Who is Osama Bin Laden ?

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1/1/2003 GMT

Osâmah bin Muhammad bin `Awad bin Lâdin (born March 10, 1957) commonly known as Osama bin Laden, or Usama bin Laden, is the founder of al-Qaeda.

One of bin Laden's main grievances was the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, where two of Islam's holiest places are located. The U.S. withdrew from these bases in 2003, although it is unclear whether these decisions were already planned before the September 11 attacks.Bin Laden is the "most wanted" man in the western countries with a reward for information leading to his capture of US$50 million. While his current whereabouts are unknown.

Background

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Muhammad Awad bin Ladin, a wealthy businessman. His family originally came from Hadhramaut, Yemen and he was raised as a devout Muslim. After his graduation from secondary school in 1973, bin Laden went to Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. 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.After his father died, bin Laden inherited what was once estimated to be a fortune of US$300 million although more recent estimates put his holdings at about US$25 million.

Rebel activities

His wealth and connections permitted him to pursue his interest in supporting the mujahideen, Muslim fighters 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.

Some argue that MAK was supported by the governments of Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia, and that the three countries channelled their supplies through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

The accounts of some journalists and investigators do suggest that CIA money and weapons reached the Afghan Arabs and bin Laden indirectly through the ISI.

Formation of al-Qaeda

By 1988, bin Laden had split from the MAK and established a new rebel 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 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 because the Saudi government asserts 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 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 Islamists could receive instruction in firearms use and the use of explosives from former Afghan mujahideen.

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.

Attacks on United States targets

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 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. 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.

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-Qaeda 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-Qaeda organization was 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.

September 11

Immediately after the September 11 attacks in the United States, Washongton named bin Laden as the prime suspect. However, in an interview published in Ummat Karachi, on 28th September 2001, but largely ignored by Western media, Osama stated:

"I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle.... The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself.... intelligence agencies in the U.S., which require billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the government every year. This [funding issue] was not a big problem till the existence of the former Soviet Union but after that the budget of these agencies has been in danger. They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usama and Taleban and then this incident happened. You see, the Bush Administration approved a budget of 40 billion dollars. Where will this huge amount go? It will be provided to the same agencies, which need huge funds and want to exert their importance. Now they will spend the money for their expansion and for increasing their importance. I will give you an example. Drug smugglers from all over the world are in contact with the U.S. secret agencies. These agencies do not want to eradicate narcotics cultivation and trafficking because their importance will be diminished. The people in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Department are encouraging drug trade so that they could show performance and get millions of dollars worth of budget. General Noriega was made a drug baron by the CIA and, in need, he was made a scapegoat."

In December 2001 U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured a videotape during a raid on a house in Jalalabad, in which he discusses the September 11 attacks with a group of followers. However, the quality of the tape is poor, and Osama is seen writing with his right hand, although according to the FBI he is left handed, among several anomalies. The authenticity of the tape remains disputed.

Several other videotapes have surfaced in the media. In subsequent statements and interviews he expressed admiration for whoever was responsible. He took credit for "inspiring" of September 11th in several public statements.

One leading al-Qaeda member, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, says (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.

Whereabouts
After the September 11 attacks, the United States asked the Taliban government of Afghanistan to "hand him over." 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 many members of his organization, as well as many civilians (estimates range from thousands to 49,000), but bin Laden was not found.

There had been suggestions that bin Laden was killed or fatally injured during U.S. bombardments, most notably near Tora Bora, or that he 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.

Bin Laden was rumored in the Pakistani press 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 and by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. 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.

Rumors about his whereabouts 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 bin Laden was indeed alive, and that the Pentagon knew exactly where he was.

Sources: wikipedia.org




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