Terrorism and Osama Bin Laden

¶ … Terrorism and Osama bin Laden [...] history and structure of Osama bin Laden's organization, explain his connections to fundamentalism, and his links with other known terrorist groups. Osama bin Laden may be one of the world's most infamous terrorists. He formed the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, which has been responsible for terrorist attacks around the world, and has issued an open jihad against the United States. Much of the history of his organization is shrouded in mystery, as is much of his life, and therefore, there are differing accounts of his organization and his life. He is revered in much of the Arab world, and is one of the most hunted terrorists in American history. His organization is dangerous and extremely difficult to destroy, as the inability to locate him in Pakistan has shown. Osama bin Laden may be one of America's most deadly enemies, and most experts believe it is only a matter of time before Al Qaeda strikes the U.S. again.

Osama bin Laden was born in 1957 in Saudi Arabia. His family raised him in the strict Islamic tradition; he is a Sunni Muslim. He attended Abdul Ariz University in Jeddah, where he graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering. His father amassed a fortune in the construction industry; in fact, it was the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia and had close ties to the Saudi royal family. When his father died, Bin Laden became independently wealthy (Piszkiewicz 107). After he became disenchanted with western influence in Saudi Arabia and began organizing resistance, his family disowned him in 1994, and Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship (Thackrah 189-190).

Bin Laden traveled to Afghanistan in the 1980s and worked to support the Mujaheddin resistance against Russia's invasion and occupation in Afghanistan from 1979 through 1988. In 1988, (some say 1985), he then organized his own group, al Qaeda, (which means "the base" or "the military base") in an attempt to control the membership and documentation of members. It was partially funded by his own wealth, and by the donations of other wealthy Arab merchants. He recruited members in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt (Thackrah 9). He became increasingly defiant of the adoption of western practices in Saudi Arabia, and set up a resistance movement that earned money through many phony engineering companies in the Sudan that funneled money to his resistance efforts. Bin Laden has an extreme hatred of the west and globalization, and has issued a "jihad" (holy war) against the west for his and other terrorist organizations. Al Qaeda has been found responsible for numerous terrorist attacks, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States (Piszkiewicz 107-108) and (Thackrah 189-190).

Few if any Americans have not heard of Al Qaeda after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Bin Laden began the organization in Afghanistan after they successfully expelled the Russians, and it has grown since then. Initially, the organization was fighting western influence in Saudi Arabia and the royal family's power. Many top terrorism leaders joined Al Qaeda during this time, and still support Bin Laden today. The Saudis expelled him from the country in 1994, and he set up in Sudan, who expelled him in 1996, partly due to pressure from the United States. They felt his expulsion would "neutralize" the organization and cut it off from his funding operations in the Sudan. However, that was not the case. "Far from being neutralized by his expulsion from Sudan, bin Laden took the offensive against the country he saw as the enemy of Islam and God. On August 23, he issued 'The Declaration of Jihad on the Americans Occupying the Country of the Two Sacred Places [Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia]' (Piszkiewicz 108). This was aggravated by the U.S. presence in the country after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991 that led to the Gulf War. Another writer notes, "Part of bin Laden's opposition to the presence of U.S. military, presence in Saudi Arabia resulted from the fact that U.S. troops were infidels on or near holy Islamic ground" (Munson). He returned to Afghanistan and began supporting the Taliban fundamentalist movement, which took control of the country in the fall of 1996. The Taliban sheltered him in return for terrorist training, weapons, and funding, and when the Taliban was overthrown by the United States, Bin Laden retreated to hiding in Pakistan. With the success of his terrorist attacks, he has attracted more funding and more ties to other groups. Author Thackrah continues, "As with other terrorist groups operations are also financed by robberies and the commercial activities of business personnel. It is a growing international group with links in over 55 countries" (Thackrah 10). Thus, Bin Laden enjoys the support of numerous terrorist leaders across the world, and his influence keeps spreading the longer he remains free.