From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Variations of Osama bin Laden's name
There is no universally accepted standard in the West for
transliterating Arabic words and
Arabic names into English, so Osama bin Laden's name is spelled in many different ways. The version translation most often used by English-language mass media is
Osama bin Laden. Most American government agencies, including the
FBI and
CIA, use either "
Usama bin Laden" or "
Usama bin Ladin", both of which are often abbreviated to
UBL. Less common renderings include "
Ussamah Bin Ladin" and "
Oussama Ben Laden" (French-language mass media). The last two words of the name can also be found as "
Binladen" or (as used by his family in the West) "
Binladin". The spelling with "o" and "e" comes from a Persian-influenced pronunciation used in Afghanistan where he lived for a long time.
Strictly speaking, Arabic
linguistic conventions dictate that he be referred to as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden", as "Bin Laden" is not used as a surname in the Western manner, but simply as part of his name, which in its long form means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of 'Awad, son of Laden". Still, "bin Laden" has become nearly universal in Western references to him.
Osama bin Laden's admirers commonly use several aliases and nicknames, including
the Prince/
Al-Amir,
the Sheikh,
Abu Abdallah,
Sheikh Al-Mujahid, the
Lion Sheik,
[9] the Director.
[10]Childhood, education and personal life
Osama bin Laden was born in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
[11] In a 1998 interview, he gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.
[12] His father
Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the
Saudi royal family.
[13] Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife,
Hamida al-Attas.
[14] Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born; Osama's mother then married Mohammed al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.
[14]In 1974, at the age of 17, Osama married his first wife
Najwa Ghanem at
Latakia.
[24] According to CNN national security correspondent David Ensore, as of 2002 Osama had married four women and fathered roughly 25 or 26 children.
[25] Other sources report that he has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.
[26]His father, Mohammed bin Laden, was killed in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot, Captain Enos Fingy,
[27] misjudged a landing.
[28] His eldest half-brother and head of the bin Laden family,
Salem bin Laden, was killed in 1988 when he accidentally flew a plane into powerlines near
San Antonio, Texas, USA.
The FBI described Osama bin Laden as tall and thin, between 6'4" and 6'6" (193– 198 cm) in height and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). Interviewees of
Lawrence Wright, on the other hand, describe him as quite slender, but not particularly tall.
[29] He had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white turban and no longer donned the traditional Saudi male headdress.
[30] In terms of personality, bin Laden was described as a soft-spoken, mild mannered man.
[31]Beliefs and ideology
Osama believed that the restoration of
Sharia law will set things right in the Muslim world, and that all other ideologies—"
pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy"—must be opposed.
[32] These beliefs, along with violent expansive jihad, have sometimes been called
Qutbism (the ideology of
Sayyid Qutb).
[33] He believed Afghanistan under the rule of
Mullah Omar's
Taliban was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world.
[34] Osama consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states,
[35] the need to eliminate the state of
Israel, and the necessity of forcing the US to withdraw from the Middle East. He also called on Americans to "reject the immoral acts of
fornication (and) homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and
usury," in an October 2002 letter.
[36]Probably the most infamous part of Osama's ideology was that civilians, including women and children, are legitimate targets of jihad.
[37][38] Osama was
antisemitic, and delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next."
[39] Shia Muslims have been listed along with "Heretics,... America and Israel," as the four principal "enemies of Islam" at ideology classes of bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization.
[40]In keeping with Wahhabi beliefs,
[41] Osama opposed music on religious grounds,
[42] and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in "earth-moving machinery and
genetic engineering of plants" on the one hand, but rejected "chilled water" on the other.
[43]Militant activity
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
Osama Bin Laden with Pakistani journalist
Hamid Mir in 1997.
By 1984, with Azzam, bin Laden established
Maktab al-Khadamat, which funneled money, arms and
Muslim fighters from around the Arabic world into the Afghan war. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune
[59] paid for air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the
Soviets.
Formation and structuring of Al-Qaeda
By 1988, bin Laden had split from
Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force.
[61] Notes of a meeting of bin Laden and others on August 20, 1988, indicate al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make His religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge (
bayat) to follow one's superiors.
[62]According to Wright, the group's real name wasn't used in public pronouncements because "its existence was still a closely held secret."
[63] His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between "several senior leaders" of
Egyptian Islamic Jihad,
Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
[64]Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion, "had brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union.
