On March 10, 1957, Osama Bin Muhammad Bin Awad Bin Laden was born. He is better known today as Osama Bin Laden. He began his years of life living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His birth father was Muhammad Awad Bin Laden, and his birth mother was Alia Ghanem. Alia was originally from Syria when she married Osama’s father.
Osama was the 17th child born to his father out of 57 kids. He was the only child of his father and his mother. Muhammad had nine other wives before Alia. His father was born a Yemeni settler who lived in poverty. He worked at a young age as a builder and laborer. His work was impressive, and as he grew older he began his company in the 1930’s. Muhammad built a fortune with his construction business located in Saudi Arabia. The financial success of his business had helped the city of Jeddah. When the city had fallen to a financial crisis, Muhammad had paid the wages of the employees for approximately six months. Muhammad became a well-known, respected man in the community.
When Osama was a young child, he lived with all his siblings in the same home, and his father was disciplined and strict. The male children were treated as adults and wanted to make sure the boys would grow up to have self-esteem and express morals. His father had insisted the children grow with religion, and to be respected individuals in the community.
Osama did not spend many years with his father because his mother divorced him. She took her son with her and married Muhammad Al-Attas. He was a man who worked for Osama’s biological father’s company. Alia and her new husband had four kids together. Osama grew up living with his mother, step-father, and brothers and sisters. Osama attended the Thagher Model the best school in Jeddah. “Osama’s father had died in a plane crash in 1967” . He had married two more times before his death. Osama was a young thirteen-year-old at the time of his father’s death.
It was at the age of 14 when Osama had unexpectedly fallen into a group that would change his life. This incident occurred while he was in school. “His shyness and intelligence had given him the opportunity to be acknowledged, and offered to be part of a study program” . The program was highly recognized and would give him substantial credit once he graduated from school. Osama enjoyed the small group and the boys who were involved with him came from high-class families in Jeddah. The goal of the group was to have the Koran remembered by the time of graduation. This was thought to an exceptional accomplishment and was viewed as an amazing achievement.
The exciting aspects of the group had begun to fade, and take a turn in another direction. “The students of the group began teaching jihad evil and violence” . The instructor of the group had belonged to a violent group called the Brotherhood. The students were instructed to worship the law of Islam in the Arabian territory. The teacher began his persuasive lessons with discussing stories about the Islamic law and used examples of tragedy and death. The instructor made it clear that if the boys wanted to follow the Islamic law that death and violence were accepted.
Within a few years, Osama and the rest of the group had been practicing the Islamic law of teenagers. The boys started dressing like the rule of the Prophet and grew beards that were not to be trimmed. They preached the Islamic law to their school classmates. He continued his Islamic law belief throughout the rest of school. When he became an adult he married his cousin and had his first son. After that, he went to Jeddah University and received a degree in public administration. His life took a detour after college when he joined the Afghan resistance. He believed he had to contribute and uphold his Muslim beliefs. This became the start that would lead up to disastrous events around the world.
After relocating to Afghanistan, Osama started training a group of people jihadists of Islam. The finances that Osama used, had come from the United States. “The funds came from CIA resources called Operation Cyclone” . The mujahideen group had helped win the fight when the Soviets had left to go home. After the Soviet fight ended, Osama had moved back to Saudi Arabia and was defined as a heroic figure.
In 1992, Osama was banned from the Saudi territory because of the Gulf war. The war had made him upset with the Saudi officials. The officials disapproved of his belief and kicked him out of the area. After becoming banned from Saudi Arabia, he settled in Sudan as a deported individual.
The following year in 1993; the group Al Qaeda was born. He kept the new group quiet while he formed and molded the start of his people. The name of the group stood at the base. The members of his new groups were Muslim military that he had met while in Afghanistan. He started out picking members because of their skills. The skills that were needed to be eligible were following orders, punctual, loyal, and to follow the leaders within the group. Those that could pass all the qualifying guidelines would be accepted into the new team. The goal of Al Qaeda was to follow the law of Islam and have people to turn to the same rules.
He had used money that formed Al Qaeda to create and succeed on violent harm around the globe. Osama’s new group had been so destructive, that his own country had banned and taken away his authority of citizenship. “The country had taken away his passport and his family had also cut him out of the family” . This put a stop to his funding he received every year worth approximately $7 million. The situation he was in did not stop him. It seemed to have made him more violent. He had put his energy in continued violence and destruction. His goal he focused on was against the United States. He wanted a battle against the U.S.
He had hoped to complete his mission of war and have a ruling of Muslims that would extend his group he had already achieved. The push for war continued, and his violence had exceeded his previous years. He began setting off many explosives against the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1997, he had been responsible for the murders of innocent people in Egypt. The following year in 1998 Osama and his Al Qaeda group had murdered more innocent people. The United States embassies had been the target of a mass murder. The two embassies of the United States he blew up were in Kenya and Tanzania. The bombings murdered approximately 300 individuals.
