Draft:Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Article Title	Osama bin Laden
Birth	March 10, 1957
Place of Birth	Saudi Arabia
Death	May 2, 2011
Most Notable Activities	Leadership of the al-Qaeda movement

Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011) was a member of the bin Laden family and the founder and leader of the al-Qaeda network. Osama bin Laden was wanted by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with numerous terrorist attacks worldwide, including the August 7, 1998, embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Nairobi (Kenya), the attack on the USS Cole warship, and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He was killed on May 2, 2011, by the Naval Special Warfare Development Group under the Joint Special Operations Command of the United States Armed Forces in Pakistan.

Birth and Childhood

Osama bin Laden was born on March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. He was the son of Muhammad bin Laden, a billionaire active in the construction industry with ties to the House of Saud, and his tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas. The bin Laden family earned $5 billion from the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited $25–30 million. He was raised as a devout Muslim adhering to Wahhabism. Between 1968 and 1976, he attended the Al-Thagr Model School, a secular institution for the elite class, and studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University; he obtained a degree in public administration in 1981 or a degree in civil engineering in 1979. One source describes him as hardworking, while another states he left university in his third year before graduating. At university, his greatest interest was religion. He was active in Quranic exegesis, jihad, and charitable works. His other interests included poetry and reading; he reportedly enjoyed the film The Great Escape and the works of Bernard Law Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle. He was fond of football, preferred playing as a center forward, and was a supporter of Arsenal FC.

Biography

In 1976, at the age of 17, he married Najwa Ghanem in Latakia, Syria. He subsequently married four more times and divorced twice. He had between 20 and 26 children. On January 2, 2010, the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that one of bin Laden's wives, Khairiah (Umm Hamza), along with one daughter and five sons of bin Laden and several other family members, had fled since 2001, coinciding with the United States invasion of Afghanistan. Citing bin Laden's daughter-in-law, who also resided in Iran, the newspaper stated that the bin Laden family had lived comfortably in Iran, enjoying amenities such as a garden, swimming pool, and computers in their home, although they lacked internet access and were prohibited from any contact with the outside world or sending news. Bin Laden's daughter-in-law thanked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the favorable treatment Iranian authorities showed toward bin Laden's children. In December 2009, media outlets reported that his daughter, named "Aman" or "Iman," had escaped during a shopping trip organized every six months by Iranian security authorities and sought asylum at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Tehran. A few days later, one of bin Laden's sons, named "Bakr," also managed to escape and seek asylum at the Saudi Arabian embassy, subsequently leaving Iran with the assistance of the Saudi embassy. Two other sons of bin Laden, "Omar" and "Abdullah," who lived outside Iran, confirmed this incident. "Omar bin Laden" requested Iranian authorities to allow the bin Laden family to leave Iran and go to Syria or Qatar. Prior to this incident, Iranian authorities had denied the presence of any bin Laden family members in Iran. However, following the exposure of this affair, official sources from the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the long-term presence of the bin Laden family in Iran. Osama's father (Muhammad bin Laden) died in 1967 in an air crash in Saudi Arabia when an American pilot made an error during landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, who later became the head of the bin Laden family, died in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas, in the United States, when he crashed a plane into power lines.

Messages

On January 15, 2009, during the Gaza War, an audio message from him was published on the website of the Al Jazeera news network, calling on listeners to engage in jihad and struggle against Israel and to liberate the Gaza Strip from the Israeli army.

International pursuit

He was wanted by the FBI in connection with numerous terrorist attacks worldwide, including the August 7, 1998 embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Nairobi (Kenya), the attack on the USS Cole (DDG-67), the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud. In January 2010, the United States Department of State released a reconstructed image depicting bin Laden as an elderly man with possible changes in appearance.

Pursuit of the youngest son

In January 2017, the United States announced that Hamza bin Laden (bin Laden's youngest son, born in 1989) had been placed on its counter-terrorism blacklist due to his affiliation with al-Qaeda. Hamza bin Laden stated his intention to carry out attacks against Americans to avenge his father's killing by U.S. special forces. In 2019, reports emerged that Hamza bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces in a region along the Pakistan–Afghanistan border. This news was confirmed on September 14, 2019, by Donald Trump, then President of the United States, though no further details were provided. Additionally, Hamza bin Laden's wife, along with her father, Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, known as Abu Muhammad al-Masri, a senior Egyptian member of al-Qaeda, were shot dead on August 7, 2020, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, at the request of the United States, on Pasdaran Street in Tehran by individuals linked to Israel.

Death

On May 1, 2011 (May 2 local time in Pakistan), Barack Obama, President of the United States, announced that a small team of U.S. Navy SEALs had killed Osama bin Laden, founder and leader of al-Qaeda and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, during an operation at a villa in Pakistan. He added that bin Laden's body was now in U.S. custody. According to official U.S. authorities, the operation was conducted by 20–25 operators from the U.S. Navy's Naval Special Warfare Development Group under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command and in cooperation with the CIA. The team attacked bin Laden's compound using two stealth helicopters, during which bin Laden and his associates were killed. The operation resulted in no casualties or injuries among U.S. forces. U.S. officials stated that the operation was carried out without informing Pakistani authorities.

Reports also indicated that some people in Pakistan were shocked by the unauthorized entry of U.S. military forces into their country. The operation site was located a few kilometers from the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul. During his press conference, Obama stated that U.S. forces "took care to avoid harming civilians." Reports also indicated the deaths of three men and one woman accompanying bin Laden. The woman was killed while being "used as a human shield by male militants." Bin Laden's DNA was compared with a sample taken from his sister's body, confirming his identity. According to U.S. officials, after retrieval, bin Laden's body was buried at sea in accordance with Islamic traditions. One U.S. official remarked, "Finding a country willing to accept the remains of this wanted terrorist proved difficult," though this explanation was not widely accepted by experts, and some still doubt his death.

"Matt Bissonnette," a former U.S. Navy SEAL, described in his book titled "No Easy Day," published under the pseudonym Mark Owen, that bin Laden was killed despite posing no immediate threat. According to the latest information released by the U.S. military, bin Laden's burial at sea was conducted following Islamic rites, witnessed by dozens of senior U.S. Navy leaders.

During the raid by "Team 6" of the U.S. Navy SEALs, Osama bin Laden was shot "three times in the head," resulting in the "shattering of his brain."