Osama Bin Laden 2010 Osama Bin Laden Images

Infobox military person

name = Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin
()
image =
caption = Osama bin Laden on an al-Qaeda propaganda poster
born =
died =
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placeofburial =
placeofbirth = Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
placeofdeath =
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religion = Wahhabi Sunni Islam
nationality = Saudi Arabian
ethnicity = Saudi
nickname =
allegiance = Al-Qaeda
branch =
serviceyears =
rank =
servicenumber =
unit =
commands =

battles = Soviet war in Afghanistan
War on Terror:
War in Afghanistan
War in North-West Pakistan
battles_label =
awards =
relations =
laterwork =
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (with numerous variations; , ''Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin ‘Awaḍ bin Lādin''; born March 10, 1957) is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and the founding leader of the terrorist Islamist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian targets. Bin Laden is on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives due to several 1998 US embassy bombings. Since 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization have been major targets of the United States' War on Terror. Bin Laden and fellow Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Variations of bin Laden's name

There is no universally accepted standard in the West for transliterating Arabic words and names into English, so 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 was 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. 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'',

Childhood, education and personal life

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born; Osama's mother then married Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim. never completing a college degree, though "hard working." In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia.

cite news

url=http://articles.latimes.com/2001/nov/13/news/mn-3564
title=Bin Laden Kin Wait and Worry
author=Michael Slackman
date=November 13, 2001
publisher=Los Angeles Times
accessdate=2010-05-26
According to CNN national security correspondent David Ensore, as of 2002 bin Laden had married four women and fathered roughly 25 or 26 children. Other sources report that he has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.

Beliefs and ideology

Bin Laden believes 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. Probably the most infamous part of Bin Laden's ideology is that civilians, including women and children, are legitimate targets of jihad. In keeping with Wahhabi beliefs, His viewpoints and methods of achieving them have led to him been designated as a "terrorist" by scholars,

Militant activity

Mujahideen in Afghanistan

in 1997|thumb|right After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 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 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. Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, bin Laden moved to Peshawar in 1994. It was during his time in Peshawar that he began wearing camouflage-print jackets and carrying a captured Soviet assault rifle, which urban legends claimed he had obtained by killing a Russian soldier with his bare hands.

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. 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. 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. 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.

cite web

title=Abdullah Assam: The Man Before Osama Bin Laden
author=Steve Emerson
url=http://www.iacsp.com/itobli3.html
accessdate=2010-05-28

Sudan

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. 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. 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.

The 9/11 Commission Report further states:

"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.

cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550419.stm

title=Profile: Mullah Mohamed Omar |date=September 18, 2001 |publisher=BBC News |accessdate=2010-05-28
When Bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills. 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).

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. 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. 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. In 2009 the American law professor Ken Gromley revealed in his book "The Death of American Virtue", Another effort by bin Laden was the funding of the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997,

cite news

|first = Barbara |last = Plett |title = Bin Laden 'behind Luxor massacre' |url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/343207.stm |publisher = BBC News |date = May 13, 1999 |accessdate = 2010-05-28

cite news

|first = |last = |coauthors = |title = Profile: Ayman al-Zawahiri |url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1560834.stm |publisher = BBC News |date = September 27, 2004 |accessdate = 2010-05-28
which killed 62 civilians, but so revolted the Egyptian public that it turned against Islamist terror. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing Bin Laden to abandon his Nazim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south. 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. In 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a ''fatwa'' in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to "liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip".

cite web

url = http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/fatw2.htm
title = World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders: Initial "Fatwa" Statement
author = Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin
coauthors = Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, Fazlur Rahman
date = February 23, 1998
publisher = al-Quds al-Arabi
language = Arabic
accessdate = 2010-05-28

cite web

url = http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm
title = Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. World Islamic Front Statement
author = Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin
coauthors = Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, Fazlur Rahman
date = February 23, 1998
publisher = al-Quds al-Arabi
accessdate = 2010-05-28
English language version of the fatwa translated by the Federation of American Scientists of the original Arabic document published in the newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi (London, U.K.) on 1998-02-23, p. 3. At the public announcement of the fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets." He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."

cite journal

| last = Van Atta | first = Dale | authorlink = Dale Van Atta | title = Carbombs & cameras: the need for responsible media coverage of terrorism | journal = Harvard International Review | publisher = Harvard International Relations Council | location = Cambridge, Mass. | year = 1998 | volume = 20 | issue = 4 | page = 66 | issn = 0739-1854 | isbn = 9780895264855 | url=http://www.allbusiness.com/public-administration/national-security-international/709509-1.html
accessdate=2010-05-28
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 personal to hijack aircraft.

cite web

| title = Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks | date = December 04, 1998 | accessdate = 2010-05-28 | publisher = Director of Central Intelligence | url = http://www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0001110635/0001110635_0001.gif
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000 which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman and tourists at Mount Nebo and a site on the Jordan River, the sinking of the destroyer USS ''The Sullivans'' in Yemen, as well as an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.

