Jean Sasson, Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden The Family of Osama bin Laden: Life behind a high wall. A monster with ideas. Who will remember Osama bin Laden on his birthday Al-Qaeda and death

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia in 1957 into a wealthy Yemeni family. He was 17 of 52 children of construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden.

Osama's mother, his father's tenth wife...

How bin Laden was killed

Terrorist No. 1 was not found in the caves of the Tora Bora mountains on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where American special forces tried to catch him for many years.

Bin Laden was hiding in the elite Pakistani resort village of Abbottabad, an hour's drive from Islamabad, that is, literally under the nose of the Pakistani authorities.

Representatives of the Pakistani military elite live in the village itself. The leader of international terrorism lived in one of the three-story houses, which, according to Reuters’ description, was more like a real fortress. The cottage, which was built just six years ago, as it now turns out, specifically as the residence of the head of al-Qaeda, was approximately eight times the size of the average house in this village, and its two-meter fence was crowned with circles of barbed wire. The internal territory was divided into zones separated by blank walls. A fortified bunker was hidden inside, where bin Laden spent most of his time.

Osama bin Laden and his “right hand”, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri. Ayman al-Zawahiri is likely to lead al-Qaeda after bin Laden's death. He remains at large, there is no information about his whereabouts

The measures of closure amazed even the inhabitants of Abbottabad: garbage was never thrown out of the cottage (it was burned right on the premises), and neither a telephone nor an Internet network was connected to the house.

To determine the real location of the al-Qaeda leader, US intelligence agencies tracked one of the al-Qaeda couriers for more than four years. This courier became known from those arrested for helping organize the September 11 terrorist attacks. However, at first it was not even clear that he was connected specifically with bin Laden. Only in August last year did the intelligence services realize that they had probably found the leadership of a terrorist network. Formally, it was this courier and his brother who owned the mysterious fortress house, but it was not clear where they found several million dollars to build a real fortress.

Only after the information that bin Laden was here was finally confirmed, did the American president personally give the go-ahead for the special operation. Several helicopters appeared in the skies over Abbottabad on Sunday.

The American Marines who disembarked from them quickly stormed the house and, after a 40-minute firefight, killed the people in the bunker.

One of them turned out to be bin Laden himself (he was killed by a bullet in the head); one of his sons was killed, as well as, presumably, one of his wives, a courier and brother.

According to some reports, drones struck the house before the assault, which caused a fire in the building. Pakistani television later showed footage of the smoke. Pakistani units were also involved in the operation itself. It is known that one of the helicopters involved crashed on approach due to technical reasons, two crew members were killed.

Justice has been done

After the liquidation took place, this was immediately reported to American President Barack Obama. American television channels announced Obama's emergency speech with an unprecedented statement, but its essence was not known at first. A variety of speculations emerged among bloggers and Twitter users around the world, the most popular of which, however, at first was the death of Muammar Gaddafi.

Late in the evening of May 1 (about 7.30 am Moscow time), Obama appeared in front of television cameras.

“Good evening,” the American leader greeted. “Today I can tell the people of America and the whole world: the United States carried out an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, a terrorist responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children... Justice has been done

Ten years ago, on September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda-trained terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers in Manhattan in what Obama recalled was the “worst attack on the people of America in its history,” killing three thousand people. Since then, the main task of the US intelligence services has been to eliminate the world's main terrorist, the president noted. Obama thanked Pakistani intelligence agencies who took part in the elimination of the al-Qaeda leader.

The killing of bin Laden was the biggest victory against al-Qaeda in recent memory, Obama said. His death does not mean that al-Qaeda will stop its terrorist activities, but the intelligence agencies will not stop fighting terrorism in the United States and abroad, the president explained.

Thousands of Americans took to the streets celebrate the destruction of bin Laden. Those gathered outside the residence chanted “Farewell, Osama!” and “Four more years!”, referring to the new term of the current US President.

The operation in Pakistan also caused widespread international reaction. The Kremlin welcomed the killing of bin Laden. “Russia was one of the first to face the dangers posed by global terrorism, and, unfortunately, it knows firsthand what al-Qaeda is,” the press service of the Russian President said in a statement. “Retribution will inevitably overtake all terrorists,” Russian authorities are confident. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the death of Osama bin Laden a resounding triumph for the entire democratic world. “The death of Osama bin Laden will bring great relief to the whole world,” British Prime Minister David Cameron, in turn, assured journalists.

