Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
أسامة بن لادن
	Bin Laden c. 1997–1998
1st General Emir of al-Qaeda
	In office; 11 August 1988 – 2 May 2011
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Ayman al-Zawahiri
Personal details
Born	Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden; 10 March 1957; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Died	2 May 2011 (aged 54); Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Manner of death	Shot during Operation Neptune Spear
Resting place	Arabian Sea
Citizenship	Saudi Arabia (until 1994); Stateless (from 1994);
Spouses	; Najwa Ghanem (m. 1974; sep. 2001) ; Khadijah Sharif (m. 1983; div. 1990) ; Khairiah Sabar (m. 1985) ; Siham Sabar (m. 1987) ; Amal Ahmed al-Sadah (m. 2000)
Children	20–26, including Abdallah, Saad, Omar and Hamza
Parents	Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (father); Hamida al-Attas (mother);
Relatives	Bin Laden family
Religion	Islam (Sunni Islam)
Military service
Allegiance	Maktab al-Khidamat (1984–1988); Al-Qaeda (1988–2011);
Years of service	1984–2011
Rank	General Emir of al-Qaeda
Battles/wars	Soviet–Afghan War Battle of Jaji; ; Afghan Civil War Battle of Jalalabad; ; War on terror War in Afghanistan Battle of Tora Bora; ; Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; Operation Neptune Spear †; ;

Osama bin Laden^[a] (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi Arabian-born Islamist dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he participated in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. After issuing his declaration of war against the Americans in 1996, Bin Laden began advocating attacks targeting U.S. assets in several countries, and supervised al-Qaeda's execution of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001.

Bin Laden was born in Riyadh to the aristocratic bin Laden family. He studied at local universities until 1979, when he joined the Afghan mujahidin against the Soviet Union in the wake of the Afghan–Soviet War. In 1984, he co-founded Maktab al-Khidamat which recruited foreign mujahidin into the war. He founded al-Qaeda in 1988 for worldwide jihad. In the Gulf War (1990–1991), Bin Laden's offer for support against Iraq was rebuked by the Saudi royal family, which instead sought American aid. Bin Laden's views on pan-Islamism and anti-Americanism resulted in his expulsion from Saudi Arabia in 1991. He subsequently shifted his headquarters to Sudan until 1996 when he left the country to establish a new base in Afghanistan, where he was supported by the Taliban. Bin Laden declared two fatawa, the first in August 1996, and the second in February 1998, declaring holy war against the United States. After the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, Bin Laden was indicted by a district court in the United States in November 1998. He was then listed on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists and Most Wanted Fugitives lists. In October 1999, the United Nations designated al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization.

Bin Laden was the organizer of the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. This resulted in the United States invading Afghanistan, which launched the war on terror. Bin Laden became the subject of nearly a decade-long multi-national manhunt led by the United States. During this period, he hid in several mountainous regions of Afghanistan and later escaped to neighboring Pakistan. On 2 May 2011, Bin Laden was killed by U.S. special operations forces at his compound in Abbottabad. His corpse was buried in the Arabian Sea and he was succeeded by his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri on 16 June 2011.

Bin Laden grew to become an influential ideologue who inspired several Islamist organizations. He was considered a war hero due to his role in successfully opposing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and offered an articulate voice and organizational structure to many across the Islamic region harboring grievances against perceived Western imperialism, often having approval ratings in some countries higher than those of national leaders. Nonetheless, his justification and orchestration of attacks against American civilian targets, such as the September 11 attacks, made him a highly reviled figure in the United States, where public opinion largely views Bin Laden as a symbol of terrorism and mass murder.

^ Fair, C. Christine; Watson, Sarah J. (18 February 2015). Pakistan's Enduring Challenges. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 246. ISBN 978-0-8122-4690-2. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. Osama bin Laden was a hard-core Salafi who openly espoused violence against the United States in order to achieve Salafi goals.
^ Brown, Amy Benson; Poremski, Karen M. (18 December 2014). Roads to Reconciliation: Conflict and Dialogue in the Twenty-first Century. Routledge. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-317-46076-3. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016.
^ Osama bin Laden (2007) Suzanne J. Murdico
^ Armstrong, Karen (11 July 2005). "The label of Catholic terror was never used about the IRA". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 26 December 2016.

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[1] Fair, C. Christine; Watson, Sarah J. (18 February 2015). Pakistan's Enduring Challenges. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 246. ISBN 978-0-8122-4690-2. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016. Osama bin Laden was a hard-core Salafi who openly espoused violence against the United States in order to achieve Salafi goals.

[2] Brown, Amy Benson; Poremski, Karen M. (18 December 2014). Roads to Reconciliation: Conflict and Dialogue in the Twenty-first Century. Routledge. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-317-46076-3. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016.

[3] Osama bin Laden (2007) Suzanne J. Murdico

[Karen-4] Armstrong, Karen (11 July 2005). "The label of Catholic terror was never used about the IRA". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 26 December 2016.

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