Born inSaudi Arabia to the aristocraticbin Laden family, he joined the Afghanmujahideen in 1979. In 1984, bin Laden co-foundedMaktab al-Khidamat, which recruited foreignmujahideen into the Afghan war. In 1988, he founded al-Qaeda to carry out violentjihad worldwide. His pan-Islamism andanti-Americanism resulted in his expulsion from Saudi Arabia by the royalHouse of Saud in 1991. He then moved al-Qaedato Sudan in 1992, before moving them in 1996 to Afghanistan, which theirTaliban alliesnow governed.
Bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden", whileU.S. intelligence internally referred to him during his life as "Usama bin Laden",acronymizing it as "UBL". His last name has also been spelled "bin Ladin".[6][7]Bin, also spelledibn, means "son of" inArabic.[8] His full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, is thus "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden".[9] "Mohammed" refers to his fatherMuhammad bin Ladin,[10] his full name "Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden".[11]
He was namedUsama, meaning "lion", afterUsama ibn Zayd, one of thecompanions ofMuhammad.[12] Later in life, bin Laden assumed thekunya (teknonym)Abū ʿAbdallāh, meaning "father of Abdallah",his son. The Arabiclinguistic convention would be to refer to Osama as that or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is apatronymic surname, not asurname in the Western manner.[13] In the West, he is nicknamed "Bin Laden", which often begins sentences about him—"Bin Laden effusively praised the Jordanian-born militant"—although, being at the start of a sentence,ibn would be more accurate to Arabic—"Ibn Laden effectively [...]".[8] According to his sonOmar, the family's hereditary surname isāl-Qaḥṭānī, but Muhammad bin Ladin never officially registered the name.[13]
According to theFBI, in his life, bin Laden also used thealiases Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden,Shaykh Osama bin Laden,Mujahid Shaykh, the Prince, the Emir, Hajj, and the Director.[6] Ashaykh orsheikh is an older man of authority.[14] Amujahid, pluralmujahideen, is someone who engages injihad, struggle in the name of Islam, peacefully or violently.[15] Anemir is a military or political commander.[16]Hajj is the traditional pilgrimage of Muslims to theholy city ofMecca, Saudi Arabia.[17]
Osama bin Laden was born on 10 March 1957 inRiyadh, Saudi Arabia.[21][22] Despite it being generally accepted that his birthplace was Riyadh, FBI andInterpol documents used to list it asJeddah.[23] He was part of thebin Laden family, based in Saudi Arabia, who were incredibly successful in the construction industry; he later inherited from them around $25–30 million in 2011USD.[24] Bin Laden's father Muhammad was born in Yemen, and became a billionaire off of his work in construction. He had close ties to the Saudi royal family theHouse of Saud. Osama's mother,Hamida al-Attas (born Alia Ghanem), was from Syria, and was Muhammad's tenth wife.[25][26][27] Osama was the 17th of Muhammad's 52 children.[28]
Muhammad divorced Hamida soon after Osama was born. Hamida then married Muhammad's associate, Mohammed al-Attas, in the late 1950s or early 1960s.[29] They had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.[25]
At age 17 in 1974, bin Laden marriedNajwa Ghanem atLatakia, Syria.[42] They later separated, and she left Afghanistan on 9 September 2001.[43] His other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1993); Khairiah Sabir (married 1985); Siham Sabir (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list a sixth wife of an unknown name, whose marriage to bin Laden wasannulled soon after the ceremony.[44] Bin Laden fathered 24 children with his wives.[45] Many of his children fled to Iran following the11 September 2001 attacks, which he perpetrated, and as of 2010[update], Iran closely controlled them there.[46]
Nasser al-Bahri, who was bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, describes bin Laden as afrugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.[47]
Muhammad bin Laden died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia, when his American pilot misjudged a landing.[48][49] Bin Laden's eldest half-brother,Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 nearSan Antonio, Texas, in the U.S., when he accidentally flew a plane intopower lines.[50]
The FBI described adult bin Laden 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),[51] although journalistLawrence Wright, inhis book on bin Laden's organizational-Qaeda, writes that a number of bin Laden's close friends said that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that he was actually "just over 6 feet (1.8 m) tall".[52] After his death, he was measured to be roughly 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in).[53] Bin Laden had anolive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain whitekeffiyeh, and at one point he stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh.[54] He was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.[55]
These beliefs, in conjunction with violentjihad, have sometimes been calledQutbism after being promoted bySayyid Qutb.[61] Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule ofMullah Omar'sTaliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world.[62] Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violentjihad, to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the U.S., and sometimes other non-Muslim states.[63] In hisLetter to the American People, bin Laden described theformation of the State of Israel as "a crime which must be erased", and demanded that the U.S. withdraw all of its civiliansand military personnel from allMuslim lands, especially theArabian Peninsula.[64][65]
Bin Laden supported the targeting of American civilians, in retaliation against U.S. troops indiscriminately attacking Muslims. He asserted that this policy could deter U.S. troops from targeting Muslim women and children. Furthermore, he argued that all Americans were complicit in the crimes of their government, due to majority of them electing it to power and paying taxes that fund the U.S. military.[78] According toNoah Feldman, bin Laden's assertion was that "since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets."[79]
Two months after 9/11, bin Laden stated:
"According to my information, if the enemy occupies an Islamic land and uses its people ashuman shields, a person has the right to attack the enemy. ... The targets of September 11 were not women and children. The main targets were the symbol of the United States: their economic and military power. Our Prophet Muhammad was against the killing of women and children. When he saw the body of a non-Muslim woman during a war, he asked what the reason for killing her was. If a child is older than thirteen and bears arms against Muslims, killing him is permissible."[80]
Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as theSoviet Union and U.S. was to lure them into a longwar of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead toeconomic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry.[81] Al-Qaeda manuals expressed this strategy. In a2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point ofbankruptcy".[82]
A number of errors in bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such asMax Rodenbeck andNoah Feldman. He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence ofWestern political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"[83]—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions, and so can be lawfully punished by death.[84] He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God."[85]
Bin Laden was heavilyanti-Semitic, stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In December 1998 interview, bin Laden stated thatOperation Desert Fox was proof thatIsraeli Jewscontrolled the governments of the U.S. and the United Kingdom, and were directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could.[86] In hisLetter to the American People, he stated that Jews controlled American media outlets, politics, and economic institutions.[58] In May 1998, bin Laden claimed that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel".[87] He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along, that war was "inevitable" between them, and accusing the U.S. of stirring upanti-Islamic sentiment.[87] He claimed that theU.S. State Department andU.S. Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals.[87] He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next."[88] Ideology classes held by al-Qaeda listedShia Muslims,heretics, the U.S., and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam.[89]
Bin Laden was opposed to music on religious grounds,[90] and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery andgenetic engineering of plants, while rejecting the use ofchilled water.[91] He also believedclimate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity fromthe harmful gases thatthreaten its destiny".[92][93]
After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan with Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help theAfghanmujahideen resistance in theSoviet–Afghan War.[94] He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan."[95]
From 1979 to 1992, the U.S. (as part ofOperation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of fighters in the Afghanmujahideen through Pakistan'sInter-Services Intelligence (ISI).[96] JournalistJason Burke wrote that the U.S. did not receive directly train or fund bin Laden and his followers.[97]
Bin Laden met and built relations withHamid Gul, athree-stargeneral in thePakistani Army and head of the ISI. Although the U.S. provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by thePakistan Armed Forces and the ISI.[98] According to Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, then-head of ISI's Afghanistan operations, Pakistan had a strict policy to prevent any American funding, arming, or training ofmujahideen—and that CIA officials staying inthe American embassy inIslamabad never enter Afghanistan or meet with the Afghan resistance leaders themselves.[99]
According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as aliaison between the SaudiGeneral Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords; no evidence of contact between the CIA and bin Laden exists in the CIA archives.Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence."[100] Bin Laden's first trainer wasU.S. Special Forces commandoAli Mohamed.[101]
By 1984, bin Laden and Azzam establishedMaktab al-Khidamat (MaK), which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through MaK, bin Laden's inherited family fortune[102] paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for thejihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps insideKhyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, theDemocratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers.[103] From this base, bin Laden participated in some combat activity against the Soviets, such as theBattle of Jaji in 1987.[103] Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press.[103] It was during this time that he became idolized by many Arabs.[104]
In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and aroundGilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre.[105] Shia civilians were also subjected to rape.[106] The massacre is alleged byB. Raman, a founder of India'sResearch and Analysis Wing,[107] to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictatorZia-ul Haq.[108] He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and theNorth-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.[109]
By 1988, bin Laden had split from MaK.[110][111] While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force.[111] Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on 20 August 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (bayat) to follow one's superiors.[112]
The flag used by variousal-Qaeda factions, featuringArabic writing of the IslamicShahada oath
According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence was still a closely held secret.[113] His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an 11 August 1988 meeting between several senior leaders ofEgyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the EIJ and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.[114] Others argue that the organization was founded earlier and already existed when the leaders met on 11 August.[115][116]
TheIraqi invasion of Kuwait underSaddam Hussein on 2 August 1990, put Saudi Arabia and its royalHouse of Saud at risk. With Iraqi forces on theSaudi border, Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent.[123] One week after King Fahd agreed toU.S. Secretary of DefenseDick Cheney's offer of American military assistance, bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense MinisterSultan bin Abdulaziz, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the U.S. and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with amujahideen force of his.[123][124] When Sultan asked how bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam usedIraqi chemical and biological weapons against them, he replied, "We will fight him with faith."[123] Bin Laden's offer was denied, and the House of Saud invited 500,000 U.S troops to enter Saudi territory.[125][124]
Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi the deployment.[126] He believed this was a provocation to all Muslims, interpreting Muhammad as having banned the "permanent presence ofinfidels[of Islam] in Arabia".[127][128] Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudiulama to issue a fatwa condemning the military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression.[129] Bin Laden's continued criticism of the House of Saud led them to put him underhouse arrest, under which he remained until he was exiled from the country in 1991.[130] After the war, the royals allowed U.S. troops to have a continuous presence there, inOperation Southern Watch, for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq.[131][132][133] U.S. presidentGeorge H. W. Bush cited the necessity of dealing with the remnants of Hussein's regime, but decided not to demolish it entirely.[134]
Meanwhile, on 8 November 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home ofEl Sayyid Nosair, an associate of Ali Mohamed. They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This was the earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries.[135]
In the 1990s, al-Qaeda assistedjihadis financially, and sometimes militarily, in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent anemissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 USD to Algeria to aid the local Islamists and urge them to go to war against the Algerian government, rather than negotiate with them. Their advice was heeded. The resultingAlgerian Civil War (1992–2002) killed 44,000[136] to 200,000 people, and ended with the Islamists surrendering to the government.[137]
Bin Laden's expulsion from Saudi Arabia came after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the U.S.[117][138] He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan, and then relocated to Sudan by 1992,[117][138] in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed.[139] Bin Laden established a new base formujahideen operations inKhartoum. He boughta house on Al-Mashtal Street, in the affluentAl-Riyadh neighborhood, and a retreat atSoba on theBlue Nile.[140][141] He personally selected the bodyguards in his security detail, who carriedStrela-2s,AK-47s,PK machine guns,rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), andStinger missiles.[142] Bin Laden heavily invested in various businesses, like in infrastructure and agriculture.[143] He was popular with local people, who considered him generous to the poor. He built roads in Sudan using the samebulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan, and many of his labourers were former Afghanmujahideen people.[144][145] Bin Laden was also the Sudanese agent for the Britishaerial photography firmHunting Surveys.[146] He continued to criticize King Fahd, so in 1994, Fahd stripped him of hisSaudi citizenship, and persuaded the bin Laden family to cut off his yearlystipend of $7 million USD.[147][148][149]
In March or April 1992, bin Laden tried to deescalate thecivil war in Afghanistan by urging warlordGulbuddin Hekmatyar to join othermujahideen leaders in negotiating the creation of a coalition government, instead of Hekmatyar trying to conquerKabul for himself.[150]
It is believed that the first terrorist bombing organized by bin Laden was the 29 December 1992 bombing of theGold Mohur Hotel inAden, which killed two people.[117]
In the early 1990s,Khalid Sheikh Mohammed became a toplieutenant of bin Laden, while devising a plan, codenamed "Bojinka", for a series of terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda targetingairliners. In the "Bojinka plot", al-Qaeda and another group,Jemaah Islamiyah, planned for eleven planes departingSoutheast Asia towards the U.S. to simultaneously be destroyed by bombs over the Pacific Ocean.Pope John Paul II would also be assassinated.[151][152][153] Mohammed's nephew,Ramzi Yousef, tested out a part of the idea in 1993, when he and a group of menbombed the underground portion of theWorld Trade Center business complex in New York City, killing six people and injuring more than a thousand.[151][154] In 1994, Yousef rehearsed the Bojinka bombings by setting one off at a theater inManila, and the other onboardPhilippines Airlines Flight 434, which killed a passenger.[155] In 1995, weeks before the planned attack date, the plot was foiled when Yousef's Manila apartment burned down; investigating the fire, police found evidence incriminating him in it.[155][156] Yousef was given life imprisonment in the U.S.,[157] while Mohammed continued working on his idea regarding hijacked airliners.[158]
Around this time, bin Laden had associated more with EIJ, which then made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995, the EIJattempted to assassinate the Egyptian presidentHosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled the EIJ. After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to afatwa issued byMamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going toJannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims, andJahannam (hell) if they were bad, ornon-believers.[159] Thefatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members, but not the general public.
The U.S. State Department accused Sudan of being asponsor of international terrorism, and bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudanese officials, this stance became obsolete as Islamist political leaderHassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. Sudan wanted to engage with the U.S., but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized U.S. intelligence officials to visit the country.[146]
"In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officerBilly Waugh tracked down Bin Laden in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization.[160] US AmbassadorTimothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship.Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against Bin Laden in any country."[161]
In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of itsCounterterrorism Center (CTC) called theBin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against his activities. The station was headed by CTC veteran Michael Scheuer.[137] U.S. intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house andsignals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.[162]
Return to Afghanistan
The9/11 Commission Report states:
"In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, and paid for by the CIA."
Due to the increasing pressure on Sudan from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the U.S., bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return toJalalabad, Afghanistan, aboard achartered flight on 18 May 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Omar.[163][164] The expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened bin Laden and his organization.[165] Some African intelligence sources have argued that the expulsion left bin Laden without an option other than becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the three hundredAfghan Arabs who left with him subsequently became terrorists.[146] Various sources report that he lost between $20 million[166] and $300 million[167] in Sudan; the government seized his construction equipment, and he was forced toliquidate his businesses, land, and horses.