The United States had indicted him for the murders of over 220 innocent people who were in the embassies. Once the indictment was brought forth against him, he had made the top of the FBI wanted list. “In 2000 he was associated with the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen” . His Al Qaeda group also had taken over 20 detainees and made them his members. He funded the training and funded their needs in order for the men to stay with him. This had enhanced the power and control of his followers, and these men gave him more ammo to commit crimes.
In 2000, a terrorist was captured by the United States in an attempt to destroy Los Angeles California. While this man was being detained, he admitted he was trained to fight in a training camp run by Osama Bin Laden. The camp was located in the Afghanistan jurisdiction. He had been behind the failed attack on the United States. The attack in Los Angeles California was to take place in a highly traveled airport. The attack was going to be the target of an explosive bomb in the building. If this attack would have occurred at the airport, it would have killed many innocent people.
In 2001, Osama Bin Laden would follow through with his plans of destruction. The start of 2001 had taken a new direction. Several of Al Qaeda, Osama’s followers had been found guilty of the destruction of the United States embassies in Africa. The United States had a short celebration in regards to locking up some of Bin Laden’s members. August 2001 Bin Laden had given a message to report in the Al Rai Al Aam news. The report discussed Osama’s plans for future attacks.
Less than a month after the news report the horrific attack on the United States occurred. On September 11, 2001, shortly before 9 a.m. terror ripped through the country. There were almost 20 terrorists from Al Qaeda who had taken over four different aircraft. The aircraft were in flight to different destinations. Those destinations were never reached that tragic day. “Two of the terrorist-hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York” . One plane had flown into the Pentagon in Washington, and the other plane had crashed in an open field in a town of Pennsylvania. That plane’s destination is unclear, and it is not known the exact intentions of that planes purpose on that day. All of the innocent people on those flights were killed. More innocent people died when the planes hit the Twin Towers.
That day had changed the lives of everyone in society. This type of attack had made a huge impact on the United States. This was the reaction that Bin Laden wanted to get from the society of the U.S. He wanted to have control, power and put fear in the lives of our country. Over 3,000 innocent individuals were murdered that day. This put Osama Bin Laden as the number one terrorist wanted by the United States government.
After the tragic terror attack on the United States, a bounty reward was offered for Bin Laden in Afghanistan from the United States. The U.S. wanted to capture him and make him pay for all the lives he murdered. The flyers that were dropped into Afghanistan had a price of $25 million rewards for Osama. A month later at the end of 2001, a member of Tora Bora had told the United States that Al Qaeda and Bin Laden were seen in Afghanistan. The United States teamed up with Afghan and British armies to find and destroy Al Qaeda. The attacks took place in all the places they thought he would be hiding. The U.S. thought he may have already died due to health issues from kidney problems.
For the next decade, the United States looked for Osama Bin Laden. The possible leads had turned out to be wrong. The United States thought he might have died, except for the videos that were released over the years from who they believed was Bin Laden. People who had known him had confirmed he was still alive. In 2010, our new President Barack Obama had gotten information that Bin Laden was hiding out in Pakistan. More information was secretly gathered about the whereabouts of Bin Laden’s hideout.
On May 1, 2011, President Obama had secretly set a planned attack in action, and he watched from the White House as the success had finally taken place. “The Seal Team had gone to the location of Osama Bin Laden’s home where he was hiding and had killed him” . His body was put on a U.S. aircraft and was flown over the Indian Ocean. The Seal Team had wrapped up the body and threw it into the ocean. The reason the President wanted his body thrown into the ocean instead of buried, was due to Osama being a martyr. If his body was buried it would give his followers a place to go and worship him.
Reference
Baiser, B. (2004, October 30). Bin Laden Claims Responsibility of 9/11. Retrieved from Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2004/10/30/bin-laden-claims-responsibility-for-11.html
BIO. (2014). Osama Bin Laden. Retrieved from Bio: http://www.biography.com/people/osama-bin-laden-37172
CNN. (2011, May 2). Timeline: Osama bin Laden, over the years. Retrieved from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.timeline/
Dubak, N. (2015). Osama Bin Laden. Retrieved from History: http://www.history.com/topics/osama-bin-laden
Mir, H. (2015). Osama Bin Laden. Retrieved from Famous People Biography: http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/osama-bin-mohammed-bin-awad-bin-laden-2489.php
Mohler, J. (2015, October 15). What Do We Really Know About Osama Bin Laden's Death? Retrieved from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-really-know-about-osama-bin-ladens-death.html?_r=0
PBS. (2014). A Biography of Osama Bin Laden. Retrieved from Public Broadcasting: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/bio.html
