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Osama bin Laden

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This article is about Osama bin Laden. For the Saudi Family, see Bin Laden family.
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Osama bin Laden

Usāmah bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Lādin (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن; born March 10, 1957 [1], most commonly known as Osama bin Laden or Usama bin Laden (أسامة بن لادن) is an Islamic fundamentalist, a primary founder of the al-Qaeda Islamic organization and a member of the immensely wealthy bin Laden family.

Bin Laden and al-Qaeda have allegedly carried out a number of terrorist attacks worldwide, including the September 11, 2001 attacks on The World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia and the failed hijacking of United Airlines flight 93, which killed at least 2,986 people. In addition, they have been linked to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, the USS Cole bombing, the Bali nightclub bombings, the Madrid bombings, as well as bombings in the Jordanian capital of Amman and in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.

According to a video tape released by Osama bin Laden, his main grievances against the West and especially the United States, include their support for Israel, their support for several dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, and the presence of United States military bases in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. withdrew from these bases in 2003, stating that they were no longer necessary for their campaign in Iraq.

On Oct. 10, 2001 bin Laden topped the initial list of the FBI's top 22 Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by President Bush. The United States Department of State is offering a reward of 25 million US dollars for information leading to the capture or death of bin Laden. An additional reward of $2 million is being offered by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association for an unrelated issue [2].

Background

Family and childhood

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Muhammad Awad bin Ladin, a wealthy businessman involved in construction and with close ties to the Saudi royal family. His family originally came from Hadhramaut, Yemen.

There is no definitive account of the number of children born to Muhammed bin Laden, but the number is generally put at 55. In addition, various accounts place Osama as his seventeenth son. Muhammed bin Laden was married ten times, although to no more than four women at a time per Islamic law. Osama is the only son of the elder bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas, who is reportedly of Syrian descent.

File:Osama Bin Laden teenager.jpg
a photo allegedly showing Osama bin Laden (right) at Oxford in 1971

Bin laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the Al-Thager Model School in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. As a college student, bin Laden studied civil engineering and business administration. He earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979 and one in economics and public administration, in 1981; both are from King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah.

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife, Najwa Ghanem. Although Bin Laden reportedly married four other women, he divorced one. Sudanese author, Kola Boof, claims she was kept in Morocco as a mistress for bin Laden in 1996 against her will, but Nadeem Quttub, a former diplomat of the Sudanese government who helped bin Laden build roads in Sudan, told the BBC that Kola Boof was with Bin Laden "willingly" and miscarried their child in May 1996. Bin Laden has fathered at least 24 children. His wife, Najwa, a Syrian and his mother's niece, reportedly had 11 children by bin Laden, including Abdallah, Omar, Saad and Muhammad. Omar and Abdallah reportedly organized the U.S. branch of the World Congress of Muslim Youth in Falls Church, Virginia during the 1990s.

In 1994 bin Laden's family publicly disowned him, shortly before the Saudi Arabian government revoked his citizenship. He attended his son's wedding in January 2001, but since September 11, he is believed only to have had contact with his mother on one occasion. His Saudi Arabian citizenship was revoked for anti-government activity [3].

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Osama bin Laden

Appearance and manner

Bin Laden is often described as lanky; the FBI describes him as tall and thin, being 6' 4" (193 cm) to 6' 5" (195 cm) tall and weighing 160 pounds (75 kg). He has an olive complexion, is left-handed and usually walks with a cane. He wears a plain white turban and no longer dons the traditional Saudi male headdress [citation needed].

In terms of personality, Bin Laden is described as a soft-spoken, mild mannered man, [4]; and despite his rhetoric, he is said to be charming, polite, and respectful.

He reportedly suffers from various medical conditions including kidney disease.

Usage variations of Osama's name

Osama's name is transliterated in many ways. Osama bin Laden is used by most English-language mass media. The FBI and Fox News use Usama bin Laden, which is 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, under Arabic linguistic conventions, it is incorrect to use "bin Laden" in a similar manner as a Western surname. His full name means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of 'Awad, 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. Although Arabic conventions dictate that he be referred to 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.