In August 1996,bin Laden issued afatwā titled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places", which was published byAl-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper. Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference toMecca and Medina; "Occupying the Land" referred to Operation Southern Watch.[133] Bin Laden stated: "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and fromits support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into anAmerican colony".[134]
Fervently attacking American support for Israel and Saudi Arabia as well as itssanctions on Iraq, bin Laden declared in thefatwa:
"Terrorising you, while you are carrying arms on our land, is a legitimate and morally demanded duty. It is a legitimate right well known to all humans and other creatures... [our] youths are different from your soldiers. Your problem will be how to convince your troops to fight, while our problem will be how to restrain our youths.. The youths hold you responsible for all of the killings and evictions of the Muslims and the violation of the sanctities, carried out by yourZionist brothers in Lebanon; you openly supplied them with arms and finance. More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression (sanction) imposed on Iraq and its nation. The children of Iraq are our children. You, the USA—together with the Saudi regime—are responsible for the shedding of the blood of these innocent children. Due to all of that, what ever treaty you have with our country is now null and void."[168]
On 23 February 1998, bin Laden issuedanotherfatwā against the U.S., calling upon Muslims to attack the country and its allies. It was entitled "Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders".[169] After listing numerous acts of aggression committed by the U.S., such as the presence of American forces in the Arabian Peninsula, sanctions against Iraq, and theIsraeli repression of Palestinians. Thefatwa stated:
"All these American crimes and sins are a clear proclamation of war against God,his Messenger, and the Muslims. Religious scholars throughout Islamic history have agreed thatjihad is an individual duty when an enemy attacks Muslim countries. [They state] that, "As for fighting to repel an enemy—which is the strongest way to defend freedom and religion—it is agreed that this is a duty. After faith, there is no greater duty than fighting an enemy who is corrupting religion and the world.""[170][169]
At thefatwa's public announcement, attended by journalists, bin Laden said that North Americans are "very easy targets", and that "you will see the results of this in a very short time."[171] It also claimed the "individual duty for every Muslim "was to liberate [two holy sites] from their grip":Al-Aqsa inJerusalem and theMasjid al-Haram in Mecca.[172][173]
Late 1990s attacks
In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from donors he had associated with during the Soviet–Afghan War,and from the ISI, to establish moretraining camps formujahideen fighters.[174] He effectively took overAriana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, andopium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, as well as providedfalse identifications to members of his terrorist network.[175] Russian arms dealerViktor Bout helped run the airline, maintain planes, and load cargo. Michael Scheuer concluded that Ariana was being used as a terrorist taxi service.[176]
Another successful attack was carried out in the city ofMazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundred Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousandHazaras in the city.[182]Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on 24 June 1998.[183] On 7 August,hundreds of people were killed in simultaneoustruck bomb explosions at the U.S. embassies inDar es Salaam, Tanzania; andNairobi, Kenya.[184] The attacks were linked to local members of the EIJ, and brought bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to the attention of the U.S. public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the bombings.[184]
In retaliation for the bombings, U.S. presidentBill Clinton ordered aseries of cruise missile strikes on bin Laden-related targets in Sudan and Afghanistan on 20 August 1998.[184] In December 1998, the CIA reported to Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the U.S., including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft.[185] On 7 June 1999, the FBI placed bin Laden on itsTen Most Wanted list.[186] On 15 October, theUN designated al-Qaeda as aterrorist organization, aiming tofreeze assets and impose travel bans on them and their associates.[187]
The only successful attack that was planned for the new millennium was the hijacking ofIndian Airlines Flight 814, en route fromKathmandu toDehli on 24 December 1999. The hijackers, of a connected group to al-Qaeda namedHarkat-ul-Mujahideen, kept flying the plane until 31 December, stopping in India, Pakistan, and the UAE along the way. They created ahostage crisis as they kept various passengers on board while making demands from the Indian government. One passenger was killed by the hijackers. The crisis ended when India agreed to let the hijackers be released in Pakistan, and received by the Taliban.[191][192]
Al-Qaeda also failed in an attempt to bomb theUSSThe Sullivans, aU.S. Navy ship, on 3 January 2000 inAden, Yemen. They had planned to move a boat filled with explosives towards the ship and then detonate them, but they added too many explosives, and the boat sunk before it could reach TheSullivans. They then the salvaged the boat and the explosives for use in another attempt at a later time.[193] They were used on 12 October, on theUSSCole in Aden, using the same general idea.The explosion killed 17 Navy sailors.[194]
A former U.S. State Department official in October 2001 describedBosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of theprevious national government were protecting extremists, some with ties to bin Laden.[195]
According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them wasKarim Said Atmani, who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the U.S.[196] He was formerly Ahmed Ressam's roommate.[197][198] He was convicted of colluding with bin Laden by a French court.[199]
A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the U.S., revealed other formermujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived north ofSarajevo, the capital, in the past few years.Khalil al-Deek was arrested in December 1999 as part of the Jordanian terrorist cell. A second man withBosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani, and worked for a charity associated with bin Laden.The New York Times reported in June 1997 that those arrested for the recent bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh confessed to serving withBosnian Muslim forces. Furthermore, the captured men also admitted to ties with bin Laden.[200][201][verification needed]
In 1999, the press reported that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship andBosnian passports in 1993 by the previous national government. The new government denied this following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey, and that, at that time, he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport, and that officials at theBosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued it, could not have known who he was at the time.[200][201][verification needed]
