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The FBI described Bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) and 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in) in height and weighing about 73 kilograms (160 lb), although the author Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book on al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, writes that a number of Bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his ...
- Killing of Osama Bin Laden
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder and first...
- Hamza Bin Laden
Hamza bin Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (Arabic:...
- Bin Laden Family
Beginnings. The family traces its origins to Awad bin Laden...
- Manhunt for Osama Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, the founder and former leader of al-Qaeda,...
- Personal Life of Osama Bin Laden
The FBI described Osama bin Laden as tall and thin, between...
- Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (Arabic: أيمن محمد ربيع...
- Killing of Osama Bin Laden
- Overview
- Early life
- Building al-Qaeda
- The September 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S. pursuit of bin Laden
Osama bin Laden (born 1957, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia—died May 2, 2011, Abbottabad, Pakistan) founder of the militant Islamist organization al-Qaeda and mastermind of numerous terrorist attacks against the United States and other Western powers, including the 2000 suicide bombing of the U.S. warship Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden and the September 11, ...
Bin Laden was one of more than 50 children of Muhammad bin Laden, a self-made billionaire who, after immigrating to Saudi Arabia from Yemen as a labourer, rose to direct major construction projects for the Saudi royal family. By the time of Muhammad’s death in an airplane accident in 1967, his company had become one of the largest construction firms in the Middle East, and the bin Laden family had developed a close relationship with the Saudi royal family.
Osama bin Laden studied business administration at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, where it is likely that he also received instruction in religious studies from Muḥammad Quṭb, brother of the Islamic revivalist Sayyid Quṭb, and Abdullah Azzam, a militant leader. His time at the university was key to his future role as leader of al-Qaeda, not only in influencing his radical views but also in providing him with the skill to market al-Qaeda.
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 centred 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 U.S. 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.
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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.
In 2001, after 19 militants associated with al-Qaeda staged the September 11 attacks, the United States led a coalition that overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan. In December 2001 bin Laden went into hiding after evading capture by U.S. forces in the Tora Bora cave complex. In the following years, U.S. forces searched for him along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, during which time bin Laden remained absent from the public eye. Then in October 2004—less than a week before that year’s U.S. presidential election—bin Laden emerged in a videotaped message in which he claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks. After that he periodically released audio messages, including in 2008, when he threatened retaliation for the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and in 2009, when he challenged the nerve of the new U.S. president, Barack Obama, to continue the fight against al-Qaeda.
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. U.S. 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 U.S. force transported by helicopters raided the compound. His body, identified visually at the site of the raid, was taken out of Pakistan by U.S. 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.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Sep 11, 2023 · Quick Facts. FULL NAME: Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. BORN: March 10, 1957. DIED: May 2, 2011. BIRTHPLACE: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. SPOUSES: Najwa Ghanhem (1974-2001), Khadijah...
- editor@biography.com
- Staff Editorial Team And Contributors
Dec 16, 2009 · Updated: September 11, 2023 | Original: December 16, 2009. On May 1, 2011, American soldiers killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his compound near Islamabad, Pakistan. Intelligence...
- 7 min
Sep 1, 2007 · Osama bin Laden is the founder and leader of the international terrorist network al-Qaeda, and the U.S. government’s prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the ...
Jun 7, 2023 · Osama bin Laden was a violent terrorist and founder of al Qaeda who killed thousands of innocent men, women, and children before his death in 2011.