Bin Laden also has several commonly used aliases and nicknames, including the Prince, Al-Amir, Abu Abdallah, Sheikh Al-Mujahid, Tim Osman and the Director [citation needed].

Military and militant activity

Afghan Jihad resisting the Russia invasion

His wealth and connections assisted his interest in supporting the mujahideen, Muslim guerrillas fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. By 1984, he had established an organization named Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK, Office of Order in English), which funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the world into the Afghan war. (See: the History of Afghanistan).

Some have said that MAK was supported by the governments of Pakistan, the United States[5] and Saudi Arabia, and that the three countries channeled their supplies through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). This account is vehemently denied by the U.S. government, which maintains that U.S. aid went only to Afghan fighters, and that Afghan Arabs had their own sources of funding, an account also supported by Al Qaeda itself [6].

Robin Cook, former leader of the British House of Commons and Foreign Secretary from 1997-2001, wrote in The Guardian on Friday, July 8, 2005,

"Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s[,] he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians".[7]

For a while Osama worked at the Services Office working with Abdallah Azzam on Jihad Magazine, a magazine that gave information about the war with the soviets and interviewed mujahideen. As time passed, Aymen Al Zawahiri encouraged Osama to split away from Abdallah Azzam. Osama formed his own army of mujahideen and fought the soviets. One of his most significant battles was the battle of Jaji, which was not a major fight, but it earned him a reputation as a fighter.

Formation of al-Qaeda

By 1988, bin Laden had split from the MAK and established a new militant group which was later dubbed al-Qaeda by the U.S. government, which included many of the more militant MAK members he had met in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, and bin Laden was lauded as a mujahideen hero in Saudi Arabia.

After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia (with 12,000 armed men) but was rebuffed by the Saudi government. Bin Laden publicly denounced his government's dependence on the U.S. military and demanded an end to the presence of foreign military bases in the country. According to reports (by the BBC and others), the 1990/91 deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in connection with the Gulf War profoundly shocked and revolted bin Laden and other Islamist militants because the Saudi government claims legitimacy based on their role as guardians of the sacred Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina. After the Gulf War, the establishment of permanent bases for non-Muslim U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia continued to undermine the Saudi rulers' legitimacy and inflamed anti-government Islamist militants, including bin Laden. Bin Laden's increasingly strident criticisms of the Saudi monarchy led the government to expel him to Sudan in 1991.

Assisted by donations funneled through business and charitable fronts such as Benevolence International, established by his brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden established a new base for mujahideen operations in Sudan to disseminate Islamist philosophy and recruit operatives in Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States. Bin Laden also invested in business ventures, such as al-Hajira, a construction company that built roads throughout Sudan, and Wadi al-Aqiq, an agricultural corporation that farmed hundreds of thousands of acres of sorghum, gum Arabic, sesame and sunflowers in Sudan's central Gezira province. Bin Laden's operations in Sudan were protected by the powerful Sudanese government figure Hassan al Turabi. The funding from these ventures was used to run several training camps on his farmland, where Islamist militants received, from former Afghan mujahideen, instruction in firearms use and the use of explosives .

Around this time, bin Laden and his associates began developing and executing a series of meticulously-planned terrorist attacks. In 1995, the Saudi Arabian government stripped bin Laden of his citizenship after he claimed responsibility for attacks on U.S. and Saudi military bases in Riyadh and Dahran.

Refuge in Afghanistan

Sudanese officials, whose government was under international sanctions offered to extradite bin Laden to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1990s. However, Saudi Arabia refused because of the political difficulties of accepting such a controversial figure into their custody. Consequently, in May 1996, under increasing pressure from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States, Sudan expelled bin Laden to Afghanistan. He chartered a plane and flew to Kabul before settling in Jalalabad after being invited by leading Afghan Mujaheddin figure, Abdul Rasuul Sayyaf. After spending a few months in the border region hosted by local leaders, bin Laden forged a close relationship with some of the leaders of Afghanistan's new Taliban government, notably Mullah Mohammed Omar. Bin Laden supported the Taliban government with financial and paramilitary assistance and, in 1997, he moved to Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold.

