Survey of Terrorism ••• 431Osama bin Laden
O
sama bin Laden ( 1957- ) was born into Saudi Arabia's wealthy bin Laden
clan. The family owns one of the country's largest construction compa¬
nies and is close to the Saudi royal family. Raised as a devout Muslim, he has
limited experience beyond the Muslim world.
Soon after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden began raising
money for the resistance fighters. He now devoted himself to their cause, and in
1984 he established a "guest house" in Pakistan to house Arab fighters bound for
the Afghan front. This soon turned into a logistical center providing training,
religious support, and the funneling of men and equipment into Afghanistan.
By 1986 bin Laden was building his own fighting camps within Afghanistan,
and he named his operation Al-Qa'ida or "the firm base." He personally saw
combat against the Soviets, being involved in at least five major battles. At this
point his actions were aligned with the policies of the US, which provided finan¬
cial and military assistance to those fighting the Soviet invaders.
Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1989, convinced that his efforts played
a major role in evicting the Soviet army from Afghanistan. When the Iraqis in¬
vaded Kuwait, bin Laden submitted a proposal to the Saudi government, sug¬
gesting that he mobilize the fighters he had commanded in Afghanistan to
confront the Iraqis. However, the Saudis rejected his offer and instead turned to
the Americans. Bin Laden reacted against this choice, which resulted in the de¬
ployment of thousands of non-Muslim troops in the holy land of Arabia.
In 1991 bin Laden left Saudi Arabia and eventually returned to Afghanistan,
which was now ruled by the Taliban. In 1996 he issued his first bay an (public an¬
nouncement), in which he issued a warning to the US to remove its troops from
Arabia, otherwise the same fighters who had defeated the Soviet Union would
wage war against America. This threat was realized in attacks on US embassies
in East Africa in 1998 and on the naval vessel USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.
Although he viewed the presence of US troops in Arabia as a sacrilege, this
was not bin Laden's only grievance against the Americans; he had come to see
US policies in Palestine and Iraq, as well as its support for dictatorships in
Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, as part of a Western war against Islam. From
his point of view, the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center
launched on 9/11 were retaliatory in nature. In the view of the West, he be¬
came in 2001 the best-known and most wanted "terrorist mastermind." The
US has been hunting him ever since, though with varying degrees of intensity,
as its invasion of Afghanistan has been eclipsed by the Iraq War.
Bin Laden gave a post-9/11 interview on Al-Jazeera TV. Recorded on 21
October 2001, it was subsequently rebroadcast by CNN in February 2002. In
this interview bin Laden stated: "If killing those who kill our sons is terrorism,
then let history be witness that we are terrorists."