bin Laden, Osama (1957- )

Saudi-born, Afghanistan-based, Islamic fundamentalist terrorist leader who has masterminded a number of terrorist attacks directed at US targets since the early 1990s. He promotes jihad (holy war) against the USA with the aim of liberating Islam's three holiest places - Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. The 11 September 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, by suicide hijackers of two commercial airliners, and two other aircraft hijackings, claimed around 3,000 lives. It was the worst act of terrorism on record. US president George W Bush responded by launching a war on terror, with a US-led international coalition mounting military strikes on Afghanistan in an attempt to force its Taliban government to give bin Laden up. Earlier bin Laden was thought to have engineered attacks including the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in which 6 people died, the June 1996 bombing of the US military complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19, the August 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224, and an October 2000 suicide bomb attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 US sailors. His al-Qaeda terrorist organization has also been linked to the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, the March 2004 Madrid train bombings, and the July 2005 London transport bombings.

Bin Laden, who is on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) ‘Ten Most Wanted’ list, is considered also to have financed the 1997 killing of 58 tourists in Luxor, Egypt, by the Egyptian fundamentalist Islamic Group, and attempts in 1999 and 2000 by fundamentalist groups from Afghanistan to infiltrate Chechnya and Dagestan, in Russia, and Uzbekistan, and Kurdistan, all Central Asia. In retaliation, the USA and United Nations (UN) imposed economic sanctions against the Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban militia. In May 2001, a New York State federal jury found four followers of bin Laden guilty of all charges arising from the 1998 US embassy bombings. The Taliban declared the convictions unfair, and reiterated their refusal to hand bin Laden over to the USA.

Born into a wealthy Yemeni family in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, he was the 17th of 52 children fathered by Muhammad bin Laden, Saudi Arabia's wealthiest construction magnate. Bin Laden's subsequent power has been founded on a fortune rooted in this family business, based on contracts for the Saudi government. Bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1979 to support resistance against the Soviet occupying army. His Maktab-al Khidimat movement, which funnelled fighters and money to the Afghan resistance, enjoyed initial financial backing from the USA and security training from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This support ended after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. After two years in Saudi Arabia, he was expelled in 1991 for anti-government activity, at the time of the Gulf War against Iraq. He moved to Sudan where built up the al-Qaeda terrorist group from ex-mujahedin (Afghan resistance) fighters, and sponsored international Islamic terrorism. Al-Qaeda is multinational, with members from numerous countries and a worldwide presence. International pressure led to his expulsion in May 1996, after being linked to truck bombings of US members of the armed forces in Saudi Arabia, and he moved to a cave hideout in south Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda bases were used to train Islamic terrorist organizations and its 3,000 fighters supported the Taliban regime in battles in Afghanistan. Bin Laden also funded the Taliban. He was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994. In 1998, he issued an edict that Muslims should kill civilians and military personnel from the USA and its allies until their forces withdrew from Islamic countries. After the September 2001 bombings in New York, US president Bush declared a global war against terrorism and US forces invaded Afghanistan to overthrow the Tailiban regime. However, bin Laden escaped capture and his whereabouts remained unknown.