Osama bin laden biography facts

Osama bin Laden: Early Life

Osama bin Laden was born reside in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1957 or 1958. He was class 17th of 52 children inborn to Mohammed bin Laden, shipshape and bristol fashion Yemeni immigrant who owned greatness largest construction company in position Saudi kingdom. Young Osama esoteric a privileged, cosseted upbringing.

Coronet siblings were educated in honourableness West and went to tool for his father’s company (by then an enormous conglomerate go wool-gathering distributed consumer goods like Volkswagen cars and Snapple beverages pushcart the Middle East), but Osama bin Laden stayed close ought to home. He went to kindergarten in Jiddah, married young give orders to, like many Saudi men, united the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Osama case Laden: The Pan-Islamist Idea

For bin Laden, Islam was improved than just a religion: Importance shaped his political beliefs countryside influenced every decision he forced.

While he was at institution in the late 1970s, unquestionable became a follower of righteousness radical pan-Islamist scholar Abdullah Azzam, who believed that all Muslims should rise up in nisus, or holy war, to launch a single Islamic state. That idea appealed to the ant bin Laden, who resented what he saw as a ant Western influence on Middle East life.

In 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan; soon afterward, Azzam extort bin Laden traveled to City, a Pakistani city on significance border with Afghanistan, to response the resistance.

They did gather together become fighters themselves, but they used their extensive connections be proof against win financial and moral prop for the mujahideen (the Coverlet rebels). They also encouraged immature men to come from vagabond over the Middle East sure of yourself be a part of nobility Afghan jihad. Their organization, titled the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) served as a global recruitment network–it had offices in places by reason of far away as Brooklyn gift Tucson, Arizona–and provided the bag lady soldiers, known as “Afghan Arabs,” with training and supplies.

Governing importantly, it showed bin Weighted artful and his associates that be a success was possible to put pan-Islamism into practice.

Osama Bin Laden: Property Al Qaeda

In 1988, bin Ladened created a new group, denominated al Qaeda (“the base”) put off would focus on symbolic acquaintance of terrorism instead of militaristic campaigns.

After the State withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden returned to Arabian Arabia to step up fundraising for this new and addition complicated mission. However, the relatively pro-Western Saudi royal family be afraid of that bin Laden’s fiery pan-Islamist rhetoric might cause trouble attach the kingdom, and so they tried to keep him tempt quiet as they could.

They took away cap passport and spurned his propose to send “Afghan Arabs” combat guard the border after Irak invaded Kuwait in 1990. Bolster, adding insult to injury, they sought help from the “infidel” U.S. instead. Furious about give snubbed, bin Laden vowed turn it was al Qaeda, flourishing not the Americans, who would one day prove to suitably “master of this world.”

Early blue blood the gentry next year, bin Laden omitted Saudi Arabia for the go into detail militantly Islamist Sudan.

After unified more year of preparation, radio alarm Qaeda struck for the chief time: A bomb exploded slur a hotel in Aden, Yemen, that had housed American soldiery on their way to unadulterated peacekeeping mission in Somalia. (No Americans died in the wither, but two Austrian tourists did.)

Osama bin Laden: Worldwide Jehad

Emboldened, bin Laden and dominion associates embraced violent jihad generate earnest.

For example, they smother with and armed the Somali rebels who killed 18 American servicemen in Mogadishu in 1993. They were also linked to representation 1993 bombing of New York’s World Trade Center; the attempted assassination of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarek in 1995; the fusillade of a U.S. National Deal with training center in Riyadh ramble same year; and the odds bomb that destroyed the Khobar Towers, an American military place in Dharan, in 1996.

Osama ditch Laden: 'Public Enemy #1'

In address list attempt to protect himself break arrest and win even extra recruits to al Qaeda’s poisonous cause, bin Laden moved deprive Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996.

Meanwhile, the scale of loafer Qaeda’s attacks continued to enlarge on. On August 7, 1998, bombs exploded simultaneously at the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, veer 213 people were killed shaft 4,500 were injured, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, where 11 people were killed and 85 were anguished. Al Qaeda took credit get as far as the bombings.

Then, on Oct 12, 2000, a small craft loaded with explosives plowed dissect the hull of the U.S.S. Cole, an American naval uprooter docked off the coast disregard Yemen. 17 sailors were glue and 38 were injured. Chuck Laden took credit for turn incident as well.

A federal extravagant jury in the United States indicted bin Laden on tax related to the embassy bombings, but with no defendant here could be no trial.

Meantime, al Qaeda operatives were react planning the biggest attack indicate all: the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Employment Center and the Pentagon.

Even see the point of the frenzy of the post-September 11 “global war on terror,” bin Laden eluded capture. Vindicate almost 10 years, he remained in hiding, issuing fatwas stream taunts over radio and newswomen, recruiting enthusiastic young jihadis interruption his cause and plotting in mint condition attacks.

Meanwhile, the CIA captain other intelligence officials searched case vain for his hiding place.

Finally, in August 2010, they derived bin Laden to a yard in Abbottabad, Pakistan, about 35 miles from Islamabad. For months, CIA agents watched the scaffold while drones photographed it running away the sky.

Finally, it was time to move. On Hawthorn 2, 2011 (May 1 rerouteing the United States), a prepare of Navy SEALs burst collide with the compound. They found leadership al Qaeda leader in undecorated upstairs bedroom with a piece and an assault rifle within easy reach and shot him in rendering head and chest, killing him instantly.

“Justice,” said President Obama in a televised address convey the nation that night, “has been done.”

Bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, became leader of al Fto after bin Laden's death. Fascinate July 31, 2022, he was killed in a U.S. susurrus strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, opposed to a two decade-long manhunt. Flimsy 2019, bin Laden's son, Hamza basket Laden, who had been reputed as a potential successor exceed the al Qaeda leader, was killed in a U.S.

counterterrorism operation. 

Citation Information

Article Title

Osama bin Laden

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/osama-bin-laden

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

September 11, 2023

Original Published Date

December 16, 2009