After bin Laden

Although the killing of bin Laden was officially announced, his body was never shown to the public, and footage of the mutilated corpse that appeared on Pakistani television was later declared a fake. The final scientific confirmation of bin Laden's death should be provided by DNA testing, the results of which will be published by the American authorities in the coming days.

The body of terrorist No. 1, according to sources of American television channels, has already been buried in accordance with Islamic traditions, which require burial to take place before sunset on the day of death.

At the same time, it is argued that it was buried in the Arabian Sea so as not to create an object of worship from its grave.

In the Muslim world, bin Laden's death raises doubts. The Indian television channel Jio TV refers to a representative of the Pakistani Taliban movement Tehrik-e Taliban-e Pakistan, who claims that “bin Laden is alive” and reports of his death are “fake.”

One way or another, al-Qaeda is unlikely to remain without leadership. According to Georgy Mirsky, an expert at the Institute of International Relations and Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in recent years Osama bin Laden has exercised less and less practical leadership over al-Qaeda. “The real administrator of the terrorist network was No. 2 - Egyptian Ayman Az-Zawahiri, who was a member of the same Muslim Brotherhood movement that killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981,” the expert told Gazeta.Ru. “He served time in prison and showed himself to be a completely unrepentant Islamic fanatic, after which he moved to Afghanistan.”

According to Mirsky, now Az-Zawahiri under bin Laden is like Stalin under Lenin. It was Zawahiri who took control of all the threads of communication of this decentralized terrorist network, which included cells in Iraq, the Maghreb countries, Yemen and Europe, the political scientist notes. “Fundamentally nothing will change in al-Qaeda,” Mirsky is sure.

On Islamist forums, in turn, they promise to take revenge for the murder of terrorist No. 1. “Oh, Allah, please make sure that this news is not true... Allah has cursed you, Obama,” a message from one of the Arabic-language forums reports to Reuters.

US authorities fear possible new terrorist attacks. The State Department urged US citizens to be extremely careful abroad. “If the leadership does not react to the killing of bin Laden, ordinary militants will not understand this, and therefore in many places - in the United States, European countries, the Middle East - one should be prepared for autonomous large-scale attacks by terrorists,” warns Mirsky.

Nevertheless, in the fight against terrorism, the death of bin Laden, according to the vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies Boris Makarenko, is of great importance because he was a symbol, and a new symbol of the same magnitude is unlikely to appear in the near future. “Al-Qaeda is a network organization, the death of the leader is not so important here,” argues the head of the Institute for Strategic Assessments, Alexander Konovalov, “besides, terrorism can turn out to be a hydra: if you cut off one head, three new ones will grow.”

The greatest success of the American authorities came at a time when the ratings of the current American president dropped significantly. Now the situation may change, experts predict. The elimination of the symbol of terrorism, the main threat to the United States, will be both Obama's main victory as president and his main trump card in the upcoming 2012 presidential elections. The first debates within the internal party primaries will start in the United States this week.

Having defeated bin Laden, Obama did what his two predecessors could have done before him: after all, the hunt for bin Laden began under Bill Clinton, before September 11, recalls Russian political scientist Alexander Konovalov. “Of course, the president’s rating will increase, but it is still premature to say that Obama’s chances for a second term are guaranteed: it is unclear who his Republican rival will be,” the expert told Gazeta.Ru.

At one time, George Bush managed to bring the Americans into custody of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Bush then won. It’s too early to say whether Obama will be able to win, political scientist Boris Makarenko is sure, because Bush Sr. once managed to defeat Hussein in the war for Kuwait, but then he still lost the elections.

On May 2, 2011, according to the CIA, Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Islamic terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, was killed. He was recognized as the No. 1 terrorist in the United States and other countries.

In this collection you will see very different photographs of Osama bin Laden and his relatives. In these pictures you will see Osama the teenager, Osama the loving father, Osama the soulmate, and finally Osama the leader of Al Qaeda.

1. Osama bin Laden (second from right) during a visit to the Swedish city of Falun in 1971. Pictured are several local residents, including Christina and Lars Akelblad, who owned the Astoria Hotel, where Osama and his brother Salem stayed during one of their trips to Sweden. In 1971, 23 members of the wealthy bin Laden family visited Falun, and one of the elders brothers held a business meeting at Volvo. Osama was remembered then as a calm, reserved 16-year-old boy who did not stand out in any way from the crowd.

