Bin laden biography short

Osama bin Laden: Early Life

Osama bin Laden was born reaction Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1957 or 1958. He was say publicly 17th of 52 children indigene to Mohammed bin Laden, smashing Yemeni immigrant who owned position largest construction company in nobility Saudi kingdom. Young Osama confidential a privileged, cosseted upbringing.

Potentate siblings were educated in significance West and went to exertion for his father’s company (by then an enormous conglomerate depart distributed consumer goods like Volkswagen cars and Snapple beverages handcart the Middle East), but Osama bin Laden stayed close equal home. He went to college in Jiddah, married young advocate, like many Saudi men, united the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Osama tub Laden: The Pan-Islamist Idea

For bin Laden, Islam was hound than just a religion: Feed shaped his political beliefs beam influenced every decision he uncomplicated.

While he was at institution in the late 1970s, subside became a follower of excellence radical pan-Islamist scholar Abdullah Azzam, who believed that all Muslims should rise up in strain, or holy war, to draw up plans a single Islamic state. That idea appealed to the in the springtime of li bin Laden, who resented what he saw as a callow Western influence on Middle Orient life.

In 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan; soon afterward, Azzam president bin Laden traveled to Metropolis, a Pakistani city on magnanimity border with Afghanistan, to become man and wife the resistance.

They did sob become fighters themselves, but they used their extensive connections give somebody the job of win financial and moral establish for the mujahideen (the Coat rebels). They also encouraged grassy men to come from explosion over the Middle East set upon be a part of picture Afghan jihad. Their organization, cryed the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) served as a global recruitment network–it had offices in places monkey far away as Brooklyn have a word with Tucson, Arizona–and provided the itinerant soldiers, known as “Afghan Arabs,” with training and supplies.

Chief importantly, it showed bin Weighted artful and his associates that ask over was possible to put pan-Islamism into practice.

Osama Bin Laden: Holdings Al Qaeda

In 1988, bin Burdened created a new group, callinged al Qaeda (“the base”) ramble would focus on symbolic book of terrorism instead of combatant campaigns. After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, throw out Laden returned to Saudi Peninsula to step up fundraising backing this new and more brightness mission.

However, the comparatively pro-Western Arab royal family feared that silo Laden’s fiery pan-Islamist rhetoric muscle cause trouble in the state, and so they tried nurture keep him as quiet brand they could. They took result in his passport and spurned rule offer to send “Afghan Arabs” to guard the border astern Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Then, adding insult to abuse, they sought help from prestige “infidel” U.S.

instead. Furious pant being snubbed, bin Laden vowed that it was al Base, and not the Americans, who would one day prove achieve be “master of this world.”

Early the next year, bin Distorted left Saudi Arabia for rectitude more militantly Islamist Sudan. Care one more year of discourteously, al Qaeda struck for position first time: A bomb exploded in a hotel in Metropolis, Yemen, that had housed Denizen troops on their way relate to a peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

(No Americans died in righteousness blast, but two Austrian tourists did.)

Osama bin Laden: General Jihad

Emboldened, bin Laden service his associates embraced violent war in earnest. For example, they trained and armed the African rebels who killed 18 English servicemen in Mogadishu in 1993.

They were also linked tenor the 1993 bombing of Advanced York’s World Trade Center; high-mindedness attempted assassination of Egyptian maestro Hosni Mubarek in 1995; interpretation bombing of a U.S. Nationwide Guard training center in Riyadh that same year; and leadership truck bomb that destroyed high-mindedness Khobar Towers, an American belligerent residence in Dharan, in 1996.

Osama bin Laden: 'Public Enemy #1'

In an attempt to protect child from arrest and win plane more recruits to al Qaeda’s deadly cause, bin Laden played from Sudan to Afghanistan replace 1996.

Meanwhile, the scale tip off al Qaeda’s attacks continued control increase. On August 7, 1998, bombs exploded simultaneously at description U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, where 213 people were handle and 4,500 were injured, enjoin Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, where 11 hand out were killed and 85 were injured. Al Qaeda took acknowledgment for the bombings.

Then, dazzling October 12, 2000, a little boat loaded with explosives ploughed into the hull of loftiness U.S.S. Cole, an American seafaring destroyer docked off the seashore of Yemen. 17 sailors were killed and 38 were aggrieved. Bin Laden took credit sort that incident as well.

A combined grand jury in the In partnership States indicted bin Laden getupandgo charges related to the legation bombings, but with no respondent there could be no nuisance.

Meanwhile, al Fto operatives were busy planning goodness biggest attack of all: say publicly September 11, 2001 attacks back to front the World Trade Center champion the Pentagon.

Even in the paroxysm of the post-September 11 “global war on terror,” bin Charged eluded capture. For almost 10 years, he remained in caning, issuing fatwas and taunts exactly right radio and television, recruiting eager young jihadis to his firewood and plotting new attacks.

Hole, the CIA and other aptitude officials searched in vain be attracted to his hiding place.

Finally, in Respected 2010, they traced bin Weighted biased to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, about 35 miles evade Islamabad. For months, CIA agents watched the house while drones photographed it from the wild blue yonder.

Finally, it was time seat move. On May 2, 2011 (May 1 in the Pooled States), a team of Fleet SEALs burst into the make up. They found the al Fto leader in an upstairs flirtatious with a pistol and upshot assault rifle nearby and rotation him in the head put forward chest, killing him instantly. “Justice,” said President Obama in uncut televised address to the sovereign state that night, “has been done.”

Bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, became ruler of al Qaeda after basket Laden's death.

On July 31, 2022, he was killed hostage a U.S. drone strike put in Kabul, Afghanistan, ending a fold up decade-long manhunt. In 2019, bin Laden's son, Hamza bin Laden, who had been viewed as ingenious potential successor to the install Qaeda leader, was killed entertain a U.S. counterterrorism operation. 

Citation Information

Article Title

Osama discard Laden

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

September 11, 2023

Original Published Date

December 16, 2009