Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda from 1988 until his death in 2011. A Salafi jihadist, bin Laden worked to establish a pan-Islamist caliphate by using al-Qaeda to organize and fund jihadist militants and terrorists worldwide. Al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001 directly killed 2,977 victims, and caused the global war on terror.

Bin Laden was raised into Sunni Islam by his wealthy family in Saudi Arabia. He left the country during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) to help the Afghan mujahideen fight the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan. In 1984, he co-founded Maktab al-Khidamat, which recruited foreigners into the Afghan mujahideen while funding and arming them. In 1988, bin Laden founded al-Qaeda. After the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, he commanded a mujahideen force in the 1989–1992 Afghan Civil War. Upon returning to Saudi Arabia, he publicly promoted anti-Western causes and opposed the Saudi royal family, leading to his expulsion from the country by its government in 1991. He went back to Afghanistan, then moved to Sudan later that year.

In Sudan, bin Laden led al-Qaeda and its allies' efforts in the 1992–1996 Afghan Civil War, the Algerian Civil War (1992–2002), and the Bosnian War (1992–1995). In 1993, al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York City, injuring a thousand people. In 1996, Sudan expelled bin Laden, and he again moved to Afghanistan, which came under Taliban control later that year. Al-Qaeda allied with the Taliban, and they collaborated in the 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War. In 1996 and 1998, bin Laden declared holy war on Americans, both military and civilian. Al-Qaeda bombed U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, causing the U.S. and United Nations to officially declare him a terrorist. That year, al-Qaeda also began an ongoing insurgency in Yemen.

The attacks on 9/11 were mainly planned by bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and their operation was possibly funded by Saudi Arabia, despite bin Laden's prior expulsion. In the attacks, 19 al-Qaeda members hijacked four American passenger planes so they could be crashed into U.S. landmarks. One hit the Pentagon in Virginia, one crashed in Pennsylvania before ever reaching the hijackers' unknown target in Washington, D.C., and the others hit the World Trade Center, causing it to collapse—resulting in over 6,000 deaths from inhalation exposure so far. 25,000 were injured overall. The attacks led to the passage of stringent anti-terrorism legislation worldwide, while an international manhunt for bin Laden began. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan and deposed the Taliban, forcing him to move to Pakistan.

While bin Laden hid, al-Qaeda fought the U.S. and its allies in the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) and the Iraq War (2003–2011), while continuing to enact major terrorist attacks around the world. In 2010, U.S. intelligence discovered bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A team of U.S. Navy SEALs raided the compound and killed him inside it in 2011. His deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri succeeded him as al-Qaeda's emir. Polls show that Muslims at large have a negative view of bin Laden, while many Islamists consider him heroic. Elsewhere, he is overwhelmingly seen as a symbol of terrorism and mass murder.

Name and terms

Bin Laden's name is most commonly romanized from Arabic as Osama bin Laden, but can also be spelled with the names Usama and bin Ladin. Generally, during his life, U.S. intelligence internally referred to him as Usama bin Laden, and used the acronym 'UBL'. He was named after Usama ibn Zayd, one of the companions of Muhammad; Usama means 'lion'. Bin, also spelled ibn, means 'son of'; bin Laden's full name, as spelled here, is Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden—Osama, son of Muhammad, son of Awad, son of Laden. Muhammad, his father, is spelled here as Muhammad bin Ladin.

The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to Osama as '<nowiki/>Osama<nowiki/>', Osama bin Laden<nowiki/>', or similar romanizations, not bin Laden alone, as bin Laden is a patronymic surname, not a surname in the Western manner. In the West, he is nonetheless nicknamed bin Laden, which often begins sentences about him ("Bin Laden was..."), although, being at the start of a sentence, ibn would be more accurate to Arabic ("Ibn Laden was..."). A mujahid, plural mujahideen, is a participant in jihad—struggle in the name of Islam (peaceful or violent). Hajj is the traditional pilgrimage of Muslims to the holy city of Mecca. Abu Abdallah is a , a parent's name based on their child's; Abu means 'father of', and Abdallah is his son. Researchers generally agree that his birthplace was Riyadh, which he himself claimed, though FBI and Interpol documents once listed it as Jeddah. Osama's father Muhammad was born in modern Yemen, and his mother, at the time named Alia Ghanem—later, Hamida al-Attas—was born in Syria. and the only one of Muhammad's marriage to al-Attas. From the 1950s to 70s, the family became immensely wealthy from the Saudi Binladin Group, a construction company owned by Osama's father. Its clients included the Saudi royal family, the House of Saud. The two had four children, and raised them alongside Osama in a new house. In USD, without adjusting for inflation, Osama's inheritance from him was estimated in 2000 to have been about $300 million, and in 2001, at about $50 to 60 million. Currently, the bin Laden family still owns the Saudi Binladin Group, and still has ties to the House of Saud. and then an English-language course in Oxford, England, in 1971. In the late 1970s, he started studying economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. One source claims that bin Laden left university during his third year without attaining a degree. Others say that he either earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or in public administration in 1981. In university, bin Laden's main interest was Islam. He studied the Quran and jihad, and did charity work.