2. 1978: Osama bin Laden sits in a cave in the Jalalabad area of ​​Afghanistan. It was then that he first picked up a weapon.

3. 1980s: Osama bin Laden with Afghans in the Jalalabad area during the war against Soviet forces. Osama fought in this war for almost ten years.

4. 1989: Osama (right) in Afghanistan.

12. Osama bin Laden meets with a group of reporters in the mountains of southern Afghanistan's Helmand province on December 24, 1998. Bin Laden was later involved in a series of terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, the 1995 Riyadh car bombing, and the 1995 Saudi military barracks truck bombing. Arabia in 1996, which killed 19 American soldiers, and in the 1998 attack on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

14. The attention of the entire world community was focused on the personality of Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed about three thousand people. The picture shows a still from the Al Jazeera TV program, which was shown on the second anniversary of the September 11 tragedy.

15. Undated still from a video that aired in 2007. In this video, Osama talks about the importance of jihad and glorifies the martyrs who died in the name of Allah. Osama is believed to have crossed the Pakistani border after US and British troops launched an offensive in Afghanistan in late 2001.

17. Omar bin Laden, the 26-year-old son of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, with his wife Jane Felix-Brown before airing on Italian television in 2008.

18. Osama bin Laden's son, Hamza bin Laden, in an undated video taken during al-Qaeda training.

People who have a face Osama bin Laden firmly cemented in the memory with images of the sinking twin towers in New York, they are more likely to raise a stack of something strong (and with a strong word) not on bin Laden’s birthday, but on May 2. Because it was on May 2, 2011 that Osama Bin Laden ended his life, having received a bullet from an American special forces soldier on the outskirts of Abbottabad, Pakistan. One shot one kill. The fighter fired the second bullet into the already dead “terrorist number one” either as a control shot, or to take his soul away. With the help of video surveillance cameras installed on the fighters’ helmets and drones, the operation was monitored from the White House by the then US President Barack Obama.

Did the leader of radical Islamic militants understand that sooner or later he would be found and destroyed? After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the FBI offered $25 million for information about his whereabouts. All American intelligence was hunting for Osama. And hardly anyone was going to take this monster alive.

"How ironic"

Soon after the terrorist attack in the United States, monstrous in concept, audacity and number of victims (3 thousand people), a guest of one of the episodes of the program of the famous TV presenter Larry King was Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Recalling the stages of the military journey of the leader of Al Qaeda (an organization banned in the Russian Federation), the Saudi noted: once, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, Osama personally thanked the prince for bringing him together with the Americans, who provided invaluable assistance to the Mujahideen in the fight with godless communists... “How ironic,” responded Larry King.

Many details of this “visionary” support still remain top secret. But you can’t hide an sew in a bag. That is, she didn’t sew, of course, but 40 billion dollars, which, as part of the CIA’s Operation Cyclone, came from the United States and Saudi Arabia for jihad against Soviet soldiers, and weapons that were supplied to Afghanistan - up to the Stinger MANPADS, of which “spirits” shot down Soviet helicopters. Later, in the States themselves, the CIA was even accused of the fact that bin Laden was trained by American specialists in guerrilla warfare and the fight against the Soviets. But it seems that no one perceived Islamic radicals as a real threat to the security of the United States at that time. Moreover, Osama was like “one of their own” for them.

A boy from a good family

Osama's father Mohammed bin Laden- a Saudi construction magnate and multimillionaire, married either in turn or simultaneously to several women - conceived 52 children, Osama was the seventeenth in a row. Mohammed divorced his Syrian mother shortly after the birth of his son, marrying her off to one of his close associates. But he did not give up on his son, and after his father’s death he received an inheritance of three tens of millions of dollars.

The boy studied at a prestigious school in Jeddah, where he entered King Abdulaziz University. He studied economics and business management, played football as a center forward in a local team, supported the London Arsenal, wrote poetry, which he may even have read to the girl he married at the age of 17... Researchers of the life path of “terrorist no. one”, in the end they counted up to 26 children from 6 wives.

Osama bin Laden with his son. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Osama studied in Riyadh and even in London, continuing to learn the secrets of management, as well as engineering. Perhaps a few more semesters, and the world would have received another unscrupulous world-eater from the construction business with offices in London and Riyadh, a villa on the Cote d'Azur of France, where he would have fun in the company of European fashion models. But at the age of 16, this guy joined one of the fundamentalist groups and became passionate about the ideas of fighting the infidels and rebuilding the world in accordance with the laws of Islam - as they understood them there. And they understood them this way: when they manage to “defeat the West and the Jews,” the whole world will supposedly accept Islam. In the meantime, we need to help like-minded people in Afghanistan overcome another enemy (the USSR), and for this it is quite possible to use the help of another enemy - the United States.

