Usāmah bin Muhammad bin `Awad bin Lādin (born March 10, 1957 or July 30, 1957) (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عود بن لادن), commonly known as Osama bin Laden (أسامة بن لادن), is the head of al-Qaeda, a militant Islamist organization that has been involved in terrorist attacks against civilians and military targets around the world.

He is a member of the immensely wealthy bin Laden family. The bin Laden family publicly disowned Osama bin Laden in 1994, shortly before the Saudi Arabian government revoked his citizenship, and several years before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The government of the United States named Osama bin Laden the prime suspect in the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed at least 2,992 people, although he has not been formally charged. Bin Laden did not explicitly admit responsibility for the attacks until October 2004, just days before the US Presidential election, when he stated that he was behind the September 11 attacks in a videotaped speech that was played on Qatar's al Jazeera television channel.[1] http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/29/bin.laden.transcript/index.html Prior to October 2004, some evidence already suggested that he was behind the attacks. In a videotape purportedly discovered in Afghanistan in 2001, a person resembling bin Laden appeared to discuss the attacks using language suggesting that he participated in planning the attacks. For more information, see Osama and September 11 below.

Bin Laden 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 some believe he is hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border or in the semi-autonomous Pakistani tribal area of Waziristan.

Osama bin Laden speaks and writes Arabic, and possibly knows Pashto.

Contents

1 Names 2 Appearance and manner 3 Childhood 4 Afghan Jihad 5 Formation of al-Qaeda 6 Terrorist attacks on the United States 7 Osama and the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks 8 Current status 9 See also 10 External links 10.1 News 10.2 Interviews 10.3 Other

Names

Osama bin Laden's name can be transliterated in several ways. The form used here, Osama bin Laden, is used by most English-language mass media, including CNN and the BBC. The second most common English-language form of the name is Usama bin Laden (used by the FBI and FOX News). Less common renderings include Ussamah Bin Ladin and Oussama Ben Laden (used in French-language mass media). 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 the 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 and nicknames, including the Prince, the Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, and the Director.

Appearance and manner

Bin Laden is often described as lanky — tall and thin, the FBI describes his height as 6' 4" (193 cm) to 6' 6" (198 cm) and his weight as about 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.

He reportedly suffers from kidney disease (see below). There has also been speculation in the Western media that he might have Marfan syndrome.[2] http://dir.salon.com/people/feature/2001/11/09/marfan/index.html

Childhood

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Muhammad Awad bin Ladin, a wealthy businessman involved in construction and closely tied to the Saudi royal family. There is no definitive account of the number of children Mohammed bin Laden had, but the number is generally put at 54. In addition, various accounts place Osama as his seventeenth son, while others say he was the last of 25 sons.

The large number of bin Laden siblings is the result of polygyny; his father was married ten times, although to no more than four women at a time per Islamic law. Osama bin Laden is the only son of the elder bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas, who is reportedly of Syrian descent. A woman who in 1971 had attended an English language course with Osama recalled him saying with some sadness that his mother was a concubine[3] http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1595000/1595205.stm .

His family originally came from Hadhramaut, Yemen. He was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim and in interviews he frequently invokes Allah (God). After his graduation from secondary school in 1973, bin Laden went to Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and allegedly frequented bars and nightclubs. 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 in 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.

In 1974, at the age of 18, bin Laden married his first wife (and first cousin), Najwah Ghanem. Islam permits men to take as many as four wives at one time and Bin Laden reportedly married four other women, divorcing one. He has fathered at least 24 children. Najwah, a Syrian and his mother's niece, reportedly had 11 children by bin Laden, seven of them sons, including Abdallah, Omar, Saad, and Muhammad. Saad, born in 1979, is reportedly active in an Iran-based al-Qaida network. Omar and Abdallah were reportedly organizing the U.S. branch of the World Congress of Muslim Youth in Falls Church, Virginia during the 1990s.

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 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.

MAK was supported by the governments of Pakistan, the United States[4] http://www.msnbc.com/news/190144.asp?cp1=1#BODY and Saudi Arabia, and nurtured by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

Formation of al-Qaeda

By 1988, Osama bin Laden had split from the MAK and established a new militant group, 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 mujaheddin hero in Saudi Arabia. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, bin Laden offered to aid in the defense of Saudi Arabia but he was rebuffed by the Saudi Arabian government. Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on the U.S. military and demanded an end to the presence of foreign military bases in Saudi Arabia. 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 Arabian 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 Arabian rulers' legitimacy and inflamed anti-government Islamist militants, including bin Laden. Bin Laden's increasingly strident criticisms of the Saudi monarchy led the Saudi Arabian government 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 of mujaheddin 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 could receive instruction in firearms use and the use of explosives from former Afghan mujaheddin.

