Saudi Arabian Sunni Muslim militant and founder of al-Qaeda
1957 CE
to 2011 CE
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011) is the founder of al-Qaeda, the Wahhabi extremist militant organization that claims responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the United States, along with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets.
He is a Saudi Arabian, a member of the wealthy bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.
Bin Laden was born to the family of billionaire Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden in Saudi Arabia.
He studies at university in the country until 1979, when he joins mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
He helps to fund the mujahideen by funneling arms, money and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gains popularity from many Arabs.
In 1988, he forms al-Qaeda.
He is banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifts his base to Sudan, until US pressure forces him to leave Sudan in 1996.
After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declares a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks.
Bin Laden is on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.
From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden is a major target of the War on Terror, as the FBI places a $25 million bounty on him in their search for him.
On May 2, 2011, bin Laden is shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators in a covert operation ordered by U.S. President Barack Obama.
The United States has direct evidence that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, knew of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