Bin Laden is suspected of funding the 1997 massacre of 62 tourists in Luxor, Egypt conducted by Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, an Egyptian militant Islamist group. The Egyptian government convicted Bin Laden's colleague, one of the leaders of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, and sentenced him to death in absentia for the massacre.

Attacks on United States targets

Bin Laden's first strike against United States citizens was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden, Yemen, which killed a Yemeni hotel employee and an Austrian national and seriously injured the Austrian's wife. About 100 U.S. soldiers, part of Operation Restore Hope, had been staying at the hotel for two weeks but had left two days earlier for Somalia. U.S. investigations have allegedly established financial and logistical links between bin Laden and Ramzi Yousef, prime suspect of the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Bin Laden is also connected to the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu that killed 18 U.S. troops in Somalia and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar military complex in Saudi Arabia that left 19 U.S. soldiers dead.

It is widely believed that Al-Qaeda was responsible for plots in Asia orchestrated by Ramzi Yousef, who was later arrested in Pakistan, brought to the United States and convicted in November 1997 for masterminding the World Trade Center bombing. The plots in Asia, including those to assassinate the Pope, during his late 1994 visit to the Philippines, and President Clinton, during his visit there in early 1995, all failed; also included among the plots were those to bomb the US and Israeli embassies in Manila in late 1994 and to bomb US flights across the Pacific in 1995. Bin Laden and the Indonesian militant, known as Hambali, allegedly funded, then aborted the Operation Bojinka conspiracy when police discovered the plot in Manila, Philippines on January 6, 1995.

In 1998, bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, (a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad), co-signed a fatwa (binding religious edict) in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, declaring:

"[t]he 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'". [8]

In response to these attacks, President Bill Clinton ordered a freeze on assets linked to bin Laden. Clinton also signed an executive order, authorizing bin Laden's arrest or assassination. In August 1998, the U.S. launched an attack using cruise missiles. The attack failed to harm bin Laden but killed 19 other people. The U.S. offered a US $25 million reward for information leading to bin Laden's 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.

The September 11, 2001 Attacks

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the United States government named bin Laden as the prime suspect.

In December 2001, U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured a videotape during a raid on a house in Jalalabad, which allegedly shows bin Laden discussing the September 11th attacks with a group of followers. However, the quality of the tape is poor, and bin Laden is seen writing with his right hand (according to the FBI he is left handed [9]). However, many video and intelligence analysts attribute the frequent use of his right hand in the video to Bin Laden's deteriorating health, as evidenced in subsequent videos in which he either strongly favors his right side or appears unable to move his left arm at all [10]. Furthermore, he is shown wearing a gold ring, which some claim is forbidden for men by orthodox Islam. This idea has been disputed by numerous videos and photos of Bin Laden wearing the same ring on many different occasions [11]. In some low resolution pictures of the video, bin Laden appears smiling with a rounder face and a nose slightly different than that seen in previous images of him. However, this is also disputed by higher resolution photos of the same video, which show a man who strongly resembles bin Laden [12]. Still, because of the anomalies surrounding this video, the authenticity of the tape remains highly disputed. According to the official U.S. translation of this tape, bin Laden says:

" 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)

Several other videotapes have surfaced 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). In subsequent statements and interviews he expressed admiration for whoever was responsible. He takes credit for "inspiring" what he calls the "blessed attacks" of September 11 in several public statements. However, the video found in Jalalabad, Afghanistan in December 2001 is still the most often cited as evidence for bin Laden's participation in the September 11 attacks.

