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The War on Terrorism
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  Who Is Osama bin Laden?

Osama bin Laden


 
Osama bin Laden is the world's most wanted terrorist, most recently linked to the September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed approximately 5,000 people.

Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a Yemeni family in 1957. His late father owned a major Saudi construction business and bin Laden became immensely wealthy through his inheritance, estimated at over $250 million.

But, despite growing up in privilege, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia in 1979 to join rebels fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Ironically, the Afghan resistance was primarily backed by American dollars and military aid. According to Middle Eastern analyst Hazhir Teimourian, bin Laden even received training from the CIA itself.

While fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, bin Laden founded the Maktab al-Khidimat. The MAK recruited Muslim fighters from around the world and sought out military aid to use in the struggle.

However, according to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who spent time with Afghani freedom fighters, as early as 1988 "bin Laden was so crazy that he wanted to kill Americans as much as he wanted to kill Russians."

In 1989, bin Laden founded al Qaeda ("The Base"). It wouldn't be long before al Qaeda transformed itself into an international terrorist network and began carrying out attacks on U.S. interests around the world.

But first, Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and rejoined his family's construction business. Shortly thereafter, in the summer of 1990, Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden reportedly offered his services to the Saudi government to help defend against an Iraqi invasion of the kingdom, he was rebuffed. Although the Saudis had resisted at first, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (now Vice President) and U.S. military commanders convinced King Saud that only rapidly deployed American military forces would be enough to deter Iraq from invading and quickly overrunning Saudi defenses.

As a formidable amount of American military support and troops poured into Saudi Arabia, bin Laden became incensed. He claimed that the "infidels" were defiling the Muslim holy places and agitated for withdraw of Western coalition troops. When American military forces remained in Saudi Arabia, at the request of the Saudi government when the Gulf War ended in early 1991, bin Laden's continued outspoken opposition led to his being expelled from the kingdom.

In 1991, bin Laden established a headquarters for al Qaeda in Khartoum, Sudan, spending the next five years there. U.S. pressure eventually led the Sudanese government to expel him from that country and bin Laden thereby returned to Afghanistan.

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