The head of Albania's State Intelligence Service (SHISH), Fatos Klosi, said that bin Laden was running a terror network inAlbania, founded in 1994, to take part in theKosovo War under the guise of ahumanitarian organization. Claude Kader, who was a member, testified to its existence during his trial.[202] By 1998, four members of EIJ were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt.[203] Themujahideen fighters were organized by Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to him and al-Zawahiri.[204]
During his trial at theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian presidentSlobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided theKosovo Liberation Army. He claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe. He claimed that they had informedRichard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the U.S. decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with bin Laden despite the embassy bombings earlier. Milošević had argued that the U.S. aided the terrorists, which culminated in its backing of the 1999NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.[205][206][207][208]
Criminal charges
On 16 March 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpolarrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany'sBfV intelligence agency in its Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on 10 March 1994.[77][209] Bin Laden was still wanted by theLibyan government at the time of his death.[210][211] He was first indicted by agrand jury of the U.S. on 8 June 1998, on a charges ofconspiracy to attack defense utilities of the U.S. and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of al-Qaeda, and a major financier of Islamic fighters worldwide.[212]
During theClinton administration, capturing bin Laden was an objective of the U.S. government.[213] Shortly after the September 11 attacks, it was revealed that Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (specifically, their eliteSpecial Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the U.S. to stand trial for the 1998 embassy attacks; if taking him alive was deemed impossible, thendeadly force was authorized.[214] On 20 August 1998, 66cruise missiles launched by U.S. Navy ships in theArabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps nearKhost, Afghanistan, missing him by a few hours.[215]
On 4 November 1998, bin Laden was indicted by afederal grand jury in theU.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges relating to the embassy attacks:Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the U.S.,Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the U.S., andAttacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members andsatellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agentZiyad Khaleel in the U.S.[216][217][218] However, the Taliban ruled not to extradite bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.[219]
Bin Laden became the456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added on 7 June 1999, following his indictment along with others forcapital crimes in the embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden by the Taliban were met with failure.[220] In 1999, Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.[221]
In 1999, the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately sixty Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted upon the1999 Pakistani coup d'état.[215] In 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired an RPG at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles, but not the one he was in.[214]
On the day of the attacks, theNational Security Agency intercepted communications that pointed to bin Laden'sresponsibility in them,[226] as didGerman intelligence agencies.[227] At 11:30 p.m., Bush wrote in his diary: "ThePearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today... We think it's Osama bin Laden."[228] U.S. and U.K. intelligence later stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to 9/11 is clear and irrefutable.[229][230][231]
Numerous countries strengthened theiranti-terrorism legislation to deter future attacks like 9/11.[232] TheU.S. Congress passed thePatriot Act in October 2001, which expanded the powers ofU.S. federal agencies to search and surveil criminal suspects; theNSA soon developed a widespread apparatus to surveil U.S. citizens' Internet communications, regardless of if they were suspected for crimes. The extent of the apparatus only became known to the publicin 2013.[234]
The FBI considers their investigation into 9/11,PENTTBOM, to be their largest criminal investigation ever.[235][236] They conducted 180,000 interviews, reviewed millions of pages of documents, and just within the first few months after the attacks, looked into more than 250,000leads.[235]
ACIA leaflet written inArabic which was distributed in Afghanistan, showing abounty for bin Laden
The CIA'sSpecial Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.[239] Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'".[240] On 10 October 2001, the FBI introduced a list of itsMost Wanted Terrorists, 22 in total, with bin Laden placed atop as the most crucial one. The FBI offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to the capture of each person, except bin Laden, who was listed at .$25 million.[241][242] In 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed.[243] TheAirline Pilots Association and theAir Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.[244]
Despite these multiple indictments, the Taliban refused to extradite bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of bin Laden's involvement in 9/11 was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over bin Laden to a third-party country for trial, in return for the U.S. ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by Bush, stating that this was no longer negotiable: "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."[245]
By November 2001, al-Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains around Tora Bora.[246] The CIA, meanwhile, was closely tracking bin Laden's movements in hopes to catch him. On 10 November, they spotted him nearJalalabad traveling in a convoy of two hundredpickup trucks.[247] They then headed towards al-Qaeda's training camp within their defensive complex atTora Bora, in theSafed Koh mountain range.[247] It was twenty miles from Afghanistan's easternborder with Pakistan.[248] The U.S. attacked it during theBattle of Tora Bora from November to December.[249]
Delta Force GIs disguised as Afghan civilians while searching for bin Laden in November 2001
Early in the battle, CIA intelligence had indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were trapped in the caves of the complex, and on 1 December, CIA officerGary Berntsen requested GeneralTommy Franks to send less than a thousandU.S. Army Rangers to block off the mountain passes into Pakistan and cut off bin Laden's escape. However, Franks denied the request, as he agreed with theBush administration that Pakistan would capture bin Laden if he tried to cross the border.[250][251][252] Bin Laden is conventionally believed to have escaped on 15 December.[253]
Frame from the video of bin Laden released on 13 December 2001
During the invasion, in November 2001, U.S. forces in Jalalabad reportedly found a videotape in which bin Laden is seen discussing withKhaled al-Harbi what is likely 9/11.[254][255] It was released by the U.S. on 13 December.[255] In it, Bin Laden says that it was "calculated in advance [what] the number of casualties from the enemy [would be] based on the position of the towers". He then seems to say that 9/11 exceeded his expectations by the plane impacts unintentionally causing the complete collapse of the towers:[255]
"I was thinking that the fire from thefuel in the plane would melt theiron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and the floors above it only. That is all we had hoped for."