In a closed door session in October 2001, the U.S. presented evidence to NATO of bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks. NATO's general secretary, George Robertson, described the evidence as clear and decisive and led the organization to invoke, for the first time in its history, article 5 in the NATO pact. Article 5 states that any attack on a member state is considered an attack against the entire alliance. The evidence presented to NATO was never presented to the public [13].

Nevertheless, bin Laden has publicly praised the September 11 attacks in several instances and has taken credit for being their "inspiration". It is clear from many of his public statements that he views himself as an active participant in the attacks, regardless whether or not he deserves the credit the West gives him as the "mastermind" behind the attacks. A good example is this passage from his October 2001 interview with Al-Jazeera:

As for the World Trade Center, the ones who were attacked and who died in it were a financial power. It wasn't a children's school! And it wasn't a residence. And the general consensus is that most of the people who were in there were men that backed the biggest financial force in the world that spreads worldwide mischief [ta`ithu fil ardi fasaadaa]. And those individuals should stand for Allah, and to re-think and re-do their calculations. We treat others like they treat us. Those who kill our women and our innocent, we kill their women and innocent, until they stop from doing so[1]

.

On October 31st, 2004, on the eve of the US election, a videotape was released purportedly of bin Laden:

...as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children [2]

.

Another tape was released in late May of 2006, this concerned the Zacarias Moussaoui trial and verdict. The full english translation is available here. [3] It is noteable as it contains a confession of his involvement in the 9/11 attacks. As well as complaining about the "non-Al Quida" prisoners held now or in the past at guantanamo bay detainment camp.

I begin by talking about the honorable brother Zacarias Moussaoui. The truth is that he has no connection whatsoever with the events of September 11th, and I am certain of what I say, because I was responsible for entrusting the 19 brothers - Allah have mercy upon them - with those raids, and I did not assign brother Zacarias to be with them on that mission.

The authenticity of this tape and other post-September 11 tapes of Bin Laden is disputed. [4][5][6]. Furthermore, those tapes were never independently verified [7][8], however U.S. intelligence agencies claim their authenticity.

Whereabouts

After the September 11 attacks, the United States demanded that the Taliban authorities, who were not recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by the United Nations and many other nations on this world, deliver bin Laden to face trial for his crimes. The Taliban refused to surrender bin Laden without proof or evidence of his involvement in the September 11 attacks and made a counter-offer to try bin Laden in an Islamic court or extradite him to a third-party country. Both of those options to settle the matter were rejected by the U.S. government. The resulting U.S. invasion of Afghanistan resulted in the death or arrest of many members of both Al Qaeda and the ruling Taliban, but bin Laden was not found.

Rumors surfaced that bin Laden was killed or fatally injured during U.S. bombardments, most notably near Tora Bora, or that he died of natural causes. According to Gary Bernsten, in his 2005 book, Jawbreaker, a number of al-Qaeda detainees later confirmed that bin Laden had escaped Tora Bora into Pakistan via an eastern route through snow covered mountains in the area of Parachinar, Pakistan. The media reported that bin Laden suffered from a kidney disorder requiring him to have access to advanced medical facilities, possibly kidney dialysis. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a physician and FBI Most Wanted Terrorist, is thought to have provided medical care to bin Laden.

According the Pakistani press, Bin Laden is rumored to have died in 2001 of pulmonary complications incident to catastrophic kidney failure in the absence of available hygienic dialysis. His death was speculated on by the Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf [9] and by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan [10]. This speculation was later undercut by newly released videos of bin Laden, alive and referring to current events such as the 2004 U.S. Presidential election.

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

On October 29, 2004, the Arab television network Al Jazeera broadcast a video tape of bin Laden addressing citizens of the United States, discussing the reasons behind the September 11, 2001 attacks. This release came just four days before the 2004 U.S. presidential election. In the video, bin Laden gives a carefully crafted speech in which he repeatedly insults U.S. President George W. Bush but appeared to hedge his bets on the election outcome, remarking that "your security is not in the hands of Kerry [...] nor Bush..." Both U.S. presidential candidates Bush and John Kerry had roundly condemned bin Laden, his ideas and his objectives, including an immediate removal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. (See 2004 bin Laden video).