[65] The Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990 had put the kingdom and its ruling
House of Saud at risk. The world's most valuable
oil fields were within easy striking distance of Iraqi forces in Kuwait, and Saddam's call to pan-Arab/Islamism could potentially rally internal dissent. bin Laden met with
King Fahd, and Sultan, Minister of Defense of Saudi Arabia, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim troops, and offered to help defend Saudi Arabia with his
mujahideen fighters. Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and after the American offer to help repel Iraq from Kuwait was accepted, involving deploying U.S. troops in Saudi territory,
[66] he publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on the U.S. military, as he believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (
Mecca and
Medina) profaned sacred soil. Bin Laden's criticism of the
Saudi monarchy led that
government to attempt to silence him.
Shortly after Saudi Arabia permitted U.S. troops on Saudi soil, bin Laden turned his attention to attacks on the west. On November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of
El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al Qaeda operative
Ali Mohamed, discovering a great deal of evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers, marking the earliest uncovering of al Qaeda plans for such activities outside of Muslim countries.
[67] Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993
World Trade Center bombing, and for the murder of Rabbi
Meir Kahane on November 5, 1990.
Bin Laden continued to speak publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops, for which the Saudis banished him. He went to live in exile in Sudan, in 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed.
[68]Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for mujahideen operations, in
Khartoum.
Bin Laden continued his verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and in response, on March 5, 1994, Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan demanding bin Laden's passport. His family was persuaded to cut off his monthly stipend, the equivalent of $7 million a year.
[69] By now bin Laden was strongly associated with
Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ
attempted to assassinate Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and the EIJ was expelled from Sudan.
As a result of his dealings in and advocacy of violent extremist
jihad, Osama bin Laden lost his Saudi citizenship in 1994 and was disowned by his billionaire family.
[70]Sudan also began efforts to expel bin Laden. The 9/11 Commission Report states:
"In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer
Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in the Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization.
[71] US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding."
[72]
"In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, or both."
In May 1996, under increasing pressure on Sudan, from Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden returned to
Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight, and there forged a close relationship with Mullah
Mohammed Omar.
[73][74] When Bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.
[75] In Afghanistan, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from the Pakistani
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters .
[76]Early attacks and aid for attacks
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992 bombing of the
Gold Mihor Hotel in
Aden in which two people were killed.
[77]It was after this bombing that al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by
Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find their proper reward in death, going to
Jannah (Paradise) if they were good Muslims and to
Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers.
[78] The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in
Algeria, Egypt and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993 bin Laden sent an emissary,
Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded but the
war that followed killed 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with Islamist surrender to the government.
A later effort that did succeed was an attack on the city of
Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with his hosts the Taliban by sending several hundred of his Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand
Hazaras overrunning the city.
[83]In December 1998, the
Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to the president that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the USA, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft.
[87]Balkan wars
A former U.S. State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, after it was revealed that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden.
[89] In 1997,
Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish
SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near
Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an "all-mujahedeen unit" called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall. According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in
Sudan. Among them was
Karim Said Atmani who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the USA.
[90] He is a former roommate of
Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials.
[91][92] He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.
[93]A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former mujahideen who are linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists who have lived in this area 60 miles (97 km) north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years.
Khalil al-Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama Bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997 Report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslims forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.
[94][95][96]In 1999 it was revealed that Osama bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and
Bosnian passports in 1993 by the Government in Sarajevo. This information was denied by the Bosnian government following the 9/11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in
Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden "did not personally collect his Bosnian passport" and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.
[94][95][96] The Bosnian daily
Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to Osama Bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were
Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
[94]In 1998 it was reported that bin Laden was operating his Al Qaeda network out of
Albania.
The Charleston Gazette quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the
Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of
Kosovo. Confirmation of these activities came from Claude Kader, a French national who said he was a member of bin Laden's Albanian network.
By 1998 four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania, and extradited to Egypt at the urging of the CIA. It is believed that the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Africa occurred as retaliation for these arrests.
[97]September 11 attacks
"
Allah knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-
Israeli alliance against our people in
Palestine and
Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed – when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the
U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way (and) to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."
–
Osama bin Laden, 2004[98]
After reports of repeated initial denials,
[99] in 2004 Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
[100][101][102] The attacks involved the hijacking of four commercial passenger aircraft,
[103] the subsequent destruction of those planes and the
World Trade Center in New York City, New York, severe damage to
The Pentagon in
Arlington, Virginia,
[104] and the deaths of 2,974 people and the
nineteen hijackers.