On 26 December 2001, Al Jazeera broadcast a video message recorded by bin Laden, in which he again seems to imply responsibility for 9/11: "Our terrorism against the United States is worthy of praise to [...]" The tape was probably made around two weeks prior, as he mentions it being three months since a "blessed attack" on the U.S. Many more vague and crypticrecordings of bin Laden were released afterwards.[255] Al-Qaeda continued to release videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival.[256] Ina 2004 video, he unambiguously confirmed that he had organized 9/11.[257][258] He accused George W. Bush of negligence in not preventing the hijackings, and said he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching thedestruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the1982 Lebanon War.[257][259]
"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after [witnessing] [...] the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America, so it could taste some of what we are tasting, and to stop killing our children and women."[260]
The video was first broadcast by Al Jazeera four days before the2004 U.S. presidential election. Analysts say the timing may have partially led to Bush's win againstJohn Kerry in the election. Supposedly, Americans' fear of terrorismafter September 11 were reintroduced by the video, which, to many voters, may have made Bush seem like a stronger protector of America than Kerry, whose opponents accused him of being weak on terrorism.[257]
A tape broadcast by Al Jazeera in 2006 shows bin Laden withRamzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the September 11 hijackers,Hamza al-Ghamdi andWail al-Shehri, as they make preparations for the attacks.[261][262] In a 2007 video, bin Laden denied that the Taliban or the Afghan people had any foreknowledge of 9/11.[263]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and bin al-Shibh hid in Pakistan after 9/11.[272] Bin al-Shibh was captured in 2002,[273] then tortured at CIA black sites for four years.[274][275] Mohammed was captured in 2003,[276] then tortured at the sites for three years.[277][276] The CIA unit composed ofspecial operationsparamilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.[278]
A letter fromAtiyah Abd al-Rahman toAbu Musab al-Zarqawi on on 11 December 2005 indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in theWaziristan region of Pakistan. The letter instructs al-Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the other leaders. Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak, and have many of their own problems. The letter was deemed authentic by military andcounterterrorism officials.[279][280]
U.S. and Afghan forces again raided the Tora Bora caves in August 2007, after receiving intelligence of a planned meeting between al-Qaeda members for beforeRamadan. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.[281]
Obama administration
In 2008, in thesecond debate ofthat year's U.S. presidential election, presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged: "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority."[282] Upon being elected, he expressed his plans to renew and ramp up the manhunt.[282] Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy that the manhunt had to consider bin Laden's relation to other militant groups, such asHamas toHezbollah, instead deciding on a covert, narrow focus on al-Qaeda and its direct affiliates.[283][284]
In 2009, a research team led byThomas Gillespie andJohn A. Agnew ofUCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds inParachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.[285] In March 2009, theNew York Daily News reported that the manhunt had centered in theChitral District of Pakistan, including theKalam Valley. AuthorRohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral.[286] Pakistan's prime ministerGillani rejected claims that bin Laden was in the country.[287]
Early in December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan earlier that year; he said that in January or February, he (the detainee) met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about fifteen to twenty days earlier.[288] On 6 December 2009, U.S. Secretary of DefenseRobert Gates stated that the U.S. had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years.[288][289] On 9 December, U.S. GeneralStanley McChrystal said that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless bin Laden were captured or killed, thus indicating that the U.S. high command believed that he was still alive. Testifying to theU.S. Congress, he said that bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldened al-Qaeda across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant success was possible. He said killing or capturing bin Laden would not dissolve al-Qaeda, but that they could not be dissolved while he remained at large.[289][290]
On 2 February 2010, Afghan presidentHamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia to discuss a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of theSaudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the House of Saud had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled bin Laden.[291] On 7 June, the Kuwaiti newspaperAl-Seyassah reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town ofSabzevar, in northeastern Iran.[292][293]
In August 2010, as U.S. intelligence was surveilling a man they knew to be acourier of bin Laden, he entered a compound inAbottabad, Pakistan. He continued to frequently the visit the compound, and the U.S. determined that bin Laden was living inside it.[294][295][296] U.S. intelligence later determined that the compound was probably built for him,[297] and may have been his home for at least five years.[298][299]Satellite imagery of the area in 2004 shows no building on the plot.[300] The compound was located less than 2 kilometres (1 mi) from thePakistan Military Academy, and less than 100 kilometres (62 mi) fromIslamabad.[301][302][303]
On 18 October 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations, claiming they were made up to put pressure on the Pakistan ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between them and the U.S.[304]
2010 letter to followers
In 2010, bin Laden wrote a letter chastising his followers who had reinterpretedal-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, bin Laden condemnedTehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that thetatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability, or would at least show the people that they were careful in keeping Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advisedal-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.[305]
The raid was launched from Afghanistan.[313] After the raid, reports at the time stated that U.S. forces had taken bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, thenburied it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death.[314] Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board theUSS Carl Vinson, where the burial was said to have taken place.[315]
It was widely reported by the press that bin Laden was fatally wounded byRobert J. O'Neill; however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that Bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red".[316][317] According to Navy SEALMatt Bissonnette, bin Laden was struck by twosuppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away, after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and apoint man. Once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette along with another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.[318]
On 15 June 2011, U.S. federal prosecutors officially dropped all criminal charges against bin Laden.[319] Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012[320] to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine.[321]
On 29 March 2012, Pakistani newspaperDawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.[322] In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime ministerImran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to bin Laden.[323]
Allegations of Pakistan support and protection of bin Laden
The U.S. and Pakistan have both maintained that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the 2011 raid.[324][325]
JournalistCarlotta Gall reported in 2014 that ISI Director GeneralAhmad Shuja Pasha knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad.[326] In 2015, journalistSeymour M. Hersh asserted—citing U.S. sources—that bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the U.S. mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior agent of Pasha, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information.[315] Both stories were denied by U.S. and Pakistani officials.