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.

Sudanese officials claim that they offered to extradite bin Laden to either the United States or Saudi Arabia in the mid-1990s but former U.S. counter-terrorism officials, including Richard Clarke, deny the claim. Whether the offer was made or not is still disputed - various Republican media outlets claim the offer was there. [5] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/9/165600.shtml In May 1996, under increasing pressure from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States, Sudan expelled bin Laden. He chartered a plane and flew to Kabul before settling in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. 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.

Terrorist attacks on the United States

Osama bin Laden's first strike against the United States was the December 29, 1992 bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden, Yemen that killed a Yemeni hotel employee, an Austrian national and seriously injured his wife. About 100 US soldiers, part of Operation Restore Hope, had been staying at the hotel for two weeks but had left two days earlier for Somalia. Some sources believe that Osama bin Laden funded and/or directed the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Bin Laden and the Indonesian militant known as Hambali allegedly funded the aborted Operation Bojinka conspiracy until 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, "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.'" (See Osama bin Laden Fatwa ).

Osama bin Laden is officially 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, that killed 225 people and injured more than 4000. Since June 1999, bin Laden has been listed as one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and FBI Most Wanted Terrorists. Al-Qaida was allegedly involved in several unsuccessful conspiracies, including the 2000 millennium attack plots to bomb Los Angeles airport, several tourist sites in Jordan and the USS The Sullivans, and well as the subsequent Paris embassy terrorist attack plot. The al-Qaida organization is allegedly responsible for the successful USS Cole bombing in October, 2000.

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. military launched an assassination attempt 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.

Osama and the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks

Immediately after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks in the United States, the United States government named Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect. At first he denied this accusation, suggesting the attacks were the fault of Jews or of the CIA. But in subsequent statements and interviews he expressed admiration for whoever was responsible. He took credit for "inspiring" what he calls the "blessed attacks" of September 11th in several public statements.

In December 2001 U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured a videotape during a raid on a house in Jalalabad, in which a man who looks like bin Laden is seen and heard discussing the September 11 attacks with a group of followers. According to the official U.S. translation of this tape—which has been disputed—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) http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/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 on December 13. Already on 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 the U.S. spread leaflets of doctored 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.[6] http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/01/04/ret.bin.laden.leaflets/ Some argued that if the U.S. was willing to fabricate photographs to achieve their goals then they would probably also be willing to fabricate videos. United States Secretary of Defense 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 cited article), he is reported to have replied that he had not thought about the possibility.

In January 2002 a 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.

Over the course of time after the attacks September the 11th several other videotapes which were at the time presented as evidence for bin Laden's 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 in December 2001 is still the most often cited as evidence for bin Laden's participation, suggesting that this video presents the strongest case for a bin Laden involvement in the September 11th attacks.

As early as October 2001, the U.S. presented evidence to NATO, behind closed doors, of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the 11th of September attacks. NATO's general secretary George Robertson reported to AP that the U.S. 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 U.S. -- 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. Despite this, and despite the fact that bin Laden's assumed involvement in the 9/11 attacks has never been publicly, transparently and conclusively established, it has, as of 2004, become the mainstream opinion ("world opinion") that bin Laden was responsible for and/or masterminded the attacks, argued by some to have been a consequence of the continued assertions from U.S. officials that he was responsible. Whether it will even be possible in light of such overwhelming public opinion to objectively establish the truth about his involvement in the attacks (eg. in the event of his capture) remains to be seen. However, there is more substantial evidence for bin Laden's involvement in other, pre-9/11 attacks. It is for this reason that the FBI's most wanted poster of bin Laden only makes reference to bin Laden being sought for pre-9/11 terrorist activity.

Nevertheless, bin Laden has publicly praised the 9/11 attacks in several instances and has taken credit for being their "inspiration." It is clear in many of his public statements that he views himself as an active participant in the attacks, whether or not he deserves the credit the West gives him as their "mastermind." 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.[7] http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/ubl_int_1.htm

In October of 2004, a videotape was released of Bin Laden directly admitting that he had ordered the September 11 attacks:

...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.