Religious and political views

Bin Laden was raised into Sunni Islam, and he subscribed to the Athari school of Islamic theology, which interprets the Quran literally, rather than figuratively. For religious reasons, he was against gambling, homosexuality, intoxicants, masturbation, music, premarital sex, and usury.

He was reportedly an avid reader, and often quoted Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle. He once wrote a letter to the American public (released posthumously) urging them to work with then-U.S. president Barack Obama's administration to prevent further climate change, and "save humanity" from the greenhouse gas emissions "that threaten its destiny".

The Islamic world and systems of government

Western sources consider bin Laden an Islamic extremist. The German intelligence agency BfV writes:<blockquote>"Islamist extremism [believes that] Islam is not only a personal or private affair, but that it should also rule social life and the political order or regulate at least part of it. This is in clear contradiction to the principles of the sovereignty of the people, the separation of state and religion, freedom of expression and general equal rights".</blockquote>thumb|400x400px|Percentage of [[Muslims by country in 2014|left]]The latter secularist ideas were adopted by much of the Islamic world over the 20th century. Thus, fewer Muslims stopped strictly following Islamic morality-based social rules, like those of Sharia (Islamic law), and this has been condemned by Islamic fundamentalism. Advocates for Islamic fundamentalist reform in politics are Islamists. In university, bin Laden read the works of multiple Islamists, including Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, his then-teacher; Sayyid Qutb; and several Muslim Brotherhood leaders. Salafis follow a strict form of Sharia based on a literal interpretation of the Quran. They claim that all non-Salafis, including other self-described Muslims, are kafir—non-believers of Islam—and thus will not see heaven. Wahhabism was the dominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia during bin Laden's adult life. Wahhabi beliefs, including the holiness of violence against non-Salafis, were directly taught to bin Laden and other students in Saudi schools from around the 1970s to 2010s. While bin Laden led al-Qaeda, it organized ideology classes that listed four principal enemies of Islam: Shia Islam, heretics of Islam, the U.S., and Israel. Bin Laden believed the Islamic world was in crisis due to being influenced by these enemies, and that only the complete restoration of Sharia within that world would correct it. He rejected other types of government as possible solutions to this perceived crisis, such as pan-Arabist, socialist, communist, and democratic systems.

He once denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, instead of those made by God; journalist Max Rodenbeck wrote that bin Laden avoided "theological justifications for democracy, [which are] based on the notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God." His views on the U.S. were detailed in two fatwas (non-binding rulings on Sharia matters) that he issued in 1996 and 1998, in both of which he declared war on the U.S.; his 1998 interview with American journalist John Miller; his 2002 Letter to the American People; and his 2004 video, His 1996 fatwa was issued for mainly this reason. especially those that had killed women and children; he particularly condemned America's funding and arming of Israel, which has historically killed and oppressed Muslims in Palestine. He believed violent jihad was needed to right these actions. In his 2001 video, he said: In his 2002 letter, he described the 1948 formation of the State of Israel as "a crime which must be erased".

In his 1998 fatwa, bin Laden claimed the duty of every Muslim was to "liberate" two Islamic holy sites "from their [America's and Israel's] grip": Al-Aqsa in East Jerusalem, and Masjid al-Haram in Mecca; West Jerusalem has been controlled by Israel since 1948, while East Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan from 1948 until 1967, when an ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank began during the Six-Day War.

The fatwa also condemned the concurrent international sanctions against Iraq, which the U.S. participated in. Lasting from 1990 to 2003, the sanctions largely damaged Iraq's economy, creating a humanitarian crisis. Bin Laden often referenced the resulting child deaths, Additionally, he called upon Americans to convert to Islam. Similar to what bin Laden intended, the U.S.' war in Afghanistan lasted for 20 years.

Attacking civilians on 9/11

In his 1996 fatwa, bin Laden mentioned that his war against the U.S. would "not differentiate between [Americans] dressed in military uniforms, and civilians; they are all targets of this fatwa".<blockquote>"American history does not distinguish between civilians and military, not even women and children. They are the ones who used [a nuclear bomb] against Nagasaki. Can these bombs distinguish between infants and military? America does not have a religion that will prevent it from destroying all people."</blockquote>

Bin Laden believed that all Americans, even civilians, are responsible for the U.S.' actions, as the country is a democracy, and because Americans pay taxes that fund their military.

On 9/11, al-Qaeda targeted the World Trade Center, a business complex in New York City, and the Pentagon in Virginia, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense. Afterwards, bin Laden claimed that the women and children who died in the attacks were not al-Qaeda's intended targets, saying Muhammad condemned the killing of women and children; instead, "the main targets were the symbol of the United States: their economic and military power". In 2004, bin Laden said he was inspired to target the World Trade Center's Twin Towers (1 and 2 WTC) as revenge for the destruction of towers in Beirut by U.S.-backed Israeli troops in the Siege of Beirut, during the 1982 Lebanon War:

Judaism

Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic. He said in his 1998 interview:) to pursue economic development and reduce Somalia's extreme poverty caused by constant warfare there.