By September 23, 2005, bin Laden was believed to be on the Afghan-Pakistani border. According to the Pakistani press, he had kept a low profile, with as few as ten men guarding him. In October, U.S. authorities said they had no evidence of whether Bin Laden was hurt or killed as a result of a 7.6 magnitude earthquake that hit the disputed area of Kashmir, in northeastern Pakistan [11].

On November 25, 2005, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said that he was informed that Bin Laden may have died in the October earthquake in Pakistan.[12]

In early December 2005, in a videotaped message posted on an Islamist website, the deputy leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, was reported as saying that the group's leader was alive and still leading their "holy war against the West" [13].

On January 9, 2006, Michael Ledeen, a scholar with close ties to the Bush administration, wrote that, "....according to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden finally departed this world in mid-December. The al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Iranians who reported this note that this year's message in conjunction with the Muslim Haj came from his number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, for the first time" [14].

On January 18, 2006, the Arabic news network, al-Jazeera, received a tape, purportedly from Bin Laden, in which he warns that preparations for attacks in the United States are in place but also offers a truce to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. The American Central Intelligence Agency has stated its belief that the speaker is Osama bin Laden. Some, however, have questioned the tape's authenticity, including Duke professor Bruce Lawrence, author of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden. Lawrence cites, among other things, the lack of any quotations from the Qur'an or references to recent events in the January 2006 tape [15].

The speaker does not outline all the conditions for a truce in the excerpts aired by the Arab news network, but he does say that the withdrawal of U.S. forces (from Iraq and Afghanistan) is only one of several conditions [16][17][18] [19] .

The January 18, 2006 tape made reference to the leaking of a British memo claiming that U.S. President George W. Bush had suggested bombing al-Jazeera's offices in Qatar to British Prime Minister Tony Blair; this story broke in the British press on November 22, 2005. In addition, it included other comments that were indicative of it being recent, including a mention of polls that show the American publics declining support for remaining in Iraq.

In the same tape, over 11 minutes long, Bin Laden vowed never to be captured alive and denounced the United States as no better than Saddam Hussein: "The jihad (holy war) is ongoing, thank God, despite all the oppressive measures adopted by the U.S. Army and its agents, [which has reached] a point where there is no difference between this criminality and Saddam's criminality" [20].

On April 23, 2006 yet another purported Bin Laden audio recording appeared. This tape came at a time when President Bush was under increasing political pressure to remove American troops from Iraq and when Iraq seemed on the brink of all-out civil war. Bin Laden called on his followers to keep resisting Bush's "crusades" in the Middle East [21].

On May 24,2006, ABC News reported on rumors that Bin Laden was sighted in the Kumrat Valley in the Kohistan District of Pakistan [22].

See also

References

  1. ^ "Wanted: Usama Bin Laden". Interpol. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  2. ^ "Most Wanted Terrorist - Usama Bin Laden". FBI. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  3. ^ "Who is Osama Bin Laden?". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  4. ^ "'I met Osama Bin Laden'". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  5. ^ "Bin Laden comes home to roost". MSNBC. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  6. ^ "The United States did not create Osama bin Laden". US Department of State. Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  7. ^ Cook, Robin. "The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved 2005-07-08.
  8. ^ "Text of Fatwah Urging Jihad Against Americans". Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  9. ^ "Most Wanted Terrorist: USAMA BIN LADEN". Retrieved 2006-05-15.
  10. ^ "Hunt for bin Laden goes online". CNN. Retrieved 2006-05-15."Osama bin Laden Speeches". Retrieved 2006-05-17."The Search for Osama". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2006-05-17.
  11. ^ "bin Laden and the ring". 911myths. Retrieved 2006-05-17.
  12. ^ "Fake Video". 911myths. Retrieved 2006-05-17.
  13. ^ "What is Article 5?" (Cached HTML). NATO.

Profiles

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