The death of Osama bin Laden has made worldwide headlines, as the number one man on the F.B.I.’s most wanted list has now been killed. As we face the aftermath of Bin Laden’s death, it is vital to track how the world’s most sought after man came to be.
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From being the 17th child of 52 children fathered by Muhammad Awad bin Laden, a Yemeni immigrant who built a billion-dollar construction company in Saudi Arabia, to forming al Qaeda in 1988, a group that carries out terrorist attacks, Bin Laden’s name is synonymous with anti-Americanism.
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Bin Laden became infamous after he ordered the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and since then, his name has been etched in the minds of people affected by his terror.
Today we will track the life and times of the most wanted man in the world.
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From 1980 – 1989: Bin Laden raises money for the mujahedeen fighting in Afghanistan and also provides them with logistical and humanitarian aid. During these years, he also personally fights in battles against the Soviet Union and finds a group he names al-Qaeda, which in Arabic means “the base.”
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1991: Bin Laden is expelled from Saudi Arabia by its regime. Eventually he and his followers relocate to Sudan, funded by assets that had grown to as much as $250 million, according to some officials. In that African nation, al Qaeda begins to evolve into a terror network.
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February 1993: A bomb explodes at the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and wounding hundreds. Six Muslim radicals, who U.S. officials suspect have links to Bin Laden, are eventually convicted for the bombing. Bin Laden is later named along with many others as an unindicted co-conspirator in that case.
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August 1996: Bin Laden declares a holy war against U.S. forces. He signs and issues a Declaration of jihad from Afghanistan entitled, “Message from Osama bin Laden to his Muslim Brothers in the Whole World and Especially in the Arabian Peninsula: Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques; Expel the Heretics from the Arabian Peninsula.”
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August 7, 1998: A pair of truck bombs explode outside the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Some 224 people are killed.
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June 1999: Bin Laden appears for the first time on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
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October 12, 2000: Bin Laden is linked to the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, which leads to the death of 17 sailors and injuries to another 39.
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September 11, 2001: Four U.S. commercial aircrafts are hijacked and then crashed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, leading to the deaths of more than 3,000 people. Soon thereafter, the U.S. government names Bin Laden as a prime suspect and U.S. forces drop leaflets in Afghanistan offering a $25 million bounty for Bin Laden.
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May 2002: A Saudi-owned newspaper publishes quotes from fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar in which he states, “Sheikh Osama is still alive, praise God, and this is causing anguish to (U.S. President George W.) Bush who promised his people to kill Osama, not knowing that lives are in the hands of God.”
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June 2002: A Russian newspaper publishes what it claims is an interview with Omar. The ousted Taliban leader states that Bin Laden is alive in Afghanistan. “Osama helped us during the war with the Russians, he would not leave us now,” the newspaper quotes Omar as saying. “The Holy War is only just beginning. The fire from this war will reach America, and it will burn the capital that launched an unjust attack on Muslims.”
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January 2010: A man thought to be Bin Laden is heard on two audiotapes, released in the span of a week. On the first, he claims responsibility for the alleged Christmas Day attempt by Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdul Muttallab to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane as it neared Detroit, Michigan, from Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
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May 1, 2011: Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader, is killed in Pakistan by U.S. special forces.