Pakistani columnist Mosharraf Zia stated: "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state."[327] Pakistan'sU.S. AmbassadorHusain Haqqani promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence could have failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound close to Islamabad: "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system. [Was] that support system within the government [of] Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"[328]
Others argued that bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the Internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate.[329] Pakistani presidentAsif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation.[330][331] Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against thePakistani Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering bin Laden.[332] Coll states that as of 2019, there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contacting Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.[333]
The FBI Most Wanted webpage for Bin Laden in late 2011
During the early 2000s, anti-American protestors in the Muslim world used his portraits during their protests, speeches and public campaigns.[334] His popularity there reached its apex during theIraq War; opinion polls conducted in some countries gave him 50% – 60% favourable ratings.[335][334][336][337]
Bin Laden is a reviled figure in the Western world, where he is regarded as a terrorist and mass murderer.[338][339] His obituary in theNew York Times referred to him as "the North Star" of global terrorism, seen by Americans as equivalent to "Hitler orStalin."[339]Latin American political leaders expressed opposition to bin Laden, with Peruvian presidentAlan García calling him "demonic"; however, at his death, some leftist Latin American leaders also denounced the United States for violating Pakistani sovereignty to target bin Laden.[340]
His death was celebrated in India, and the fact that he was found in Pakistan was regarded as cause for concern due to the complexIndo-Pakistani relationship.[341] Arab reactions to his death were described as "muted".[342] ThePew Research Center found in 2011 that support for bin Laden and al-Qaeda had declined steadily across a number of Muslim countries, and was as low as 1% in Lebanon, describing him as "discredited".[343] During a 2020 Pakistani parliament session, Prime MinisterImran Khan denounced bin Laden's killing, labelling it as "an embarrassing moment" in their country's history, and also praised bin Laden as a martyr.[344][345][346]
^Depending on the time zone, the date of his death may be different locally.
References
^Fair, C. Christine; Watson, Sarah J. (18 February 2015).Pakistan's Enduring Challenges. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 246.ISBN978-0-8122-4690-2.Archived from the original on 31 January 2016.Osama bin Laden was a hard-core Salafi who openly espoused violence against the United States in order to achieve Salafi goals.
^Davies, William D.; Dubinsky, Stanley (2018).Language Conflict and Language Rights: Ethnolinguistic Perspectives on Human Conflict. Cambridge University Press. p. 74.ISBN978-1-107-02209-6.
^Slackman, Michael (13 November 2001)."Osama Kin Wait and Worry".Los Angeles Times.Archived from the original on 26 September 2009. Retrieved26 May 2010.
^Najwa bin Laden,Omar bin Laden, Jean Sasson.Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World. p. 414.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^The 24 children are listed accurately in Peter L. Bergen,The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2021, pp. x-xi, the first 20 of them are listed in Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden and Jean Sasson,Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama’s Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010, pp. 294-300, and 19 of them are also detailed in various places in Cathy Scott-Clark & Adrian Levy,The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight, New York: Bloomsbury, 2017, as can be seen in the index on pp. 601-604, including the four missing from the Sasson book.
^Scheuer, Michael (2004).Imperial Hubris. Dulles, Virginia: Brassey's, Inc. p. 9.ISBN978-0-9655139-4-4.The focused and lethal threat posed to U.S. national security arises not from Muslims being offended by what America is, but rather from their plausible perception that the things they most love and value—God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands—are being attacked by America.
^Scheuer, Michael (2004).Imperial Hubris. Dulles, Virginia: Brassey's, Inc. p. 256.ISBN978-0-9655139-4-4.Because Muslim leaders—with bin Laden in the van—repeatedly have told us that they hate Americans for what we do and not for what we think, look like, talk about...
