correspondent David Ensore, as of 2002 bin Laden had married four women and fathered roughly 25 or 26 children.[37] Other sources report that he has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.[38]
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.[39] He believes Afghanistan under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world.[40] Bin Laden 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,[41] 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.[42]
Probably the most controversial part of Bin Laden's ideology is that civilians, including women and children, can be killed in jihad.[43][44] 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."[45] 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.[46]
As a Wahhabi,[47] bin Laden opposes music on religious grounds,[48] 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.[49]
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[50] and lived for a time in Peshawar.[51] 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[52] 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.[53] 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.[54] However, during this time Iraq invaded Kuwait and Laden met 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 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 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.[55] 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.[56] In Afghanistan, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).[57]
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.[58]
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.[59] 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 unsuccessful effort by bin Laden was funding of the Luxor massacre of November 17 1997, [60][61][62] which killed sixty two civilians, but revolted the Egyptian public and turned it 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.[63]
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.[64]
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".[65][66] 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."[67]
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.[68]
September 11, 2001 attacks
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Wikileaks obtains 10 years of messages, interviews from Osama bin Laden translated by CIA
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.[69] 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.[70] 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.[71]
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.[72] 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 is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."[73]
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 19 hijackers.[15][74] 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.[15]
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.[75]
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 [5 minute audiotape broadcast May 23, 2006],[76]
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).[77]
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 would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also bin Ladin 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. On 19 May 1996, bin Ladin left Sudansignificantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills. He returned to Afghanistan."[78] 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, did not 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."[79]
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. [80][81]
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.[82] 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.[82] Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack.
On 4 November 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[83] 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.[84][85]
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.[86] 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 13 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."[87]
Attempted capture by the United States
US leaflet used in Afghanistan.
US leaflet used in Afghanistan.
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.[88]
The Washington Post also reported[89] 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 did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri.[90]
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.[91][20] On 13 July 2007, this figure was doubled to $50 million.[92]
The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association are offering an additional $2 million reward.[93]
Current whereabouts
Main article: Location of Osama bin Laden
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.
An 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 am now on a visit to them and I am writing you this letter as I am 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, with my mom got scared, and said, "You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air." I whistled for a cab and when it came near The license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought, "Nah, forget it. Yo, holmes to Bel-Air!" I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabbie, "Yo holmes smell ya later!" Looked at my kingdom I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