[8] http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

Current status

Osama bin Laden's current location is unknown. After the September 11 attacks, the United States asked the Taliban government of Afghanistan to "hand him over," but declined to provide any evidence implicating Osama in the attacks. The Taliban counter-offer to try bin Laden in an Islamic court or extradite him to a third-party country was deemed unacceptable by the U.S. government. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan resulted in the death or arrest of numerous militiamen, but bin Laden was not found. In September 2003, a videotape of Ayman al-Zawahiri and bin Laden, accompanied by an audiotape, were released to the al-Jazeera network in Qatar, purporting to prove that both men are still alive. Bin Laden appeared in a mountainous region wearing traditional Pathan attire. The date of the videotape recording could not be ascertained.

There had been suggestions that bin Laden was killed or fatally injured during U.S. bombardments, most notably near Tora Bora, Afghanistan, or he that may have died of natural causes. The U.S. military had reported that bin Laden suffered from a kidney disorder requiring him to have access to advanced medical facilities, possibly kidney dialysis. Ayman al-Zawahiri, also an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist, is a physician and may have provided medical care to bin Laden. Although Osama has been publicly disowned by his family, an estranged family member, Carmen Binladin, speculates (without providing evidence) that unnamed family members may be providing financial support to Osama bin Laden.

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 U.S. military operations in Afghanistan but none have been confirmed.

On October 21, 2004, John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, reported that Osama bin Laden is indeed alive, and that the Pentagon knows exactly where he is. According to Lehman, bin Laden is living in South Waziristan in the Baluchistan Mountains of the Baluchistan region, surviving from donations from outside countries such as the United Arab Emirates and high-ranking ministers inside Saudi Arabia. "There is an American presence in the area, but we can't just send in troops," Lehman said. "If we did, we could have another Vietnam, and the United States cannot afford that right now."[9] http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200410221447.asp

On October 29, 2004, the Arab television network Al Jazeera broadcast a video tape of Osama 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. See 2004 bin Laden video

See also

• Terrorist incidents
• Videos of bin Laden
• Worldwide perception of Osama bin Laden
• Osama bin Laden's Declaration of War
• Osama tapes
• Steven Emerson

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about Osama bin Laden

News

• BBC:Transcript of Osama bin Laden video aired by al-Jazeera http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3966817.stm
• Who is Osama bin Laden? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1551100.stm BBC report
• BBC News: 'I met Osama bin Laden' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3570751.stm - March 26, 2004 - a short profile of bin Laden's life
• Fatwa from World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm - Statement from bin Laden, 23 February 1998

Interviews

• Transcript of interview by CNN http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/binladen/binladenintvw-cnn.pdf (PDF file) - Correspondent Peter Arnett (March 20, 1997). The interview was first broadcast on CNN on May 10, 1997. This was Osama bin Ladin's first sit-down with a Western TV journalist.
• Interview with Osama bin Laden http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html - Questions partly by some of his followers and partly by ABC reporter John Miller , (May 1998)
• Alleged interview http://www.americanfreepress.net/Mideast/Al-Qaeda_Not_Involved/al-qaeda_not_invo
  lved.html - Transcription from Pakistani Newspaper of questions answered via written correspondence with the Taliban, who supposedly passed them to bin Laden
• Interview printed in the January 11, 1999 issue of http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990111/osama1.html Time Magazine

Other

• Interpol Profile http://www.interpol.int/public/data/wanted/notices/data/1998/32/1998_20232.asp
• FBI's Usama bin Laden "Most Wanted Terrorists" poster http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/terrorists/terubl.htm
• BBC News profile http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1551100.stm
• Bin Laden comes home to roost http://www.propagandamatrix.com/bin_laden_comes_home_to_roost.html - By Michael Moran, MSNBC, August 24, 1998. Alleges a CIA/bin Laden relationship
• Who Is Osama bin Laden? http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html - By Michel Chossudovsky
• CNN story about the interview http://europe.cnn.com/2001/LAW/02/21/embassy.bombing/
• Picture of bin Ladin and two brothers on a visit to Oxford in 1971 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1595000/1595205.stm - Story on BBC News
• $US 40 billion sponsorship of islamic fundamentalist training program - Carter + Brzezinski http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2463
• Summary of medical information, mostly speculative http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/a_binladen.htm
• Bin Laden's wealth not the force behind 9/11 http://cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/09/02/binladen.wealth.ap/ (AP/CNN)
• Osama bin Laden http://us.imdb.com/name/nm1136915/ at the Internet Movie Database
• Emerson, S. (2002), American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, Free Press; 2003 paperback edition, ISBN 0743234359