Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda, a Salafi jihadist militant organization, from 1988 until his killing in 2011. During that era, he was one of the most significant supporters of Islamic terrorism and jihadist militant movements around the world, as he aimed to found a pan-Islamic caliphate and end the United States' interventionism in the Middle East, including its support for Israel. Most notably, bin Laden helped orchestrate the September 11 attacks against the U.S. in 2001, which caused the U.S.-led global war on terror. He led al-Qaeda and its allies in numerous wars, including the Second Afghan Civil War (1992–1996), Bosnian War (1992–1995), Algerian Civil War (1992–2002), and Third Afghan Civil War (1996–2001). Born into the billionaire bin Laden family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, bin Laden moved to Afghanistan during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989). He used his personal fortune to fund several jihadist groups around the world, including the Afghan mujahideen and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and built a large Islamist network to train militants in Chechnya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Somalia, Yemen, Tajikistan, and Kosovo. In 1984, he co-founded Maktab al-Khidamat to recruit for the mujahideen, and founded al-Qaeda in 1988 to fight alongside the Afghan militants. Bin Laden commanded a mujahideen force during the First Afghan Civil War following the Soviet withdrawal. Upon returning to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden publicly promoted anti-Western causes and opposed the Saudi royal family, leading to his exile and the loss of his citizenship in 1991. He went back to Afghanistan, then moved to Sudan later that year. In 1993, al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in New York City. In 1996, bin Laden returned to Afghanistan after being expelled from Sudan; Afghanistan came under Taliban control...