In 1979, Osama dropped out of university and went to Pakistan, which at that time was the rear of combat troops in their fight against Soviet troops in Afghanistan. At first, he spent his own money to support the Mujahideen, but in 1984, together with a Palestinian from the Muslim Brotherhood movement, Abdallah Azzam, he created an organization that was engaged in transporting militants and money to the Afghan resistance. The organization collected donations, recruited fighters around the world, and created and supported training camps for fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Things were going well.

The USSR eventually had to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 1989. But back in 1988, apparently foreseeing a quick reduction in the field of activity in Afghanistan itself, Osama bin Laden decided to open a new “business” - he founded the Al-Qaeda organization (translated from Arabic as a base). In essence, it was a transnational network of people ready to fight for their faith and life according to its rules all over the world. This, as expected, led to conflicts with the authorities of those countries that, according to Osama bin Laden, deviated from these rules.

No fixed abode

In 1991, Osama was asked to leave even his native Saudi Arabia for his anti-government activities, criticism of the country’s royal family’s cooperation with the Americans, and problems created for the sheikhs. And in 1994, Saudi citizenship was completely deprived. Two years later, the already well-known leader of the terrorist organization, under pressure from the United States and the UN, Sudan “threw out” to Ethiopia, and from Ethiopia bin Laden in 1996 again moved to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Nasser Al-Bahri, who was the personal bodyguard of the al-Qaeda leader from 1997 to 2001, recalled in his memoirs: Osama was a modest man, but a strict father, who, however, loved to take his large family somewhere outdoors - for a picnic and shoot with machine guns.

Meanwhile, back in 1990, FBI agents found papers with references to plans to blow up one of the New York skyscrapers from one of the al-Qaeda members detained in New York. It’s unlikely that everyone remembers: one of the cells of the international terrorist international carried out this plan on February 23, 1993, by blowing up a truck with several hundred kilograms of explosives in the underground garage of that same World Trade Center. However, there were few casualties and the damage was relatively minor; the building survived.

Osama bin Laden, as the leader of al-Qaeda, was suspected of organizing or assisting terrorists who carried out several more terrorist attacks around the world, including in Saudi Arabia. But the most notorious were the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998. More than 200 people became victims of those attacks, including 12 US citizens. It was after those terrorist attacks that Osama found himself on the FBI's list of most wanted criminals.

However, bin Laden himself clearly did not want to be known as just a serial killer. After 2001, the terrorist allowed himself to speculate on the causes of the economic crisis in the United States. In 2015, American intelligence agencies declassified some of the papers seized from Osama bin Laden’s house in Pakistan: among them, for example, there was a letter “to the American people,” apparently written shortly after Barack Obama became US President in 2009. The letter revealed interesting things - for example, it followed that Osama was seriously concerned... about the threat of climate change on Earth and saving the planet from harmful gases...

Osama bin Laden. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Ends in the water

After his liquidation, American special forces loaded bin Laden's corpse onto a helicopter and delivered it to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea. “The officer read prepared excerpts from the funeral rite, which were then translated into Arabic by a native speaker,” a US Department of Defense spokesman said. The body, wrapped in a white shroud, was placed in a weighted bag and carefully lowered into the water. As the officials explained, there was no time to negotiate with any of the countries about a funeral on their territory, and they did not want to give the sufferers the opportunity to turn the grave of “terrorist number one” into an object of worship or a tourist attraction.

However, the “battle of civilizations” did not end with the death of Osama bin Laden. Thanks to the efforts of the same USA, it has become even more acute. Al-Qaeda is also alive, whose Syrian “cells,” for example, continue the armed struggle against the army of Bashar al-Assad. Moreover, last year the 25-year-old son of the late Osama bin Laden, Hamza, called on militants in Syria to unite to fight Israel and its American allies. The number one son of terrorist promised to avenge the death of his father and his other “spiritual brothers” on all Americans by attacking them anywhere and everywhere. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎‎, born March 10, 1957, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - May 2, 2011, Abbottabad, Pakistan) - founder and former leader of an international Islamist terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, which has claimed responsibility for a number of large-scale terrorist attacks in various parts of the world, such as the bombings of US embassies in Africa and the attacks of September 11, 2001.