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.

cite book

last = Baravalle
first = Giorgio
coauthors =
title = Rethink: Cause and Consequences of September 11
publisher = de-MO
year = 2004
pages = 584
isbn = 0970576862
He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court. 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 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. 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. The Bosnian daily ''Oslobođenje'' published in 2001 that three men, believed linked 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. 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.

September 11, 2001 attacks

quotation|"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

After initial denial, in 2004 Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. and the deaths of 2,974 people and the nineteen hijackers.













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. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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],

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 is still wanted by the Libyan government.

cite web |url=http://www.nti.org/e_research/e3_56a.html

title=Was Libyan WMD Disarmament a Significant Success for Nonproliferation? |author=Sammy Salama |publisher=NTI |date=September 2004 |accessdate=2010-05-28
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. 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. 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."

Attempted capture by the United States

Clinton Administration

Capturing Osama bin Laden has been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. 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".

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 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. ''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. US and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between 14–16 August 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. 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. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association are offering an additional $2 million reward.

Obama Administration

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials have 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.

Conflicting reports of his death and his survival since 9/11

Shortly after the attacks of 9/11, US president George W. Bush issued a statement that as a consequence of the 9/11 attacks, he now hoped to "kill or capture" Bin Laden. Subsequently, Bin Laden retreated further from public contact as an obviously defensive measure against potential US capture. Since that time, numerous speculative press reports have been issued concerning various hearsay stories about his whereabouts, and also about alleged evidence of his supposed death. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has continued to release time sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating Bin Laden's continued survival as recently as August 2007.

cite web

date = September 6, 2007
url = http://web.archive.org/web/20080408035426/http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h_EKAnlECgMVCrglrdYA5IqvQ6hQ
title= Experts warn of attack clues in Bin Laden video
accessdate = 2010-05-25
Bin Laden video release authenticity discussed. In the years since 9/11, Al Queda has also released a regular series of audio and video tapes averaging once every two to three months, which seem to be generally accepted as authentic. Most recently, US General McChrystal emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of Bin Laden, thus clearly indicating that the US high command continues to believe that Bin Laden is probably still alive. Following are some of these conflicting reports regarding both his claimed death, and his claimed continued whereabouts:

Reports of his death

December 2001 Quoting an unnamed Taliban official, the ''Pakistan Observer'' reported that Bin Laden died of untreated lung complications and was buried in an unmarked grave in Tora Bora on December 15.

"(Osama bin Laden) suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave"

A videotape was released on December 27 showing a gaunt, unwell Bin Laden, prompting an unnamed White House aide to comment that it could have been made shortly before his death. October 2002 : In a CNN interview, Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated that "I would come to believe that [bin Laden] probably is dead." April 2005 : The ''Sydney Morning Herald'' stated "Dr Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University, says documents provided by an Indian colleague suggested bin Laden died of massive organ failure in April last year … 'It's hard to prove or disprove these things because there hasn't really been anything that allows you to make a judgment one way or the other,' Dr. Williams said." Late 2005 CIA disbands "Alec Station", unit dedicated to Bin Laden. September 2006 : On September 23, 2006, the French newspaper ''L'Est Républicain'' quoted a report from the French secret service (Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure, DGSE) stating that Osama bin Laden had died in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, after contracting a case of typhoid fever that paralyzed his lower limbs. According to the newspaper, Saudi security services first heard of bin Laden's alleged death on September 4, 2006.

cite news

publisher=Reuters
url=http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-23T075358Z_01_L23801953_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-BINLADEN-FRANCE.xml
title=French paper says bin Laden died in Pakistan
date=2006-09-23

cite news

|first = Laïd |last = Sammari |title = Oussama Ben Laden serait mort |url = http://www.estrepublicain.fr/zoom/2006092300222348.html |publisher = L'Est Républicain |date = 2006-09-23 |accessdate = 2006-09-23 |language = French

cite news

|first = |last = |title = Chirac says no evidence bin Laden has died |url = http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14963302/ |publisher = MSNBC.com/AP |date = September 24, 2006 |accessdate = 2010-05-20
The alleged death was reported by the Saudi Arabian secret service to its government, which reported it to the French secret service. The French defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie expressed her regret that the report had been published while French President Jacques Chirac declared that bin Laden's death had not been confirmed.

cite news

work=Le Monde/Agence France-Presse
url=http://www.lemonde.fr/web/depeches/0,14-0,39-28276934@7-37,0.html
title=Information sur la mort de ben Laden: Washington ne confirme pas
date=2006-09-23
language = French
American authorities also cannot confirm reports of bin Laden's death,

cite news

author=Anna Willard (writer) and David Morgan
publisher=Reuters
url=http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldnews&storyID=2006-09-23T223316Z_01_L23793153_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-BINLADEN.xml
title=France, US, unable to confirm report bin Laden dead
date=2006-09-23
with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying only, "No comment, and no knowledge." Later, CNN's Nic Robertson said that he had received confirmation from an anonymous Saudi source that the Saudi intelligence community has known for a while that bin Laden has a water-borne illness, but that he had heard no reports that it was specifically typhoid or that he had died.

