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Osama bin laden |
terrorist
profiles |
al Qaeda
links info |
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Osama bin Laden |
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Aliases: Usama Bin Muhammad
Bin Ladin, Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, The Prince, The Emir, Abu
Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, The Director |
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Status:
Apparently bin Laden is alive and is living in the
border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan where local tribes and
villages continue to give him private support. There has
been many reports of his demise but he has appeared again in
videos released in late 2007. It is thought that his
health has been declining due to a Kidney ailment.
terrorism news Afric |
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| BACKGROUND
INFORMATION: Since September 11,
2001, one name has come to represent the death of over 3,000
U.S. citizens in a coordinated attack that lasted a little
over an hour on an early Tuesday morning. Within a day
all fingers pointed toward Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda
network of terrorists. He declared "War on America" in
1998 and has inspired a generation of Jihadist from
around the globe. His belief system was influenced by
the time he spent fighting the Soviet Union alongside Jihadist
from around the Middle East and Africa and the experience
inspired him. The United States has
determined that Osama bin Laden orchestrated the 1998 bombings
of two U.S. embassies in East Africa, the October 2000 attack
on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden, and his biggest
attack, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the
Pentagon and World Trade Center which killed over 3000
people. Their is sufficient evidence to say that he has been
meddling with the insurgency in Iraq and yields influence in
hot spots such as Somalia.. Osama Bin Laden is serious. He
means what he says and works on his own time frame. Bin Laden
has reached to heights of an Islamic Messiah in some parts of
the world and extreme hatred and disgust for in other parts.
He is given credit for creating al Qaeda out of the remnants
of the mujahideen fighters from the Soviet Afghanistan War.
He had built the network of funding and recruitment during the
war to provide support for the resistance of the Soviet
occupation. He consolidated it at the wars end and created
one if the world's most prolific terrorist groups. At wars
end he sent each fighter back to their homelands to form
cells. If Jihad was needed again he could call on them and
their new cell members to fight against the next enemy.
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Fact File: |
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Born: March 10, 1957 |
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Place of Birth: Saudi Arabia |
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Languages: Arabic, |
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Height: 6'4" Thin Build |
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| Bin
Laden, with a fortune estimated at $300 million, while
living in Sudan helped build a road linking the capital,
Khartoum, with Port Sudan and an airport. However, western
pressure on Sudan, forced him to leave in 1995. |
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| Bin
Laden had been living in Afghanistan with the permission
of the Taliban, who controlled most of the country. In
areas under Taliban control, women were confined to the
home, girls were denied education. Television, movies and
books had been banned. |
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| Born
in 1957 in Saudi Arabia, the 17th of 57 children, bin
Laden made his name fighting with Arab volunteers against
the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s |
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Bin
Laden returned to Saudi Arabia to work in the family
construction business, but was expelled in 1991 because of
his anti-government activities there. |
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Analysts say Bin Laden's organization is very different
from the groups that carried out bombings and hijackings
in the past in that it is not a tightly knit group with a
clear command structure but rather a loose coalition of
groups operating across continents. |
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The few
outsiders who have met Bin Laden describe him as modest,
almost shy. He rarely gives interviews. |
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1998 Fatwa against Jews and Crusaders
The complete Fatwa issued by Osama
bin Laden in 1988. |
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Early Years
of the Man that Declared War on America. |
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Son of the late
Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden ,a
Yemeni immigrant to Saudi Arabia and Hamida al-Attas of
Syrian descent. His father was a wealthy investor and
businessman that arose from humble beginnings. He
eventually become one of the wealthiest Saudis outside the
royal family in the kingdom. Osama's father had married 22
times and had reportedly 54 children. The
father had a very dominating personality. He insisted to
keep all his children in one premises. He had a tough
discipline and observed all the children with strict
religious and social code Osama was exposed very early on
his age to this experience but he lost his father when he
was just 13. He married at the age of 17 to a Syrian girl
who was a relative. He grew up as a religiously committed
boy and the early marriage was another factor of
protecting him from corruption.
Osama had his primary, secondary and even university
education in Jeddah. He had a degree in public
administration from King Abdul-Aziz university in Jeddah.
The countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Sudan are the only countries he has been
to |
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Budding
Muslim to Terrorist |
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Osama bin Laden
became involved in the fight against the Soviet Union’s
invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which lasted from
1979 to 1988 and ended with a Soviet defeat at the hands
of international militias of Muslim fighters backed by the
U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Together with Palestinian
Muslim Brotherhood leader, Abdullah Azzam, ran one of
seven main militias involved in the fighting. They
established military training bases in Afghanistan and
founded Maktab Al Khidamat,
or Services Office, a support network that provided
recruits and money through worldwide centers, including in
the U.S.. Shaikh Azzam and bin laden built a scholarly,
ideological and paramilitary infrastructure for the
globalization of Islamist movements that had previously
focused on separate national, revolutionary and liberation
struggles. Bin Laden and Azzam had different ideas for
how to best utilize the network they had established. Bin
Laden decided to create Al Qaeda, based on personal
affiliations created during the fighting in Afghanistan as
well as on his own international network, reputation and
access to large sums of money. The next year Abdullah
Azzam was assassinated. Azzam's influence and ideas were
vital to how al Qaeda's structure evolved. The Mujihadeen
fighters, mostly non-Afghan volunteers either returned to
their countries of origin or joined the Muslim struggles
in Somalia, the Balkans, Chechnya and other conflicts.