He was included in the FBI's list of "most dangerous terrorists" and until 2011 was the main target of the international campaign led by the United States, called the "War on Terror", which included the invasion of Afghanistan, one of the stated goals which was the capture of bin Laden.

According to the official version voiced by the US authorities, bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 as a result of a special operation carried out by the US in one of the cities of Pakistan. His death was confirmed by al-Qaeda. After his assassination, leadership of the organization passed to Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Conflicting information is often found in different sources about the biography of Osama bin Laden and his family life. The same applies to assessing his personality and methods for achieving goals.

His birth is dated to the second half of the 1950s, probably 1957, which is indirectly confirmed by his own testimony that he lost his father when he was 10 years old; place of birth - Saudi Arabia, Jeddah or Riyadh.

Osama grew up in Hejaz. He studied at the al-Tagher school, then at the King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah (there is conflicting information about the specialty he received at the university - construction engineer, or economics and management, or public administration). His teachers may have included the brother of Muslim Brotherhood founder Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb.

Around this time, Osama bin Laden began a career in the construction business, which did not stop him from joining the Afghan Jihad movement, where he eventually became one of the prominent figures. He later recalled: “When the invasion of Afghanistan began, I was angry and immediately went there - I arrived in Afghanistan at the very end of 1979.”.

In January 1980, he visited the Pakistani city of Lahore, where he established his first contacts with the leaders of Islamic groups opposing the Kabul government. On a regular basis, he began to provide financial support from personal funds to the leaders of the Afghan resistance. Together with the leader of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam, bin Laden created the Bureau of Services (Maktab al-Khidamat) and an organization to recruit Muslim volunteers from Arab countries. Bin Laden paid for the arrival of Mujahideen volunteers in Afghanistan and their training in training camps, where they were trained in terrorist and sabotage activities. In addition, he participated in battles against Soviet troops, commanding a detachment of 2,000 people (most of whom were volunteers from Arab countries).

According to former CIA officer Michael Scheuer, who led the bin Laden case and by 2011 a professor at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, American intelligence knew about bin Laden's activities in Afghanistan against Soviet troops, but contacts with never had it.

After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden lost interest in the USSR and Russia as an enemy and almost completely switched his attention to solving the problem of the Arab population of Palestine and the problem of the American military presence in the territories of Muslim countries. This can be judged by what Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who is called in quotation marks “the staff biographer of Osama bin Laden,” says.

In 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to the family contracting and construction business, headquartered in Jeddah, but his organization continued to help the opposition movement in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

During the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, Osama prepared a plan to defend his native country from the invasion of Iraqi troops and even offered the services of his mujahideen. However, at this time the United States and its allies came to the aid of the Gulf countries. Bin Laden spoke with slogans of active opposition to the American “occupation” of the “holy land” - Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also accused the Saudi rulers of collaborating with the United States. According to Said Buryatsky, in 1991, Saudi Arabia was deciding on the entry of American troops into the country, and Islamic scholars were divided into supporters and opponents of this idea: “It was then that Sheikh Osama opposed the entry and declared it kufr - and against him, the recently national hero, a life-and-death struggle ensued.”

Bin Laden's anti-government activities prompted the Saudi authorities to expel him from the country in 1991, and on March 5, 1994, he was completely deprived of Saudi citizenship. Osama bin Laden moved to Sudan.

The US government put pressure on the Sudanese authorities to extradite Osama bin Laden in connection with existing terrorism charges (he is believed to have sponsored the fight of Somali militants against US and UN troops in 1993).

In May 1996, in response to the threat of UN sanctions due to the alleged complicity of Sudanese authorities in the 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia, Sudanese authorities expelled Osama bin Laden from the country, allowing him to move to Afghanistan, where he continued Islamic extremist activities.

In Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden was considered a guest of the Taliban movement, which controlled 2/3 of Afghanistan. Using the pretext of tradition of hospitality, the Taliban refused to respond to the US government's request for his extradition. Negotiations with the Taliban on the subject of extradition only led to the fact that the Taliban promised to either try Osama bin Laden under Sharia law, or promised to hand him over to a neutral Islamic country, but this only if they were provided with the necessary evidence of his involvement in the terrorist attacks.

The US government rejected the Taliban's proposal and preferred military action to the diplomatic channels available to them. About two weeks after the embassy bombings, on August 20, the US Air Force launched airstrikes in Taliban-controlled eastern Afghanistan. There were strikes on suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, as well as strikes on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan where al-Qaeda was allegedly producing chemical weapons.

