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Osama bin Laden

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Osama bin Laden

Sheikh Usamah bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Ladin (born March 10 or July 30, 1957), commonly known as Osama bin Laden (أسامة بن لادن), is the leader and head of al-Qaida, widely regarded as the most extensive terrorist organization in the world.

The United States government has named Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect in the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed 2,992 people. He has denied this accusation, although a videotape captured in Afghanistan in 2001 showed him discussing the attacks in language which, if the tape is authentic, strongly suggested that he was at the least a participant in planning them. For a discussion of the evidence for Osama's involvement in September 11, see below.

He is widely proclaimed to be the "most wanted man in the world." On March 18 2004, the United States House of Representatives unanimously voted to double the reward for information leading to his capture from US$25 million to US$50 million. His current whereabouts are unknown, although he is widely believed to be in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area.

Names

Osama bin Laden's name can be transliterated in several ways. The form used here, Osama bin Laden, is used by the BBC and CNN. Other forms include Usama bin Laden (used by the FBI and FOX News) Ussamah Bin Ladin and Oussama Ben Laden. The latter part of the name can also be found as ibn Laden, Binladen or Binladin.

Strictly speaking, under the Arabic naming convention, it is incorrect to use "bin Laden" as though it was a Western surname. His full name means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Laden". However, the Bin Laden family (or Binladin as they prefer to be known) generally use the name as a surname, in the Western style. The family company is known as Binladin Brothers for Contracting and Industry and is one of the largest corporations in Saudi Arabia. For this reason, although the Arabic convention would be to refer to him either as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden," using "bin Laden" is in accordance with the family's own usage of the name and is the near-universal convention in Western references to him.

Osama bin Laden has several aliases, including The Prince, The Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, and The Director.

Childhood

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1957, the 17th of 52 children of Muhammad bin Laden, a wealthy businessman involved in construction and with close ties to the royal family of Saudi Arabia. His family originally came from Hadramawt, Yemen. He was raised as a devout Muslim and in interviews he frequently invokes Allah. As a college student, he studied business and project administration. He also earned a degree in civil engineering from King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah in 1979, possibly as preparation for taking over parts of his father's extensive construction and civil engineering business. After his father died, bin Laden inherited what was first estimated to be a fortune of US$300 million; more recent estimates put his holdings at about US$25 million.

Afghan Jihad

His wealth and connections permitted him to pursue his interest in supporting the mujahedeen, Muslim guerrillas fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. (See the History of Afghanistan.) By 1984 he was running a front organization called Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), which funneled money, arms and fighters into the Afghan war.

MAK was supported by the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and nurtured by Pakistan's state security services. It received training and financial assistance from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), the United States Central Intelligence Agency's most important channel for supporting Afghani resistance to the Soviet occupation. The BBC reported that he received security training from the CIA itself, according to Middle Eastern analyst Hazhir Teimourian [1].

Formation of Al-Qaida

By 1988, Osama bin Laden had split from the MAK and established a new guerilla group, dubbed al-Qaida, which included many of the more militant MAK members he had met in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. Osama was lauded as a hero in Saudi Arabia, but during the Gulf War against Iraq he was critical of Saudi Arabia's dependence on the U.S. military and demanded that all foreigners leave the country. It was the U.S. support of what he viewed to be a corrupt, materialist, and irreligious Saudi monarchy that turned him against the United States. He began to criticize the monarchy and was forced to flee to Sudan in 1991, where he set up a new base of operations.

With the assistance of terrorist sponsoring false charities such as Benevolence International and such as those started by Osama's brother in law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, he was able to expand the group's focus and send group members to Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States for the purpose of recruiting new members and spreading radical fundamental Islam. Bin Laden lost his Saudi citizenship in 1995 after he admitted his involvement in terrorist attacks in Riyadh and Dahran.

In 1996 Sudan made repeated overtures to the United States to extradite Osama bin Laden, arrest him, monitor him, and/or provide intelligence on the activities of him and his associates, but the Clinton administration never accepted their offers. In May 1996 he was expelled from Sudan. He then headed for Afghanistan, where he had a close relationship with some of the leaders of the Taliban government which had taken control in 1996. The 1997 Luxor tourist massacres in Egypt are believed to have been financed by bin Laden, who has had close links with Egyptian fundamentalist groups.

In an interview in 1997, bin Laden stated that he never personally knew Ramzi Yousef, another well-known terrorist.

Terrorist attacks on the USA

Osama bin Laden's first strike against the United States was a bombing of a hotel in Yemen. The soldiers that were targeted had left two days earlier for Somalia. Two Austrian tourists were killed. Some sources say that Osama bin Laden funded and/or directed the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. It is also alleged that Osama and the Indonesian terrorist known as Hambali funded the Operation Bojinka planned terrorist attack until police discovered the plot in Manila, Philippines on January 6, 1995.

In 1998, bin Laden was a co-signatory with Ayman Zawahiri (formerly of Egyptian Islamic Jihad) to a fatwa, or religious/legal edict, put out in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, declaring, "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah." (statement linked below) His beliefs appeal to Islamic believers in violent Jihad.

President Bill Clinton ordered assets linked to bin Laden frozen in 1998, but none were ever found. Clinton also authorized Osama's arrest and/or assassination while in office; one assassination attempt with cruise missiles in August 1998 failed, while killing 19 other people. The U.S. never apologized for these killings, since the attack was directed at what they considered to be a meeting of terrorists. The U.S. offered a US$25 million reward for information leading to his apprehension or conviction and, in 1999, convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.

Osama bin Laden is wanted by the United States in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, in which over 200 people died. Due to this incident, he is on the FBI ten most wanted fugitives and FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list since June 1999. Bin Laden is also alleged to have ordered the USS Cole bombing. The 2000 celebration terrorist attacks plot failed, as did the Paris embassy terrorist attack plot.