^Messages, (2005), p. 143. from an interview published inAl-Quds Al-Arabi in London, 12 November 2001 (originally published in Pakistani daily,Ausaf, 7 Nov.)
^Messages to the World, (2005), pp. xix–xx, editor Bruce Lawrence.
^Bin Laden, Osama (2005). "Declaration of Jihad". In Lawrence, Bruce (ed.).Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden. 6 Meard Street, London W1F OEG: Verso. pp. 70, 119.ISBN1-84467-045-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^Bin Laden, Osama (2005). "Declaration of Jihad". In Lawrence, Bruce (ed.).Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden. 6 Meard Street, London W1F OEG: Verso. p. 140.ISBN1-84467-045-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^Wright 2006, p. 145 "Lawrence Wright estimates his share of the Saudi Binladin Group circa fall 1989 as amounted to 27 million Saudi riyals – a little more than [US]$7 million."
^Hunzai, Izhar."Conflict Dynamics in Gilgit-Baltistan"(PDF). United States Institute of Peace.Archived(PDF) from the original on 9 May 2017. Retrieved5 July 2017.In 1988, a rumor alleging a Sunni massacre at the hands of Shias resulted in an attack by thousands of armed tribesmen from the south, the killing of nearly four hundred Shias
^Raman, B (7 October 2003)."The Shia Anger".Outlook.Archived from the original on 1 January 2017. Retrieved31 December 2016.Because they have not forgotten what happened in 1988. Faced with a revolt by the Shias of the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), under occupation by the Pakistan Army, for a separate Shia State called the Karakoram State, the Pakistan Army transported Osama bin Laden's tribal hordes into Gilgit and let them loose on the Shias. They went around massacring hundreds of Shias – innocent men, women, and children.
^Raman, B (26 February 2003)."The Karachi Attack: The Kashmir Link".Rediiff News.Archived from the original on 10 May 2017. Retrieved31 December 2016.A revolt by the Shias of Gilgit was ruthlessly suppressed by the Zia-ul Haq regime in 1988, killing hundreds of Shias. An armed group of tribals from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, led by Osama bin Laden, was inducted by the Pakistan Army into Gilgit and adjoining areas to suppress the revolt.
^United States v. Usama bin Laden et al., S (7) 98 Cr. 1023, Testimony of Jamal Ahmed Mohamed al-Fadl (SDNY 6 February 2001), archived from the original.
^abColl, Steve (2004).Ghost wars : the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to 10 September 2001. New York: Penguin Press.ISBN1-59420-007-6.OCLC52814066.
^Yusufzai, Rahimullah (26 September 2001)."Face to face with Osama".The Guardian. London.Archived from the original on 19 January 2008. Retrieved22 May 2010.
^Yusufzai, Rahimullah (26 September 2001)."Face to face with Osama".The Guardian. London.Archived from the original on 19 January 2008. Retrieved22 May 2010.
^Jacobsen, Annie (2019).Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins. New York: Little, Brown and Company. pp. 281–288.
^Stack, Megan K. (6 December 2001)."Fighters Hunt Former Ally".Los Angeles Times.Archived from the original on 19 September 2009. Retrieved28 May 2010.
^Bruce Lawrence, ed. (2005).Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden. 6 Meard Street, London W1F OEG: Verso. pp. 60, 61.ISBN1-84467-045-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^Pyes, Craig; Meyer, Josh; Rempel, William C. (15 October 2001)."Bosnia – base for terrorism".The Seattle Times.Archived from the original on 19 November 2011. Retrieved25 May 2010.
^Watson, Dale L., Executive Assistant Director, Counter terrorism/Counterintelligence Division, FBI (6 February 2002)."FBI Testimony about 9/11 terrorists' motives". Federal Bureau of Investigation – (RepresentativePress).Archived from the original on 5 May 2011. Retrieved11 February 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^"Al-Jazeera: Bin Laden tape obtained in Pakistan". NBC News. 30 October 2004.Archived from the original on 15 April 2016. Retrieved28 May 2010.—"In the tape, Bin Laden—wearing traditional white robes, a turban and a tan cloak—reads from papers at a lectern against a plain brown background. Speaking quietly in an even voice, he tells the American people that he ordered the September 11 attacks because 'we are a free people' who wanted to 'regain the freedom' of their nation."
^abJ. Cull, Culbert, Welch, Nicholas, David, David (2003).Propaganda and mass persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present. Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911, USA: ABC-CLIO, Inc. pp. 20, 222.ISBN1-57607-820-5.While many Middle Eastern countries have condemned.. Al Qaeda and have shown support to the United States, Bin Laden's reputation has reached cult status among some Arabs, who see him as the hero of the resistance against Western domination... In the wider Middle Eastern region, Bin Laden became a folk hero to the poor and disenfranchised: his picture appeared in bazaars in Pakistan and was placed in the hands of demonstrators in the Gaza strip. No Arab leader had commanded such popular appeal since Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) in the 1950s.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Klausen, Jytte (2021). "2: The Founder".Western Jihadism: A Thirty-Year History. Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. p. 69.ISBN978-0-19-887079-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
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