Evidence that the Sudanese factory produced anything other than medicine was weak enough at the time to warrant such a strike. The missile and bomb attacks on Afghanistan also did not achieve the desired results, and, as some critics felt, all these actions were a pre-planned petty political maneuver by Bill Clinton, undertaken in order to divert public attention from the scandalous case with Monica Lewinsky - the court hearing of this the case where Monica gave her testimony about her relationship with the president took place on the same day.

The fight against those whom Osama bin Laden considered the main enemies of the Islamic world, over time, became the meaning of his life and occupied almost all of his time. The former bodyguard of terrorist number 1, Nasser al-Bahri, in an interview with the British newspaper Daily Telegraph said the following: "Osama bin Laden is a workaholic. He will always be one move ahead of Western intelligence. His day begins before dawn, when he makes the first prayers, and ends late at night. And all this time he is constantly doing something, never resting . We lived in uncomfortable conditions, but this did not stop him from working, thinking and planning all the time. After prayer, he begins organizational issues, and then receives prominent people who come to visit, sometimes secretly. But for the whole day he does not do anything one break".

After the end of the Afghan War, Osama decided to continue the battle against the United States.

In 1996, bin Laden issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to destroy American troops in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. In 1998, he issued a second fatwa ordering Muslims to kill American civilians. The fatwas were written on behalf of a group of radical Islamic theologians. Osama bin Laden himself only brought them to the attention of the general public and he did not have the right to create fatwas as a person who did not have a spiritual education. These fatwas officially created the World Front against the Jews and the Crusaders.

Osama bin Laden was included in the FBI's list of 10 most wanted criminals as a suspect in organizing the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), which occurred on August 7, 1998 - exactly on the eighth anniversary of deployment of American troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. The attack in Nairobi killed 213 people and injured about 5,000 people. Among the dead, according to various sources, there were 12 or 13 Americans.

From that day on, US intelligence agencies designated Osama bin Laden the status of "terrorist number one", seized his bank accounts and promised to issue a five million dollar reward for information leading to his arrest.

It is believed that he also actively supported Islamists operating in the North Caucasus, Central Asia and other regions of the world. It was noted with reference to the FBI that bin Laden founded a fund to subsidize terrorists.

During the Bosnian War, Osama bin Laden visited Sarajevo. Bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aoduni received Bosnian citizenship in 1993. According to the Bosnian press in 1999, bin Laden was given a passport by the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alija Izetbegovic, as a sign of gratitude for the mujahideen's support for his desire to create a “fundamentalist Islamic republic” in the Balkans. Bin Laden financed the transfer of mercenaries from the Arab world to Bosnia with the help of Sudanese business partners.

A correspondent for the German magazine Der Spiegel, Renate Flottau, claims to have seen bin Laden in Sarajevo when he visited Bosnian Muslim President Izetbegovic in 1993. On February 3, 2006, at the ICTY, in the trial of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, British journalist, Guardian and London Times correspondent Eve-Ann Prentice testified under oath that in November 1994, the Bosnian President and Herzegovina, Aliya Izetbegovic was personally visited by Osama Bin Laden. Prentice said she saw bin Laden entering Izetbegovic's office shortly before interviewing the latter.

Osama bin Laden first visited Albania as a guest of the country's president, Sali Berisha, in 1994 or 1995, telling the government that he headed a thriving Saudi humanitarian aid agency. In December 1998, the head of Albanian intelligence, Fatos Klosi, said that bin Laden had personally visited Albania and represented one of the fundamentalist groups that sent fighters to participate in military operations in Kosovo. Klosi expressed the opinion that terrorists have already infiltrated various parts of Europe from bases in Albania, using illegal migration flows. Interpol, in turn, warned that Islamists have great opportunities to acquire false documents, since more than one hundred thousand blank Albanian passports were stolen during the 1997 riots. The involvement of bin Laden's operatives in terrorist activities in Kosovo was confirmed by Claude Kader, a French national who said he was a member of bin Laden's Albanian network. He stated that he traveled to Albania to train and arm militants in Kosovo. According to the same article, in 2000, Osama bin Laden was working in Kosovo, planning terrorist attacks during the Presevo Valley conflict.

Osama bin Laden has been actively involved in the Chechen conflict since 1995, sending al-Qaeda agents to the North Caucasus and sponsoring Chechen terrorists.

