Osama Bin Laden Osama Bin Laden (known also under the name Binladin) was born in Riyadh in 1957. Raised in Medina, Al Munawwara and Hijaz, he studied management and economics at Jedda University. His commitment with Islamic groups started in 1973, cooperating with them against the Communist party in South Yemen. In the early eighties, he established alongside Sheikh Dr Abdullah Azzam the office for Mujahideen services in Peshawar (Pakistan) that trained with the CIA assistance the Arab Mujahideen who came to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He fought at the battles of Jalalabad in 1986 and again in 1989 (one of the biggest battles which the Arabs engaged in, in Afghanistan). In 1991, he migrated from the Arabian peninsula. Later on, when asked by the Saudi government to return, he refused, His citizenship was then cancelled and his Saudi assets frozen. He has been a fugitive ever since, living in Sudan, before settling in Afghanistan in the mid 1990s. Bin Laden had a $5 million reward on his head for allegedly masterminding the terrorist attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed more than 200 people. After the fall of the Taleban government, he disappeared and his current whereabouts are unknown and a new multi-million dollar reward was again put on his head for allegedly masterminding the September 11, 2001 (known as 911) attacks in the United States. Bin Laden is estimated to have about $300 million in personal financial assets to fund his political action as well as a support from some influential clerics in Saudi Arabia. | |||
 | | | |