Militant and political career, 1979–2001

Soviet–Afghan War

In 1979, Muslim-majority Afghanistan was occupied by the mostly non-Muslim Soviet Union; as socialists, the Soviets backed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, a socialist national government which was installed in a military coup in 1978, and opposed by many Afghan Muslims. Leaving college, bin Laden went to Pakistan with Abdullah Yusuf Azzam to help the Afghan mujahideen resist against the Soviets. Bin Laden later recalled: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." He likely moved there with the knowledge and support of the Saudi government, which opposed the Soviet occupation. During the war, he also helped build cave complexes in the Afghan mountains for mujahideen to use as fortifications. He moved to Afghanistan construction machinery that had been used by the Saudi Binladin Group. Although the U.S. provided money and weapons, the fighters' training was entirely done by the ISI and the Pakistan Armed Forces.

left|thumb|219x219px|[[Ali Mohamed (double agent)|Ali Mohamed in 1989]]

Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. did not train or fund bin Laden's fighters directly, as according to Mohammad Yousaf, then-head of ISI's Afghanistan operations, Pakistan had a strict policy to prevent any American funding, arming, or training of mujahideen. However, bin Laden himself was trained by U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.

In this period, bin Laden became acquainted with Hamid Gul, a Pakistani general and head of the ISI.

Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own soldiers. There, he commanded them to victory against the Soviets at the 1987 Battle of Jaji. Despite the battle's little significance to the mujahideen war effort, it was lionized in the Arab press.

Soviet withdrawal and the founding of al-Qaeda

Bin Laden split from MaK by 1988. This was largely due to him wanting the Arab fighters in the Afghan mujahideen to form a military force independent from the rest of the mujahideen, whereas Azzam wanted to integrate the groups. and al-Qaeda formed sometime that year. It may have been founded at an 11 August meeting between bin Laden, Azzam, and leaders of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) terrorist group, where the parties are known to have agreed on combining bin Laden's money with the EIJ's experience to move the jihadist cause out of Afghanistan after the withdrawal finished. On 20 August, notes were taken on a meeting involving bin Laden that mention "an organized Islamic faction, [whose] goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." To keep its existence a secret, al-Qaeda did not state its name in its early public announcements.

Another topic which bin Laden and Azzam disagreed on was the use of MaK's military force following the withdrawal. They both wanted to use the force MaK had built to defend any oppressed Muslims around the world. Bin Laden then publicly urged the soldiers to wage jihad through terrorism; Azzam issued a fatwa condemning this approach, saying Islamic law condemns the killing of women and children.

The Soviets finished withdrawing in February 1989. The Democratic Republic government, now lacking physical Soviet protection, fought a war from 1988 to 1992 against continuing mujahideen resistance. Concurrently, various anti-Republic mujahideen groups waged internecine combat against each other, which angered bin Laden; In March 1989, bin Laden commanded 800 Arab foreign fighters against the Republic during the Battle of Jalalabad. He moved his men to immobilize the Republic's 7th Sarandoy Regiment, but this caused massive casualties on his side, who lost the battle. This came after a local dispute between Sunni and Shia civilians over the latter's celebrations of the Islamic holiday Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The militants, who were still fasting for Ramadan, had attacked the Shias, already celebrating; the Shias claimed to have made their first sighting of the crescent moon, which commences Eid al-Fitr, and the Sunnis did not believe them. A contingent of Sunni militants and armed tribesmen from various other places in Pakistan then came to Gilgit, reportedly sent by the Pakistani government to "teach [the Shias] a lesson". Indian intelligence official B. Raman alleged in 2003 that bin Laden had led one of the tribes during the march.

Return to Saudi Arabia

thumb|259x259px|[[Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2001|left]]

Upon bin Laden's return to Saudi Arabia after the Soviet withdrawal, he was widely praised by Saudis as a hero of jihad, as many viewed his mujahideen force as responsible for defeating the Soviet superpower. He then worked for the Saudi Binladin Group, even after he began engaging in Saudi opposition movements against the House of Saud. From then on, he was radicalized further by EIJ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. In 1990, bin Laden funded a coup attempt led by extremist communist general Shahnawaz Tanai to overthrow the Republic, which failed. In 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed, it ended its remaining support to the Republic. He also offered the House of Saud to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) government in the country of South Yemen, but this was rejected by Prince Turki Al-Faisal. Bin Laden then organized the assassinations of YSP leaders in an attempt to disrupt North and South Yemen's process of unifying into one country; he was forced to stop by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, after North Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, a leader in the unification process, complained to the Saudi King Fahd. The unification occurred in 1990, forming the modern Republic of Yemen, first led by Saleh.