Osama and September 11

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks in the United States, the United States government named Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect. He denied this accusation, though he expressed admiration for whoever was responsible.

In December 2001 U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured a videotape during a raid on a house in Jalalabad, in which bin Laden is seen and heard discussing the September 11 attacks with a group of followers. He is heard to say:

We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for. (full text of the tape transcript)

In December 2001 there was disagreement whether the tape should be released or not. Some in the Bush Administration believed the tape would provide decisive evidence for bin Laden's involvement in the September 11th attacks; other feared allegation that the tape was fabricated, taking into account the poor quality of the tape. The tape was finally released the 13th of December. Already the 14th allegation arose from the Pakistani political party JUI that the tape was doctored, the photographic quality of the video being so low that a fake bin Laden would be indistinguishable. Others claimed that the video could have been doctored using digital technology and computers. In January 2002 CNN reported (link to article) the US spread leaflets of doctered photographs of Osama bin Laden in afghanistan, portraying him shaved and in western clothing, aiming to lead the Al-Qaida fighters to believe that Osama had deserted them. Some argued that if the US was willing to fabricate photographs to achieve their goals then they would probably also be willing to fabricate videos. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when asked "...whether the leaflet could be used by some to say the United States is willing to doctor or make up things -- as has been alleged about the videotape found in Afghanistan by the United States..." (quoting the above mentioned article) he is reported to have replied that he had not thought about the possibility.

In January 2002 the German expert in Middle Eastern studies, Gernot Rotter, as well as two other independent translators of Arabic, reported in German television (ARD) and newspapers (Netzeitung and Der Spiegel) that several serious mistakes could be found in the official American translation of the tape. An example, among many, cited by them was that the words "In advance" in the sentence "We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy," simply did not exist in original Arabic.

Over the course of time after the attacks September the 11th several other videotapes which were at the time presented as evidence for bin Ladens involvement was presented in the media (11.11.01 Sunday Times / Al-Jazeera 26.12.02 / 04.02 Al-Jazeera/AP / Sunday Times 19.05.02 / 09.02 Al-Jazeera etc). The video found in Jalalabad december 2001 is still the most often cited as evidence for bin Ladens participation suggesting that this video presents the strongest case for a bin Laden involvement in the september 11th attacks.

Interestingly USA presented evidence to NATO behind closed doors as early as October 2001 of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the 11th of September attacks. NATO's general secretary George Robertson reported to AP that the USA had presented clear and decisive evidence of Osama bin Laden's participation, causing him to invoke article 5 in the NATO pact. The evidence presented to NATO was never presented to the public nor in the open press; according to American officials, the reason for this was fears that terrorists might find out secrets about American intelligence. The nature of this evidence thus still remains uncertain. The US -- because of its unwillingness to show the evidence that NATO found so compelling -- has had to resort to low quality videos (like the 2001 Jalalabad video) when presenting evidence to the public.

If this tape is authentic and its transcripts correctly translated, it shows at the very least that bin Laden claimed to some that he had advance knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center, including the precise nature of the attacks. One leading al-Qaida member, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, claims (according to his interrogators) that the idea for the attacks came from him and not from bin Laden. Khalid has been in United States custody since September 2003. The extent to which bin Laden was involved in funding or overseeing the operation is unknown.

Current status

Osama bin Laden's current location is unknown, and indeed it is not known with certainty that he is still alive. His last known definite location was in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2001. After the September 11 attacks, the United States asked the Taliban government of Afghanistan to extradite him. The Taliban indicated willingness to transfer him to a Muslim country or a "neutral" country such as Switzerland for trial, but not to the United States. Unsatisfied, the United States invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban. They were however unable to locate Osama. The U.S. launched heavy air attacks against areas in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, such as the Tora Bora mountains, where it was believed Osama may have been hiding in caves. It is possible that he was killed in these raids. There has been no authenticated sighting of him since the end of 2001.

There have also been suggestions that bin Laden may have died of natural causes. The United States military has reported that he suffers from a kidney disorder, requiring him to have access to advanced medical facilities. Although Osama has been disowned by his family (who use the spelling Binladin, following the traditional British English way of transliteration), some of his relatives say he continues to receive financial support from his family. (See external links below).

A Spanish court indicted Osama bin Laden and 34 others on charges related to terrorism on September 17, 2003.

Iranian news agency IRNA reported on February 27, 2004 that bin Laden had been caught some time earlier in Pakistan. The news was spread by Asheq Hossein, director of the state-sponsored radio station, who mentioned two sources. The first source was a reporter of the Pakistani newspaper 'The Nation', Shamim Shahed, who denied ever telling this to Hossein. The second source was 'someone closely related to intelligence agencies and Afghan tribal elders'. Both the Pentagon and a spokesperson of the Pakistani armed forces have denied the capture of bin Laden. Similar rumours have appeared from time to time since the start of US military operations in Afghanistan, but none have been confirmed.

See also

Quotes

To kill Americans and their allies, civilians and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able.
This war [in Iraq] makes millions of dollars for big corporations, either weapons manufacturers or those working in the reconstruction, such as Halliburton and its sister companies...It is crystal clear who benefits from igniting the fire of this war and this bloodshed: They are the merchants of war, the bloodsuckers who run the policy of the world from behind the scenes. President Bush and his ilk, the media giants, and the U.N. ... all are a fatal danger to the world, and the Anti-Zionism|Zionist lobby]] is their most dangerous member. [Insha'Allah|Allah willing]], we will persist in fighting them... (more complete transcript)

News

Interviews

Other

Day-oh: Bombing Bin Laden

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