cite news

publisher=CNN
url=http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/09/23/france.binladen/index.html
title=Conflicting reports: Bin Laden could be dead or ill
date=2006-09-23
November 2007 : In an interview with political interviewer David Frost taken on November 2, 2007, the Pakistani politician and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Benazir Bhutto claimed that bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh. During her answer to a question pertaining to the identities of those who had previously attempted her own assassination, Bhutto named Sheikh as a possible suspect while referring to him as "the man who murdered Osama bin Laden." Despite the weight of such a statement, neither Bhutto nor Frost attempted to clarify it during the remainder of the interview. March 2009 : In an essay published in ''The American Spectator'' in March 2009, international relations professor Angelo Codevilla of Boston University argued that Osama bin Laden had been dead for many years. April 2009 : During an interview with the Telegraph, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari raised the prospect that Osama bin Laden could be dead after he said that intelligence officials could find "no trace" of the al-Qaeda chief. Mr Zardari's predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, similarly suggested that the Saudi terror chief could be dead. Additionally, Pakistan's intelligence agencies also believe Osama bin Laden may be dead. October 2009 : An article in the British tabloid ''Daily Mail'' points out that the theory that Bin Laden died in 2001 "is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts" and notes that the mounting evidence that supports the claim makes the theory "worthy of examination".

Reports of his current whereabouts

Claims as to the location of Osama bin Laden have been made since December 2001, although none have been definitively proven and some have placed Osama in different locations during overlapping time periods. Since a major military offensive in Afghanistan in the wake of the 2001 al Qaeda attacks in the United States failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan had regularly been 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''. 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 likely hideouts of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. 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. 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. But, the US has had no reliable information on the whereabouts of Bin Laden in years, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted on December 6, 2009. 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 revealed that a picture of a Spanish politician, Gaspar Llamazares was taken from Google images and used to create the image. The FBI has admitted to this and removed the image from its website. Gaspar 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. 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. 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 On June 7 2010, the Kuwaiti Al Siyassa reported that Bin Laden was hiding in the mountainous town of Savzevar, in north eastern Iran

Criticism

Salafist Muslims have criticized bin Laden for adherence to Qutbism (the ideology of Sayyid Qutb), takfir and Khaarijite deviance. Critics are said to include Muhammad Ibn Haadee al-Madkhalee, Abd-al-Aziz ibn Abd-Allah ibn Baaz, Shaykh Saalih al-Fawzaan and Muqbil bin Haadi al-Waadi'ee.

See also

Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden
Bin Laden Issue Station (The CIA's bin Laden tracking unit, 1996–2005)
Civil war in Afghanistan
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic mujahid movement
Islamic terrorism
Islamofascism
Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
Mujahideen
Osama bin Laden as destructive Cult leader
Osama bin Laden in popular culture
The Golden Chain
The World's 10 Most Wanted
Videos of Osama bin Laden
Videos of Ayman al-Zawahiri
Special Activities Division

Footnotes

References

Peter L. Bergen, ''The Osama bin Laden I Know'': New York: Free Press, 2006
Michael Scheuer, ''Through Our Enemies' Eyes'', Washington, D.C. : Brassey's, c2002
Wright, Lawrence, ''The Looming Tower : Al-Qaeda And The Road To 9/11,'' New York : Knopf, 2006.

External links

cite news

url=http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CH30Df01.html
title=Get Osama! Now! Or else...
publisher=Asia Times
date=2001-08-30
author=Pepe Escobar
accessdate=2008-04-28
quote=Osama bin Laden – also the No 1 target of the CIA's counter-terrorism center – is now a superstar playing the bad guy in some sort of planetary Hollywood fiction. Yet inside Afghanistan today, where the Saudi Arabian lives in exile, Osama is a minor character. He is ill and always in hiding – usually "somewhere near Kabul". Once in a while he travels incognito to Peshawar. His organization, the Al Qa'Ida, is split, and in tatters. The Taliban owe him a lot for his past deeds towards the movement and in putting them in power in Afghanistan – contributing with a stack of his own personal fortune of millions of dollars. But no longer an asset, he has become a liability.

Hunting Bin Laden – PBS Frontline (Nov. 2002)
Who is Osama bin Laden – BBC News (Sept. 2001)
FBIS Report, Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004
FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives poster
''New Yorker'' article on Osama's youth
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'

Persondata

NAME=Osama bin Laden
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden (full name); أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن (Arabic); Laden, Osama bin (alternate form); Bin Laden, Usama (alternate transliteration); UBL (common referent); Bin Ladin, Ussamah (alternate transliteration); Ben Laden, Oussama (alternate transliteration); Binladen, Osama (alternate transliteration); Binladin, Osama (alternate transliteration); Al-Amir (alias); Abu Abdallah (alias); Mujahid, Sheikh Al- (alias)
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Al-Qaeda leader
DATE OF BIRTH=March 10, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH=Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=

fonte: Wikipedia