Gulf War

The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Iraqi president Saddam Hussein started the Gulf War (1990–1991). Soon, Iraqi forces deployed to the Saudi–Iraqi border. The House of Saud became worried that their control over Saudi Arabia was unstable, as Saddam publicly supported pan-Arabism—the royals were worried he aimed to incite internal dissent against them. Fahd agreed to the U.S. government's offer of military assistance; a week later, bin Laden met with Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan bin Abdulaziz, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance. Bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia with a mujahideen force of his. The offer was denied, and the Saudis ultimately accepted 500,000 U.S troops into their territory. and tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning it, but senior clerics refused out of fear of government repression. His continued criticism of the royals led them to put him under house arrest, which he remained under until he was exiled from the country in 1991. After the war, the royals allowed U.S. troops to have a continuous presence there, in Operation Southern Watch, for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq.

Move to Sudan

After his expulsion, bin Laden and his followers moved first to Afghanistan, then relocated to Sudan in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden established a new base for mujahideen operations in Khartoum. He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyad neighborhood, and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile. He personally selected the bodyguards in his security detail, who carried Strela-2s, AK-47s, PK machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and Stinger missiles. He invested heavily in various businesses, notably in infrastructure and agriculture. Al-Zawahiri followed bin Laden to Sudan, where the EIJ and al-Qaeda collaborated.

Bin Laden was popular with the locals, who considered him generous to the poor. He built roads in the country with the work of former Afghan mujahideen members, who used the same bulldozers bin Laden had employed in Afghanistan to construct tracks in the mountains. He continued to criticize King Fahd, so in 1994, Fahd stripped him of his Saudi citizenship. Bin Laden's family disowned him, and Fahd persuaded them to cut off his yearly stipend of $7 million USD.

thumb|Algerian government tanks in [[Algiers in 1991, at the start of the Algerian Civil War|300x300px|left]]

In the 1990s, al-Qaeda assisted jihadists financially, and sometimes militarily, in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 USD to Algeria to aid the local Islamists and urge them to go to war against the Algerian government, rather than negotiate with them. Their advice was heeded. The resulting Algerian Civil War (1992–2002) killed 44,000 to 200,000 people, and ended with the Islamists surrendering to the government.

In early 1992, as the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was collapsing at the end of the 1989–1992 civil war, leaders of mujahideen groups around the country planned negotiations to create a new government that shared power between the groups. In March or April, bin Laden tried to encourage Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the group Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, to join the negotiations, rather than trying to conquer Kabul with his own group so it could establish its own government. Hekmatyar unsuccessfully tried the latter, while a new coalition government, the Islamic State of Afghanistan, was founded. This led to another Afghan civil war (1992–1996), this time between Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, the coalition, al-Qaeda, and other groups. Their first successful terrorist bombings were on 29 December 1992. Bombs were detonated at the Mövenpick Hotel and Gold Mohur Hotel in Aden, Yemen, killing two civilians at the Gold Mohur. U.S. troops had been staying at the hotels while en route to Somalia to participate in Operation Restore Hope.

In the early 1990s, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed became a top lieutenant of bin Laden, and devised a plan, codenamed "Bojinka", for a series of terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda targeting airliners. In the Bojinka plot, al-Qaeda and another group, Jemaah Islamiyah, planned for eleven planes departing Southeast Asia en route to the U.S. to simultaneously be destroyed by bombs over the Pacific Ocean. Pope John Paul II would also be assassinated.

In 1993, Mohammed's nephew, Ramzi Yousef, and a group of al-Qaeda members bombed the underground portion of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six people and injuring more than a thousand.

In 1994, Yousef rehearsed the Bojinka bombings by setting one off at a theatre in Manila, and the other onboard Philippine Airlines Flight 434, which killed a passenger. In 1995, weeks before the planned attack date, the plot was foiled when Yousef's Manila apartment burned down; investigating the fire, police found evidence incriminating him in the plot. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in the U.S., while Mohammed continued with his plan for hijacking airliners.

Bosnian War

The Bosnian War (1992–1995) was an ethnic conflict in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosniaks, many of whom are Muslims, fought the Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat forces of two unrecognised breakaway states within the Republic's borders—respectively, Republika Srpska and the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia. In 1992, the two states' militaries, the Army of Republika Srpska and the Croatian Defence Council, began ethnic cleansing operations against the Bosniaks. In response, Bosnian Muslim militants allied with the Republic in jihad against the Serbs and Croats, and foreign Muslims in the 'Bosnian mujahideen joined them. The mujahideen allegedly participated in war crimes, including killing and torturing Serbian and Croat civilians, and using them as human shields. In 1995, the Bosnian War ended with the Republic's dissolution, and the formation of the country simply named Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another item found was the 'Golden Chain' document, which claims to be a list of bin Laden's own financiers.