Bin Laden's representative in the North Caucasus was field commander Khattab, whom he met back in 1987. The connection with bin Laden gave Khattab access to unlimited financial resources and allowed him to gain a strong position in Chechnya. On the other hand, there are denials from the Chechen separatists themselves about connections with Al-Qaeda. In particular, Akhmed Zakayev, at that time the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the self-proclaimed Republic of Ichkeria, denied the connection between the Chechen separatists and Al-Qaeda (during the kidnapping of Russian diplomats in Iraq on June 6, 2006), and from his words it was clear that Al-Qaeda and Chechen separatists do not cooperate.

Since 1995, Osama bin Laden has repeatedly held meetings with one of the leaders of the Uzbek Islamists, Tahir Yuldashev, and helped him establish contacts with the leaders of the Taliban movement. Another Uzbek Islamist leader, Juma Namangani, received funding from bin Laden in the amount of three million dollars a year.

The US government has repeatedly accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of collaborating with al-Qaeda. The press wrote that Saddam Hussein met with Osama bin Laden and intended to transfer weapons of mass destruction into the hands of terrorists. These accusations became the main reason for the start of the war in Iraq. Subsequently, on September 9, 2006, these statements were refuted in a published report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee. Moreover, it turned out that Saddam Hussein not only had no connections with Al-Qaeda, but was at enmity with it. This conclusion, which refuted George Bush's statements about the long-standing ties of the Saddam regime with terrorist organizations, significantly undermined the authority of the US government in the role of an international arbiter, and also further compromised the quality of the work of such a serious organization as the CIA. Critics have noted that with this approach, unverified accusations of cooperation with terrorists could now become a reason for invasion of other countries in power by a regime that is disliked by the US government. Citing information provided by the FBI, the report said Hussein rejected Osama bin Laden's request for help in 1995.

In August 2002, the former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Afghanistan under the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Khaksar, said that Ahmad Shah Massoud (the head of the Northern Alliance - the main opponent of the Taliban movement, which controlled a significant part of Afghanistan) was killed on the personal orders of Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden's name was largely unknown until the world's attention was drawn to him by the US FBI's announcement that he was considered the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as a result which killed about three thousand people. The FBI said the evidence of al-Qaeda involvement was "clear and undeniable," a view that became the official view of the US government. The UK government came to the same conclusion.

Osama bin Laden's declaration of jihad against America, his 1998 fatwa, and numerous other calls to kill Americans were seen as evidence that he had significant motives for carrying out such a terrorist attack.

Bin Laden initially denied his participation in the events that took place, but later confirmed it. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden declared his non-involvement in the attacks in a broadcast by the Qatari television channel Al-Jazeera, in particular, he said: “I emphasize that I did not carry out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation.”. This speech was broadcast throughout the United States, as well as around the world. Since the link to the source has not been preserved, it makes sense to mention that, according to other sources, this was a text message read out by an announcer on Al-Jazeera. It was probably a fax message - the same or a similar message signed by Osama bin Laden was sent by someone to the bureau of the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) on the same day.

The non-involvement of Osama bin Laden was officially stated by Mullah Abdul Salam Zaif, the Taliban ambassador in Pakistan (September 13), the same was stated by an unnamed close assistant of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan (September 12 - by telephone to Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail, who is the chief of the Islamabad bureau of Abu Dhabi Television), as well as allegedly Osama bin Laden himself in an interview published on September 28 in the Daily Ummat (Karachi) to some unknown journalist under unclear circumstances.

The first video depicting Osama bin Laden appeared on the Al-Jazeera channel only on October 7 (indirect confirmation of this is in the official list of the Al-Jazeera channel dedicated to Osama bin Laden's messages), it contains ultimatum wishes to the United States and satisfaction was expressed with the actions of the terrorists, but Osama bin Laden did not say a word about his involvement (or non-involvement).

Thus, Osama bin Laden, having the opportunity to directly declare his non-involvement in the events of 9/11, did not do this. In addition, in this interview, he uttered new ultimatums to the United States, after which George Bush, through his press service, stated that Osama bin Laden actually took responsibility for the terrorist attacks. Although in fact, that video did not contain direct evidence. A month later, this was the reason that in an interview with Hamid Mir (November 7, 2001), Osama bin Laden expressed dissatisfaction with the methods practiced by the United States: “The US has no serious evidence against us. They only have assumptions. It’s unfair to start bombing with only these assumptions.”.