[105] In response to the attacks, the United States launched a
War on Terror to depose the
Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's
Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.
[106]The
Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified
[107] evidence linking Al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable.
[108] The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11, 2001, attacks although the government report notes that the evidence presented is insufficient for
a prosecutable case.
[109] Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by
Qatar's
Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack.
[110]In a videotape recovered by US forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with
Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge.
[111] The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
[112]In the
2004 Osama bin Laden video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he stated he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers.
[101][113] In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President
George W. Bush of negligence on the
hijacking of the planes on September 11.
[101]According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the
1982 Lebanon War.
[114]In two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announces,
I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids [5 minute audiotape broadcast May 23, 2006],
[115]
Criminal charges
On March 16, 1998,
Libya issued the first official
Interpol arrest warrant against Bin Laden and three other people for killing two German citizens in Libya on March 10, 1994, one of which is thought to have been a German
counter-intelligence officer. Bin Laden was still wanted by the
Libyan government.
[117][118] Osama bin Laden was first indicted by the United States on June 8, 1998, when a
grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the November 14, 1995 truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh.
[119]Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide.
[119] Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of
Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death[120] for his alleged role in the
1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former Al Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent
Ziyad Khaleel in the U.S.
[121]Bin Laden became the
456th person listed on the
FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added to the list on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for
capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the
Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure prior to the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001.
[122] In 1999, US President
Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.
Years later, on October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22
FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States
George W. Bush, in direct response to the attacks of 9/11, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama Bin Laden. It wasn't until after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial, in return for the US ending the bombing and providing evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This offer was rejected by George W Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable with Bush responding that "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
[123]Attempted capture by the United States
US propaganda leaflet used in Afghanistan
Clinton administration
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of
Bill Clinton.
[124] Shortly after the
September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the
CIA (and specifically their elite
Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the
1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized.
[125] On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the
Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near
Khost in Afghanistan, narrowly missing him by a few hours.
[126] In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the
1999 Pakistani coup d'état;
[126] in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a
rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
[125]In 2000, prior to the September 11 attacks,
Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as "correctly focused on bin Laden", while
Robert Oakley criticized their "obsession with Osama".
[88]Bush administration
According to
The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the
Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the US to commit enough US ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the US in the war against al Qaeda. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
[127]The Washington Post also reported that the
CIA unit composed of their special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing Osama was shut down in late 2005.
[128] US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in
Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-
Ramadan meeting held by al Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or
Ayman al-Zawahiri.
[129]Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, US government officials named bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death.
[10][130] On July 13, 2007, this figure was doubled to $50 million.
[131]Obama administration
U.S. Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on Bin Laden's whereabouts for "years". One week later, General
Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda will not be defeated unless its leader, Osama Bin Laden, is captured or killed. Testifying to the U.S. Congress, he said bin Laden had become an "iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world", and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of Bin Laden. "Killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large."
[133]Criticism
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush stated that he now hoped to "kill or capture" Bin Laden. Subsequently, Bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Since that time, numerous speculative press reports had been issued concerning various hearsay stories about his whereabouts, and also about alleged evidence of his death. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda had continued to release time-sensitive and professionally-verified videos demonstrating Bin Laden's continued survival as recently as August 2007.
[135] Most recently, U.S. Army General
Stanley A. McChrystal had emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus clearly indicating that the US high command continued to believe that Bin Laden was probably still alive. Some of the conflicting reports regarding both his his continued whereabouts and previous mistaken claims about his death have included the following:
Many claims as to the location of Osama bin Laden were made in the wake of 9/11, although none were ever definitively proven and some placed Osama in different locations during overlapping time periods. After military offensives in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place.
A December 11, 2005, letter from
Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicates that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the
Waziristan region of
Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at
West Point, "Atiyah" instructs Zarqawi to "send messengers from your end to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership ... I am now on a visit to them and I am writing you this letter as I am with them..." Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are "weak" and "have many of their own problems." The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to
The Washington Post.
[136][137]In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and
John A. Agnew of
UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in
Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
[138]In March 2009, the New York
Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the
Chitral District of Pakistan, including the
Kalam Valley. According to the report, author
Rohan Gunaratna states that captured Al Qaeda leaders have confirmed that Chitral is where bin Laden is hiding.
