Osama Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden was the leader of Al-Qaeda, a group that funds and trains Islamic militants to carry out attacks spreading jihad, or holy war, across the globe.http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/al-qaeda.htm For decades, his specific whereabouts were unknown, although GlobalSecurity.org stated that he was believed to be along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/osama_bin_laden.htm

On June 11, 2009, the CIA's director, Leon Panetta, said that intelligence agents had been deployed to Pakistan to assist Pakistani military forces in searching for bin Laden.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/11/osama-bin-laden-pakistan-cia

Then on Sunday, May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama gave the order for US troops to infiltrate a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, believed to be bin Laden's hiding place. “After a fire fight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body,” the president said in his televised address. “No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties.”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/01/osama-bin-laden-dead-killed_n_856091.html 

Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, the 17th of 52 children of a wealthy businessman.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/etc/cron.html His birth date is usually given as March 10, but has also been cited as July 30.http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/osama_bin_laden.htm In 1979, he attended King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah to work towards a degree in public administration and economics.

After some time in college, bin Laden assembled Maktab al-Khadamat, a military league to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. During this time, he also raised money for the Afghani government and provided them with logistical and humanitarian aid, even fighting in certain battles against the Soviets.http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.timeline/index.html 

In 1988, bin Laden formed Al-Qaeda, which means "the base," in order to implement a jihad on non-Muslim nations. Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks in locations around the world in the years since. Though the group originally formed in protest to the Soviet invasion, their mission expanded to oppose western/non-Islamic regimes, eventually morphing into a diffuse terrorist network.http://www.mahalo.com/al-qaeda/ 

In the years since the formation of Al-Qaeda, bin Laden and his followers have been connected with several terrorist attacks. On February 26, 1993, a bomb exploded at the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and wounding hundreds. In October of 1993, 18 US servicemen part of a humanitarian mission to Somalia were killed in an ambush in Mogadishu. The next year, bin Laden is the target of a first assassination attempt. 

Other plots he is believed to be involved in include:

• The failed attempt to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
• A 1995 suicide bombing at the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan
• A truck bombing at a military base in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which killed five Americans and two Indians.
• An explosion in the Khobar military complex in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 US soldiers

Then on August 23, 1996, he declared a holy war against America in a declaration he called, "Message from Osama bin Laden to his Muslim Brothers in the Whole World and Especially in the Arabian Peninsula: Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques; Expel the Heretics from the Arabian Peninsula." In subsequent years, he issues similar declarations and fatwas against the US and other non-Islamic governments.http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.timeline/index.html 

With the August 7, 1998, bombing of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, bin Laden made the FBI's list of most wanted fugitives. About 224 people were killed in the attack, and the US indicted bin Laden for all of the murders three months later.http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.timeline/index.html 

Two years later, Osama bin Laden is linked to the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which left 17 U.S. sailors dead and another 39 injured. The ship was attacked on October 12, 2000 in Yemen. A small boat had been carrying explosives and two suicide bombers attacked the ship, leaving a 40 by 40 foot hole left in its side.http://www.mahalo.com/uss-cole-attack/ 

On September 11, 2001, four commercial airliners were hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists. Two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, another crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the last plunged into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Bin Laden did not claim responsibility for the attacks until 2004.http://www.mahalo.com/september-11/ 

One month after 9/11, President Bush launched a war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. As of 2009, the war continues, and bin Laden has still not been found. The U.S. government is offering a $25 million bounty for information on his location or possible death.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock produced a 2008 documentary, Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?, that followed his personal manhunt for bin Laden in the Middle East.

On January 16, 2009, the United States Treasury Department zeroed-in on four alleged Al-Qaeda operatives with ties to the organization's operations in Iran. The department issued executive order 13224, freezing the men's assets and prohibiting transactions between them and U.S. citizens. The purpose of such an order is to target the operatives as well as those that support them, and forces Iran to publicly accept responsibility for how it is meeting its international obligations regarding Al-Qaeda. The four men, including Osama Bin Laden's third oldest son Saad bin Laden, Muhammad Rab'a al-Sayid al-Bahtiyti, Ali Saleh Husain and Mustafa Hamid, were allegedly detained by Iranian authorities in 2003, though it is believed Sa'ad bin Laden has been away from the country since at least September of 2008.http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iLyX8gyrge48gAWeruAwqO09yKGQ

On June 3, 2009, Al Jazeera TV reported that Bin Laden warned the U.S. to "be prepared to receive the consequences" of former President Bush and current President Barack Obama's administrations. The statement came via an audio recording that was played on the Arab news network.Fox News: Bin Laden Tells... Bin Laden said Obama has "planted seeds of hatred and vengeance towards America" and has "followed the same path taken by his predecessor."CBS: Alleged Bin Laden Tape Blasts...

On May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama announced via television address that US forces had successfully infiltrated Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and had shot and killed the infamous terrorist.http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/osama-bin-laden-killed/story?id=13505703 

Reports released the next day said that the US had received credible tips in August of the preceding year and had been working since then to verify the information, track down bin Laden and devise a strategy for bringing him down. The raid and ensuing fire fight lasted 40 minutes and resulted in the death of three additional men and one woman being used as a shield. Officials in the administration stated that DNA confirmed that it was, in fact, bin Laden who was among the dead. Bin Laden's body was then buried at sea and handled according to Islamic tradition.http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.raid.timeline/index.html