In late 1995, the U.S. learned that Sudan was discussing a possible expulsion of bin Laden. The U.S. Ambassador to Sudan, Timothy Carney, encouraged Sudan to go through with this, though Sudan had trouble deciding where bin Laden should be expelled to; the Saudis did not want him, and no country had an outstanding indictment against bin Laden. Saudi official Fatih Erwa later claimed Sudan offered to hand bin Laden over to the U.S.; the American government's 9/11 Commission Report (2004) found "no credible evidence" of this.

Bin Laden Issue Station

In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called the Bin Laden Issue Station, code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against his activities. The station was headed by CTC veteran Michael Scheuer. U.S. intelligence monitored bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves.

Return to Afghanistan

Sudan expelled bin Laden in 1996, allowing him to fly to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, aboard a chartered flight on 18 May. Al-Qaeda was allowed to operate in Afghanistan by the Taliban, who won the 1992–96 war, and founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in late 1996. Until the Emirate's dissolution in 2001, bin Laden worked closely with the Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Mullah Omar. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance, who were fighting the Taliban in the 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War, were positioned to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his home of Najim Jihad near the city, and move south to Tarnak Farms.thumb|350x350px|Regions from where [[Islamic extremism|Islamic extremists came to train at al-Qaeda's Afghan jihadist camps]]The expulsion from Sudan significantly weakened al-Qaeda, as bin Laden left millions of dollars USD in Sudan. Some African intelligence sources have argued that he was left without a way to gain political power other than by becoming a full-time radical, and that most of the 300 Afghan Arabs who moved with him subsequently became terrorists. Al-Qaeda raised money both from donors that bin Laden had associated with during the Soviet–Afghan War, and from the ISI, to establish training camps for jihadist militants in Afghanistan. Bin Laden also effectively took over Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash, and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, and provided false identifications to al-Qaeda members. Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout helped run the airline, maintain planes, and load cargo.thumb|Journalist [[Hamid Mir interviewing bin Laden, |300x300px|left]]Some researchers, as well as the Swiss Federal Police, allege that bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre, the killing of 62 civilians on 17 November 1997 at the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in Egypt.

In March 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden. He and three others were charged with killing Silvan Becker, a counterterrorism expert with the BfV, and his wife Vera in Libya in 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by Libya at the time of his death.

Also in 1998, al-Qaeda declared a formal alliance with the EIJ, In February 1998, he issued another fatwa, calling upon Muslims to attack the U.S. and its allies.

In November 1996, U.S. president Bill Clinton traveled to the Philippines for the annual APEC meetings. Bin Laden organized a plot to assassinate Clinton by bombing the presidential motorcade as it traveled through Manila. Before the motorcade left, however, U.S. intelligence agents intercepted a message between al-Qaeda agents about the plan, and alerted the U.S. Secret Service. Clinton was unharmed, and the bomb was found planted under a bridge.thumb|300x300px|Aftermath of the [[1998 United States embassy bombings|1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya]]Bin Laden was indicted by a grand jury in the U.S. in June 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the U.S. and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of al-Qaeda, and a major financier of Islamic fighters worldwide.

On 7 August 1998, hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Nairobi, Kenya. This brought bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to the attention of the U.S. public for the first time. Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the attacks. Reception to this initiative among U.S. and U.K. intelligence officials was mixed before 9/11.

After 9/11, it was revealed that Clinton had authorized the CIA's Special Activities Division to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the U.S. to stand trial for the bombings; if taking him alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force could be used. Clinton ordered Operation Infinite Reach, a series of cruise missile strikes against al-Qaeda's training camps in Khost, Afghanistan; and Khartoum on 20 August 1998.

In November 1998, bin Laden was indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury in the Southern District Court of New York on charges relating to the embassy bombings. The evidence against him included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members, and records from a satellite phone purchased for bin Laden by al-Qaeda agent Ziyad Khaleel in the U.S. The Taliban responded to the indictments by saying they would not extradite bin Laden to the U.S., saying there was insufficient evidence presented by the court, and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims.

In December 1998, the CIA reported to Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing attacks to occur in the U.S., the preparations involving the training of personnel to hijack aircraft. In June 1999, the FBI placed bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. In an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite bin Laden, Clinton tried to convince the United Nations (UN) to impose sanctions against Afghanistan. He was partially successful, as in October 1999, the UN designated al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization, officially obligating countries to freeze the assets of, and impose travel bans on, al-Qaeda members and their associates. Afterwards, the Taliban still did not extradite him.