[139]In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that Bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee said that in January or February (of 2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen Bin Laden about 15 to 20 days earlier in Afghanistan. However, on December 6, 2009.
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.
[140] Pakistan's Prime Minister
Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
[141]On January 15, 2010, the FBI published digitally aged pictures of Osama bin Laden showing what he may look like after a decade of aging. Spanish newspaper
El Mundo subsequently revealed that the FBI had used a photo of Spanish politician
Gaspar Llamazares from
Google Images to create the image. The FBI admitted to using the photo and removed it from its website. Llamazares has responded by stating that he was "stupefied by the FBI's decision to use his photograph to compose its latest image of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden" and that he is considering taking legal action if the FBI does not provide an explanation.
[142] An internal investigation has been launched by the FBI to find out if this was done intentionally.
[143][144]On February 2, 2010, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban would sever ties with extremists and expel Osama bin Laden.
[145]This condition was announced as the Afghan president
Karzai arrived in the kingdom for an official visit, for a discussion of a possible Saudi role in his plan to reintegrate Taliban militants.
[145]On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti Al Siyassa reported that Bin Laden was hiding in the mountainous town of
Savzevar, in north eastern
Iran.
[146] The Australian newspaper online published the claim on June 9.
[147]On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was "alive and well and living comfortably" in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
[148]Impact on United States civil society
In an analysis of the impact of Osama bin Laden on the U.S., the
CBC's senior
Washington corresondent
Neil Macdonald has written, "In many ways, Osama bin Laden died the victor.... The United States became a meaner, more paranoid, more impoverished place.... Thousands of people were locked up on flimsy pretexts and held for months without trial. Muslims learned to live with hard stares and suspicion. They were pulled off flights for the sin of having prayed publicly. Gradually, the Muslim world began to believe it was at war. One can only imagine bin Laden's delight.
[153]"
Congress passed the grotesquely named
Patriot Act, removing
civil liberties that took centuries to earn....
National security, rather than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness became the fundamental determinant.... A national media seized by a shameful fit of
jingoism whipped up an already fear-stricken population.
[153]"But bin Laden didn't just prod Americans into disregarding their own laws and principles when dealing with their real and supposed enemies; he goaded them into turning on each other.... Those who opposed going to
war in Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with
9/11, were portrayed as
unpatriotic haters of America. The
cleavage between right and left, red and blue, urban and rural, became deeper than at any time in modern history.
[153]"Setting aside the trillions expended in Iraq and
Afghanistan, we have bin Laden to thank for a lot of today’s
economic misery.... But it was the loss of America’s liberties, the sacrifice of individual freedom, and the breakdown of its
rule of law that was bin Laden’s greatest triumph."
[153]Death
On May 1, 2011 in Washington, D.C. (May 2,
Pakistan Standard Time), U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden was killed by "a small team of Americans" acting under Obama's direct orders, in a covert operation in
Abbottabad, Pakistan,
[8][154] about 50 km (31 mi) north of Islamabad.
[155] According to U.S. officials a team of 20–25
US Navy SEALs under the command of the
Joint Special Operations Command and working with the
CIA stormed bin Laden's compound in two helicopters. Bin Laden and those with him were killed during a firefight in which U.S. forces experienced no injuries or casualties.
[156] According to one US official the attack was carried out without the knowledge or consent of the Pakistani authorities.
[157]In Pakistan some people were reported to be shocked at the unauthorized incursion by US armed forces.
[158] The site is a few miles from the
Pakistan Military Academy in
Kakul.
[159] In his broadcast announcement President Obama said that U.S. forces "took care to avoid civilian casualties."
[160] Details soon emerged that three men and a woman were killed along with Bin Laden, the woman being killed when she was “used as a shield by a male combatant”.
[157] DNA from bin Laden's body, compared with DNA samples on record from his dead sister,
[161] confirmed bin Laden's identity.
[162] The body was recovered by the US military and was in its custody
[154] until, according to one US official, his body was
buried at sea according to Islamic traditions.
[155][163] One U.S. official stated that "finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult."
[164] U.S State Department issued a "Worldwide caution" for Americans following Bin Laden's death and U.S Diplomatic facilities everywhere were placed on high alert, a senior U.S official said.
[165] Crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City's Times Square to celebrate Bin Laden's death.
[166]See also
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References
Further reading
External links
I think those conspiracy theories that he is dead are pretty much laughable 
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