This benefited Al Qaeda’s global reach and later helped
cultivate the second and third generations of Al Qaeda
terrorists. |
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Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait and threats against Saudi Arabia in 1990 defined
who the next struggle would be against. The Saudi Royal
Family allowed US troops to launch their attacks from
Saudi Arabia soil. Osama reportedly requested that his
Mujihadeen fighters should be the force that expels
Saddam's troops back to Iraq.
The Royal family did not
agree, possibly because the King felt it would take too
long and the last thing Saudi Arabia needed were battle
hardened militants running around the Kingdom.
Following the
war, Al Qaeda shifted its focus to fighting the U.S.
presence in the Middle East, more importantly in Saudi
Arabia, home to Islam’s most sacred shrines and no to
mention bin Laden's nation of origin. Al Qaeda angrily
opposed the stationing of U.S. troops on what it
considered the holiest of Islamic lands and waged an
extended campaign of terrorism against the Saudi rulers,
whom bin Laden deemed to be false Muslims. The ultimate
goal of this campaign was to depose of the Saudi royal
family and install an Islamic regime on the Arabian
peninsula. The Saudi regime subsequently deported bin
Laden in 1992 and revoked his citizenship in 1994 while he
was living in Sudan. Bin
Laden had previously moved to Sudan in 1991. He operated
and based Al Qaeda in Sudan until 1996. During this
period, bin Laden and associates established very
important connections with other terror organizations with
the help of its Sudanese hosts and Iran. It has been
reported that Iran has been a major contributor to Al
Qaeda in the form of intelligence and support ever since.
This makes sense in that Iran is an Islamic republic and
bin Laden's vision of an Islamic state in Saudi Arabia.
In 2007 news reports stated that the US military concluded
that Iran was providing explosives to the Taliban in the
Afghanistan front.. The two were thought to be on
unfriendly terms, however the key link between the two is
the alleged relationships with bin Laden. If this is
accurate then it appears that we are starting to get a
better understanding about how the Islamic fundamentalism
networks cooperate. While in Sudan, Al Qaeda was involved
in several terror attacks and guerrilla actions carried
out by other organizations. Al
Qaeda was involved in the bombing of two hotels in Aden,
Yemen, which targeted American troops en route to Somalia
on a humanitarian and peacekeeping mission. It also gave
massive assistance to Somali militias, whose efforts
brought the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1994.
The famous "Black Hawk Down" incident was attributed to
one of these militias. Bin Laden was also involved in an
assassination attempt against Egyptian president Hosni
Mubarak in Ethiopia in June 1995. Two major terrorist
actions against the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia, a
November 1995 attack in Riyadh and the June 1996 Khobar
Towers bombing, also fit Al Qaeda’s strategy at the time,
but their connection to Al Qaeda is not entirely clear.
There is little evidence to suggest a significant
connection between bin Laden and the first World Trade
Center bombing in 1993.
In May 1996, following U.S. pressure on the Sudanese
government, bin Laden moved to Afghanistan where he allied
himself with the ruling Taliban. |
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Osama Bin
Laden Declares War on America |
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In 1998, Osama bin
Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, (a leader of Egyptian Jihad
Group), co-signed a Fatwa (religious edict) in the name of
the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and
Crusaders, declaring: |
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"The
ruling to kill the Americans and their allies, civilians
and military - is an individual duty for every Muslim who
can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it,
in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem) and
the holy mosque (in Makka) from their grip, and in order
for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam,
defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in
accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight
the pagans all together as they fight you all together,'
and 'fight them until there is no more tumult or
oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah'. |
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On August 7, 1998,
at 10:30 a.m. local time, two Embassies of the United
States of America, located in the East African cities of
Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were attacked
in coordinated truck bombings, later determined to have
occurred approximately four minutes apart. In Nairobi, 213
people were killed in the blast, while 11 individuals died
in the bombing at Dar es Salaam. The attacks were
followed out by associates of bin Laden and his al Qaeda
group. Between 1993 to early 1994, al-Qaeda associates
began to relocate to Kenya, primarily to the Nairobi and
Mombasa areas. Some were "mujahedin" or "holy warriors"
who, like Usama Bin Ladin himself, had fought against the
former Soviet Union after the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979. The war had begun. |
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Saying "there will
be no sanctuary for terrorists," President Clinton stated
that the U.S. strikes against terrorist bases in
Afghanistan and a facility in Sudan are part of "a long,
ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism." The US
fired Cruise Missiles at specific targets in Afghanistan
and Sudan. U.S. officials say the six sites attacked in
Afghanistan were part of a network of terrorist compounds
near the Pakistani border that housed supporters of Saudi
millionaire Osama bin Laden President Bill Clinton also
ordered a freeze on assets that could be linked to bin
Laden. In November, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by
a Federal Grand Jury, and the United States Department of
State offered a US $5 million reward for information
leading to bin Laden's apprehension or conviction. |
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Osama's War
on America Escalates: 911 |
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The FBI
investigation of the September 11, 2001 attacks was the
largest and most complex investigation in the history of
the FBI, involving over 7,000 special agents. 72 hours
after the attacks the FBI was able to identify the 19
hijackers. None of the hijackers made attempts to disguise
their names on the flights or their credit card records,
Mohamed Atta's luggage, which did not make the connection
from his Portland flight onto American Airlines Flight
11,contained important information about the hijackers.