In late 1999, the CIA and Pakistani military intelligence prepared a team of approximately sixty Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted upon the Pakistani coup d'état in October. He stayed in power for decades by forcefully suppressing his opposition. In 1998, a branch of al-Qaeda named 'al-Qaeda in Yemen' (AQY) began an insurgency against the Yemeni government in an attempt to control the region. The insurgency continues to this day,

Millennium attack plots and USS Cole bombing

In 1999, al-Qaeda planned terrorist attacks to occur in multiple countries on and around New Year's Day 2000 (the date popularly considered the start of the new millennium). All the plans except one failed:

Four attacks in Jordan were planned by a terrorist cell that al-Qaeda established in Amman. Their plans were foiled on 30 November, when Jordanian intelligence intercepted a phone call from one of bin Laden's lieutenants, located in Pakistan, to a member of the cell in Amman.
Indian Airlines Flight 814, departing Kathmandu for Delhi on 24 December, was hijacked. The perpetrators, members of the al-Qaeda-linked group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, first stopped in India, Pakistan, and the UAE, then stayed inside the plane on the ground in Kathmandu. They created a hostage crisis as they kept passengers on board, killing one, while demanding that India release three Muslim militants from prison. On the 31st, India brought both the hijackers and prisoners to the Taliban at the India–Pakistan border.
Al-Qaeda attempted to bomb USS The Sullivans, a U.S. Navy ship docked in Aden, Yemen, on 3 January 2000. The perpetrators had planned to move a boat filled with explosives towards The Sullivans and then detonate them, but they added too many explosives, and the boat sunk before it could reach her. The terrorists then salvaged the boat and the explosives for use in a similar attempt at a later time.

thumb|270x270px|The side of [[USS Cole (DDG-67)|USS Cole (DDG-67) after she was bombed in 2000]]The boat and explosives were used again in Aden on 12 October 2000, when al-Qaeda killed 17 U.S. Navy sailors by bombing another docked ship, USS Cole (DDG-67).

Kosovo War

The Kosovo War (1998–1999) started over a possible separation of the region of Kosovo—home to many ethnic Albanians—from the Republic of Serbia and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (later named Serbia and Montenegro). In 1998, the head of Albania's State Intelligence Service, Fatos Klosi, said that bin Laden had founded a terror network disguised as a humanitarian organization in Albania in 1994, and that the network were currently taking part in the Kosovo War. Claude Kader, who was a member, later testified to the network's existence while on trial. It was organized by some Islamic leaders in Western Europe allied to bin Laden and al-Zawahiri. By 1998, four members of EIJ were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt.

In 2002, then-former Serbian and Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević claimed at his UN trial that he had received an FBI report claiming al-Qaeda had aided the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an ethnic-Albanian paramilitary that fought for Kosovar independence during the Kosovo War, while killing civilians. Milošević alleged that bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the Balkans, and that while Milošević led Yugoslavia (1997 to 2000), his government informed U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke that the KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda, yet the U.S. continued to work with the KLA afterwards. Thus, the U.S. may have been knowingly working with bin Laden, despite targeting him after the embassy bombings—and helping create the humanitarian crisis that the U.S. said necessitated the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

11 September 2001 attacks

thumb|350x350px|[[United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into 2 World Trade Center, while 1 World Trade Center burns from the prior crash of American Airlines Flight 11]]

On 11 September 2001, 19 al-Qaeda members hijacked four airliners departing the U.S. East Coast in an attempt to crash them into various national landmarks. American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, both departing Boston en route to Los Angeles, were crashed into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, 1 and 2 World Trade Center (WTC), respectively. American Airlines Flight 77, departing Dulles, Virginia for Los Angeles, was crashed into the Pentagon. United Airlines Flight 93, departing Newark, New Jersey for San Francisco, did not reach the hijackers' intended destination of Washington, D.C., as the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after the other passengers tried to take back the cockpit from the hijackers. The Twin Towers eventually collapsed, destroying the World Trade Center. All of the hijackers and at least 2,977 victims died directly from the four hijackings.

Aftermath

The destroyed site of the World Trade Center was nicknamed "Ground Zero". Numerous people who were at the site during or after the attacks later received health issues resulting from inhalation exposure, caused by breathing dust from the collapse. More than 6,000 people have died from 9/11-related diseases as of 2026. The New York City government initially told rescue workers at Ground Zero that the air was safe to breathe. Other U.S. federal investigations included the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities and the 9/11 Commission. After the attacks, numerous countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation. Three U.S. federal agencies were founded to deter attacks like 9/11: the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Airport security was put under the TSA's operation, replacing the private security companies which were contracted by airlines. Extra security measures became mandated at airport security checkpoints. The U.S. also increased its collaboration with other countries on counter-terrorism, causing a decrease in Islamic terrorist cells in the country.

Planning

In 1996, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed presented bin Laden a modified version of the Bojinka plot idea; in the U.S., al-Qaeda would hijack ten airliners, crashing nine into landmarks. Onboard the tenth, Mohammed and other hijackers would kill every adult male passenger, then land the plane at a U.S. airport. There, Mohammed would give a speech about U.S. foreign policy, and the women and children would be released unharmed. Bin Laden rejected the plan for its complexity, but years later, approved him to work on a scaled back version. Al-Zawahiri convinced bin Laden to go through with the attacks, and built the "systematic organisation" that allowed al-Qaeda to enact them.

