Great Lives from History 1901-2000 The Twentieth Century Bin Laden, Osama Osama Bin Laden Saudi Arabian terrorist leader The leader of the Islamic terrorist organization al- Yemeni peasant who became wealthy as a building con- Qaeda, Bin Laden emerged as the spiritual symbol for tractor for the Saudi royal family. Muhammed, who was many anti-Western Islamic fundamentalists in the married twenty-two times, had Bin Laden with his tenth aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the wife, Hamida al-Attas. Bin Laden’s parents divorced United States. when he was a child, and his mother then married Mu- hammad al-Attas and had four more children. Bin Laden Born: March 10, 1957; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was raised by his mother and stepfather, although he re- Also known as: Osama bin Mohammad bin Laden ceived significant financial support from his birth father. (full name); Usamah Ibn Laden After his father’s death in 1968, Bin Laden inherited sev- Areas of achievement: Warfare and conquest, eral million dollars. military affairs, crime, government and politics Bin Laden was an intelligent and diligent student. He attended a prestigious preparatory school, the Al-Thager Early Life Model School, from 1968 to 1976. During that time, Osama Bin Laden (oh-SAH-mah bihn LAH-dihn) was he became increasingly attracted to the fundamentalist born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was one of a reported teachings of Sunni Islam. Bin Laden participated in Is- fifty-five children of Muhammed bin Awad bin Laden, a lamic study groups and supported radical groups such as Osama Bin Laden. (AP/Wide World Photos) 371 Bin Laden, Osama The Twentieth Century the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt. Bin Laden’s Vengeance In 1974, he married for the first time, and he eventually had twenty-four In November, 2004, the Middle East news organization Aljazeera posted on its children. (Bin Laden married four Web site a translation of Osama Bin Laden’s message to Americans about the more women and was once di- terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. An excerpt of the transcript follows. vorced.) • [W]e fight because we are free men who don’t sleep under oppression. We Bin Laden studied economics, want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So civil engineering, and business ad- shall we lay waste to yours. ministration at King Abdulaziz Uni- • No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes versity in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster he failed to obtain a degree. While at strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it hap- the university, he was influenced by pening again . several professors who espoused a • So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you pan-Islamic philosophy that empha- truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider . sized the importance of jihad, or holy • The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when Amer- war, to defend Muslim lands from ica permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet foreign invaders and foreign influ- helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and in- ences. In addition to a regular curric- jured and others were terrorised and displaced . ulum, Bin Laden extensively studied • I couldn’t forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and the Islamic holy book, the Qur$3n, as children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants well as Islamic law. The Soviet inva- and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our sion of Afghanistan in 1979 further home without mercy. radicalized Bin Laden. He supported • In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, the Afghan mujahideen (holy war- but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and riors) and joined the anti-Soviet in- gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors. • And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind surgency, thereby transitioning from that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy tow- student to Islamic fundamentalist ers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that leader. they be deterred from killing our women and children. • So with these images and their like as their background, the events of Sep- Life’s Work tember 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs. [S]hould a man be In 1979, Bin Laden joined a former blamed for defending his sanctuary? professor in organizing support for • Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable ter- the mujahideen. They cofounded rorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us. Maktab al-Khidmat (bureau of ser- vices), which recruited foreign fight- ers and raised money for the insur- gency. Bin Laden used his fortune to provide material ered to be an extremist understanding of the Qur$3n and support for the insurgents and to publicize their cause. emphasized jihad against all enemies of Islam, including He developed close ties with many of the senior anti- Muslims who were deficient in their practice of Islam. Soviet leaders in Afghanistan. Through Maktab al- Not formally trained as a cleric, Bin Laden nevertheless Khidmat (MAK), Bin Laden developed an extensive net- began to issue his own interpretations of the Qur$3n and work of followers and agents throughout the Middle Islamic holy law. The al-Qaeda leader asserted that any East. However, MAK provided mostly logistical support action was justified in the defense of Islam, including at- for the rebels, and Bin Laden increasingly sought a more tacks on civilians. radical, military role for MAK. In Peshawar, Pakistan, in After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August, 1990, Bin 1984, he formed his own company of fighters, who par- Laden returned to Saudi Arabia and offered to defend the ticipated in several minor battles against the Soviets. kingdom against attack with a legion of troops. The In 1988, Bin Laden split from MAK and formed al- Saudi government had earlier asked the United States for Qaeda (the base), a multinational Muslim alliance de- military support, fearing Iraq would invade Saudi Arabia voted to Islamist jihad. He embraced what many consid- as well. Bin Laden’s proposal, however, was rejected by 372 The Twentieth Century Bin Laden, Osama the royal family, which angered the al-Qaeda leader. Bin though a smaller group remained), while Bin Laden and Laden denounced the government and its dependence on the remnants of al-Qaeda reportedly fled into the moun- Western, particularly U.S., military forces. He was espe- tains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. cially critical of the presence of non-Muslim troops in Forced into hiding, Bin Laden became less involved Saudi Arabia. In response, the royal family attempted to in the operations of al-Qaeda, but he continued to issue arrest Bin Laden, who evaded capture and went into ex- videotape and audiotape statements to the media, con- ile. He lived in Sudan from 1991 to 1996. His citizenship demning the United States and its allies, especially as the was revoked in 1994 and the Saudi government froze his focus of the anti-American effort shifted to Iraq after the family’s assets in 1996, but al-Qaeda continued to enjoy 2003 invasion. Individual al-Qaeda cells became in- clandestine support from a range of prominent Saudis, creasingly autonomous, and rival organizations emerged. who provided the group with funding. Nevertheless, Bin Laden remained the inspirational leader Bin Laden endeavored to create a new base for al- of the jihad. Qaeda in Sudan, but the government forced him to leave under U.S. and Saudi pressure in 1996. He returned to Significance Afghanistan and became involved in the ongoing civil More than any other figure, Bin Laden was responsible war that broke out after the Soviet withdrawal from that for globalizing Islamic terrorism. Under his leadership, country in 1991. He supported the Taliban, an Afghan al-Qaeda forged links with other radical Muslim terror- fundamentalist Islamic group that grew into the ruling ist groups and coordinated strikes against Jewish and government in Afghanistan, and provided it with money. Western targets around the world. Al-Qaeda eclipsed ex- In addition, al-Qaeda members fought alongside the isting terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah or Islamic Ji- Taliban. In return, the Taliban allowed Bin Laden to cre- had, as the leading anti-Western radical organization. ate a series of camps across the country to recruit and Whereas other groups had attacked civilian targets, no train foreign fighters. terrorist organization had attempted attacks of the size or In 1998, Bin Laden issued a fatwa, or religious decree, scale of al-Qaeda’s. Bin Laden adroitly understood the which called upon all Muslims to attack and kill Jews and value of symbolism and purposely escalated the scope of Westerners, including Americans. The fatwa was con- terrorist strikes such as the catastrophic attacks on the troversial in a number of respects. One problem was that World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Bin Laden was not a cleric, leading many Muslim schol- Virginia. ars to assert that his decree lacked legitimacy. Concur- Bin Laden’s tactics forced Western governments to rently, al-Qaeda began a series of attacks on Western tar- view terrorism as a major, if not the major, security threat gets, including bombing the U.S.