His luggage contained papers that revealed the identity of
each of the 19 hijackers, and provided information about
their plans, motives, and backgrounds. The United States
Government determined that al Qaeda under the leadership
and guidance of bin Laden had carried out the attacks that
killed over 3000 American Citizens. The FBI stated that
evidence linking Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to the attacks of
September 11 is clear and irrefutable. Osama bin Laden
once again reached for new heights in his war against
America. The down side to bin Laden's gruesome attack on
American soil resulted in another coalition of militaries
from around the globe attacking the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan and routing them out of power. The Taliban
had refused to hand over bin Laden and honored him as a
guest. In all reality the Taliban was just another link
in the global network of terrorism. They gave refuge to al
Qaeda members and other Islamic fundamentalist that used
the remote and difficult terrain of the Afghanistan and
Pakistan region to coordinate and launch attacks all over
the world including 911. |
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US forces with the
assistance of the Afghanistan Northern Alliance and
coalition forces have taken power away from the Taliban. A
new struggling government is in place and maybe in time
can overcome the latest re-emergence of the Taliban. It's
been almost six years since President Bush, in the first
days after the worst terrorist attack on US soil,
declared: ''I want justice. And there's an old poster out
West . . . I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'
The reality is that regardless of what the media reports
US, and coalition forces have made it much more difficult
for terrorist groups through freezing assets, arresting
and killing huge numbers of terrorists around the globe.
When the "War on Terror" began President Bush and allies
stated that this was not going to be a war where success
is always noticeable. As of July 2007 bin Laden has yet to
be brought to justice. He has released a few audio tapes
but has not been seen in video releases in a few years.
Most experts believe he is still alive and being protected
by sympathizers in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.
There is great support for him in the region and it has
been a hot bed for Islamic extremist since the Soviet
occupation. The most important fact since his apparent
disappearance from the mainstream media is that his
network though severely damaged has been repairing itself
and opening up new fronts and solidifying old ones in Asia
and Africa and most notably in Iraq. His network is like
a hydra now that has taken on a life of it's own. His
capture and or death will not mean the end to terrorism by
no means. The West and moderate Arab leaders are fighting
a war of ideas now, not a single man named Osama bin
Laden. |
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Osama bin Laden Links |
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The Muslim
Brotherhood
In depth article explaining who the Muslim
Brotherhood is,
there stance in America and there connection to terrorism.
The Muslim Brotherhood is the most influential
Muslim Groups in the World |
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Terrorist Sleeper Cells
in America
A
sleeper cell is a dormant, on standby, group of individuals
that were either smuggled in, arrived legally or possibly born
in the country that is the point of attack. This article
also looks into the threat of Home grown terrorism. |
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The Taliban
The Taliban are a Sunni
fundamentalist group that was created in large
part from fighters from the Afghan - Soviet war
and propagated by religion scholars. |
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Al-
Qaida
Al-Qaeda's name can
also be transliterated as al-Qaida, al-Qa'ida, el-Qaida,
or al Qaeda. Al-Qa’ida
was established by Usama Bin Ladin in 1988 with Arabs who
fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union.
Mujahideen, Muslim fighters who
fought the Soviets following their 1979 invasion of
Afghanistan, were Al Qaeda's original primary membership
base |
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PBS Frontline: Hunting Bin Laden In FRONTLINE's
"Hunting bin Laden," a Pulitzer Prize-nominated team of
New York Times reporters and FRONTLINE correspondent
Lowell Bergman investigates the man who has declared holy
war on the U.S. -- a wealthy Saudi Arabian exile believed
to be hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan with a $5
million bounty on his head |
Four Corners - 17/09/2001: Profile of Osama bin Laden
Summary:
Background information on the man believed to be the
mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United
States
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