In 1999, bin Laden, Mohamed, and Mohammed Atef designed the general plan for 9/11. They listed potential targets, including the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and the White House. They decided that if any of the hijackers could not reach their targets, they were to crash the plane. Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders chose the hijackers in 2000. Around 21 men, including Mohamed Atta, were selected; one, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, was soon denied a U.S. visa, and a likely selection, Zacarias Moussaoui, was arrested in August 2001, so there were ultimately 19. Bin al-Shibh instead acted as a liaison between the hijackers and al-Qaeda's leadership during the preparations. In July 2001, bin al-Shibh met Atta in Spain, and they made the final confirmation of the hijackers' targets. He told Atta that bin Laden wanted the attacks to happen as soon as possible.

In the months before 9/11, U.S. intelligence agencies received numerous warnings about an incoming attack on the country by al-Qaeda. At the time, many of the agencies did not significantly cooperate with each other on investigations, so the government did not piece these warnings together to make a cohesive picture of the upcoming attack. In July 2001, FBI agent Kenneth Williams wrote the 'Phoenix Memo', a warning circulated within the FBI that bin Laden was sending his followers to Arizona for flight training. It was not seen by the agency's leadership until after the attacks. On 6 August, Bush received an intelligence report titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S."

Responsibility

On the day of the attacks, U.S. and German intelligence intercepted communications that pointed to bin Laden's responsibility for them. That night, U.S. president George W. Bush wrote in his diary that "we think it's Osama bin Laden." U.S. and U.K. intelligence later stated that evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to 9/11 is clear and irrefutable.

In November 2001, U.S. troops in Afghanistan found a videotape in which bin Laden discusses with Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harbi what is likely 9/11. It was released by the U.S. on 13 December.

In a 2004 video, bin Laden unambiguously confirmed that he had organized 9/11. He also threatened new attacks against the U.S., and accused George W. Bush of negligence in not preventing the hijackings. One released in 2006 shows bin Laden with bin al-Shibh and two 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they make preparations for the attacks. In a 2007 video, bin Laden denied that the Taliban had any foreknowledge of 9/11.

Alleged Saudi role

The 9/11 Commission Report stated that the "origin of [al-Qaeda's] funds remains unknown", and that they "have seen no evidence that any foreign government or foreign government official supplied any funding" for 9/11. Despite this conclusion—and bin Laden having been exiled by the House of Saud in 1991—some U.S. investigators allege that Saudi Arabia had funded it. Saudi Arabia has denied this.

Multiple U.S. federal agencies investigated possible financial ties between Saudi Arabia and bin Laden prior to 9/11. After 9/11, BBC News quoted a source within U.S. intelligence who claimed that after Bush was inaugurated as president that January, his administration forced the agencies to stop looking into any connections.

In 2002, the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities publicly released its final report on 9/11. 28 pages of it were classified at the request of the Bush administration. They were declassified in 2016, and include details of alleged Saudi involvement in the attacks; they mention that, "while in the United States, some of [the] hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government".

Militant and political career, 2001–2011

Manhunt for bin Laden and the War in Afghanistan

The U.S. launched a global 'war on terror' in response to 9/11, which included a manhunt for bin Laden. Shortly after the attacks, the Taliban refused to extradite him to the U.S.; they offered to try him before an Islamic court, which the U.S. rejected. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down, and then killing or capturing him. The FBI introduced a list of its Most Wanted Terrorists, initially 22 in total, with bin Laden placed atop as the most crucial one to find. The FBI offered a reward of $5 million for information leading to the capture of each person, except bin Laden, who was listed at $25 million. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.

Starting on 7 October 2001, a U.S.-led international coalition invaded Afghanistan, to depose the Taliban and capture al-Qaeda members, especially bin Laden. On 14 October, the Taliban offered to turn bin Laden over to a third-party country for trial, in return for the U.S. ending the invasion. This was rejected by Bush, who said that the U.S.' position was non-negotiable: "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty." The CIA, meanwhile, was closely tracking bin Laden's movements in hopes to catch him. On 10 November, they spotted him near Jalalabad traveling in a convoy of two hundred pickup trucks. They then headed towards al-Qaeda's training camp within their defensive complex at Tora Bora, in the Safed Koh mountain range. It was twenty miles from Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan.

The U.S. attacked the Tora Bora complex in the Battle of Tora Bora from November to December. Early in the battle, CIA intelligence had indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were trapped in the caves of the complex, and on 1 December, CIA officer Gary Berntsen requested General Tommy Franks to send U.S. Army Rangers to block off the mountain passes into Pakistan and cut off bin Laden's escape. Franks denied the request, as he agreed with the Bush administration that Pakistan would capture bin Laden if he tried to cross the border. Bin Laden is conventionally believed to have escaped on 15 December.

With the battle's end, the Taliban had been deposed. Afterwards, its members reformed into the Taliban insurgency, which fought the U.S., its allies, and the new Afghan government until the Taliban retook the country in 2021.

Also following the attacks, the U.S. opened numerous secret prisons for the CIA, or black sites, across the world, as well as the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, and the Bagram prison in Afghanistan—all to house confirmed or suspected militants and terrorists. At these locations, the U.S. deployed torture methods, officially named 'enhanced interrogation techniques', against prisoners, sometimes in an attempt to get info about al-Qaeda. Research has found that torture does not work as an interrogation technique, and often leads to the victims giving false info. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh hid in Pakistan after 9/11. Bin al-Shibh was captured in 2002, and Mohammed in 2003. Both were tortured at CIA black sites.

thumb|A list of victims of the [[2002 Bali bombings, present at one of the bombing locations|280x280px]]

On 12 October 2002, on the Indonesian island of Bali, a now-defunct al-Qaeda-linked group named Jemaah Islamiyah detonated three bombs, two on Kuta Beach at locations historically popular with Australian tourists, and one at an Australian consulate. The attacks killed 202 people, 88 of them Australian. Hundreds of others were wounded.

In London on 7 July 2005, a London Bus and three trains in the London Underground were hit by terrorist bombings, which killed 52 people and injured over 700. On 21 July, four more bombs were detonated in the city, but caused no deaths or injuries. The terrorist cells behind both attacks were linked to al-Qaeda.

In 2009, al-Zawahiri merged al-Qaeda in Yemen and al-Qaeda of Saudi Arabia into 'al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula' (AQAP). The Guardian writes that AQAP "proved to be the most loyal and effective of [the al-Qaeda] franchises" that al-Zawahiri established in the 2000s. Notably, American officials tortured Bagram's prisoners during interrogations in the 2000s, and might have still done so by 2012. According to the U.S., Sidiqi told them that bin Laden had recently ordered al-Qaeda to conduct terrorist attacks across Europe. Bin Laden's plot was ultimately foiled by European authorities.

Iraq War

Led by the U.S., an international coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein's government, starting the Iraq War (2003–2011). In the lead-up to the invasion, the Bush administration tied Saddam to al-Qaeda and 9/11, despite having no evidence internally that Iraq was involved in the attacks. Saddam's government was toppled in April. Opponents of the invasion then formed the Iraqi insurgency, which fought the coalition and the coalition-installed replacement government. In 2004, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the Sunni Iraqi insurgent group Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (JTJ), declared the group's allegiance to al-Qaeda, in exchange for bin Laden publicly recognizing him as the head of a new version of JTJ, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

Al-Zarqawi intended to use the destabilization caused by the insurgency's war against the coalition to further the sectarian violence between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias, by attacking Shias and their holy sites. He strived for a sectarian civil war that would reestablish the national Sunni dominance over Shias that had been dissolved upon Hussein's ousting. In 2006, AQI claimed responsibility for the 22 February bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq—one of the holiest Shia sites—which destroyed its upper exterior. The sectarian violence increased as al-Zarqawi intended.

The vacancy in AQI's leadership after al-Zarqawi's death led the organization to become the Islamic State of Iraq; its allegiance to al-Qaeda continued. The Islamic State of Iraq decided to capture large swaths of territory in Iraq while fighting the coalition, diminishing support for al-Qaeda among Sunnis who opposed the coalition—even extremist militants. The violence between Sunnis and Shias only decreased after 2007, as the Islamic State of Iraq was weakened by greater retaliation from Muslims, and as the U.S. dramatically increased their troop numbers in Iraq in an attempt to stabilize the country. IS continued its predecessor's terrorist attacks and conquests.

Continued manhunt

U.S. government activities, 2006–2009

In July 2006, The New York Times revealed, based on anonymous CIA sources, that the Bin Laden Issue Station had been shut down in late 2005. In September 2006, the U.S. military revealed that al-Qaeda member Atiyah Abd al-Rahman had sent a letter to al-Zarqawi in December 2005—which was found in one of al-Zarqawi's Iraqi safe houses after his death—that indicated bin Laden and the rest of al-Qaeda's leadership were concurrently in the Waziristan region of Pakistan; al-Rahman instructed al-Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they could meet with the other leaders. The letter indicated that the al-Qaeda organization had been weakened after experiencing various problems. U.S. and Afghan forces again raided the Tora Bora caves in August 2007, after receiving intelligence of a planned meeting between al-Qaeda members for before Ramadan. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.thumb|240x240px|An [[age progression of bin Laden published by the FBI during the manhunt, controversial because it used the face of Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares]]

During Barack Obama's campaign for the 2008 U.S. presidential election, he pledged: "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." As president, Obama rejected the Bush administration's strategy to focus on bin Laden's relation to other militant groups like Hamas or Hezbollah as part of the manhunt. Obama instead narrowed the U.S.' focus onto al-Qaeda and its direct affiliates.

ABC News later wrote that "by the summer of 2009, the trail for bin Laden had gone cold. The CIA simply had no tangible evidence of any place he'd been since [the Battle of Tora Bora]." In December, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the U.S. had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Osama married Siham Sabir in 1987, and they had four children. His fifth marriage was to an unnamed woman in 1996; it was annulled within days of the ceremony. In 2000, he married Amal al-Sadah, and they had five children.

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|+Bin Laden's wives and children