Shortly before the 2004 presidential elections in the United States, in another video message, Osama bin Laden publicly confirmed the participation of al-Qaeda in organizing the 2001 terrorist attacks, and also stated that he had a direct connection to this. He also said that the attacks were carried out "because we are a free people who do not accept injustice, and we want to return freedom to our nation". In this tape, obtained by Al Jazeera on October 30, 2004, bin Laden says he had direct control over 19 of the hijackers. He also reported: “I and Commander-in-Chief Mohammed Atta, may Allah have mercy on him, agreed that the entire operation should be completed in no more than 20 minutes, until Bush and his administration noticed what was happening.”.

On October 7, the United States and Great Britain launched missile attacks on Taliban targets in Afghanistan, which served as the beginning of the military Operation Enduring Freedom. The Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera broadcast Osama bin Laden's speech. In his address he stated: “Allah has hit America in one of its most vulnerable places. America is gripped by fear from north to south, from west to east. I thank Allah for this".

Promises to kill US President Osama bin Laden remained “on paper” for 10 long years. The US government promised $25 million for the head of “terrorist number one.” In 2007, the US Senate doubled the award (thus, at the time of actual death, the amount of the award was $50 million).

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden's death has been announced six times. He was first declared dead in December 2001, shortly after large-scale American bombing of the Tora Bora area in eastern Afghanistan. On September 23, 2006, a French newspaper published a document presented as a report from the Republic's intelligence services, which noted that, according to Saudi intelligence, Osama bin Laden died of typhus in Pakistan on August 23. However, this information was not subsequently confirmed. Shortly before her death, on November 2, 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said in an interview on Al Jazeera that Osama bin Laden was dead and killed by Omar Sheikh.

On May 2, 2011, as a result of a 4-hour secret special operation, Osama bin Laden was killed by members of the US Navy SEAL unit at a villa in the city of Abbottabad, 50 km from Islamabad.

Information about the murder of Osama bin Laden was confirmed by a number of sources. Thus, on May 6, confirmation was published on behalf of Al-Qaeda. The report of the death of Osama bin Laden was also confirmed by the head of Pakistani intelligence, Ahmed Pasha, and the US President personally: "Just over a week ago, I decided that we had enough intelligence and I agreed to carry out the operation. Under my leadership, an operation was carried out near Islamabad, Pakistan, during which the US military showed incredible courage, eliminated bin Laden and picked up his body", Obama said.

According to France Press, citing an unnamed official, along with the terrorist leader, his son, two couriers and a woman who was used by bin Laden's associates as a human shield were killed. Bin Laden's two wives, four sons and four close associates have been arrested. According to the US President, American special forces did not suffer any losses in the operation. As it became known later from the testimonies of the participants in the operation, they were not given the task of capturing bin Laden alive.

Two officials from the administration of US President Barack Obama, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Associated Press that DNA tests confirm the identity of Osama bin Laden, killed by US intelligence services, with a probability of up to 99.9%.

According to CNN, Osama bin Laden's body was buried in the Arabian Sea according to Muslim custom, although Islam prohibits burying bodies of those who died at sea. According to other sources, burial at sea is practiced extremely rarely among Muslims, but is not prohibited. The sea was chosen as a grave in order to prevent Osama bin Laden's grave from becoming a place of pilgrimage (as a martyr who died for his faith). Typically, this method of burial is used only when it is not possible to bury a Muslim on land within the next 24 hours. It is reported that the burial took place in compliance with all necessary Muslim rituals. Some of Osama bin Laden's sons expressed dissatisfaction with the way their dead father's body was treated.

Osama bin Laden's family:

Father: Mohammed bin Laden(1908-1967) - Saudi entrepreneur of Yemeni origin, who made a fortune in the construction business, founder of the Saudi bin Laden Group, who had close ties with the Saudi royal family. The bin Laden family, whose prosperity was started by Osama's father, is now one of the richest and most influential in Saudi Arabia; The Saudi bin Laden Group controls a significant portion of the Saudi economy in areas such as construction, oil production, shipbuilding, media and telecommunications.

Osama's father died in a plane crash in 1967 (according to other sources, in 1968 or 1970).

Mother: Aliya Ghanem, according to other data by Hamida, marriage with her became for Mohammed bin Laden, according to various sources (information is contradictory), the 4th, 10th or 11th; In total, Mohammed bin Laden has 52 or 57 children. Osama's parents divorced shortly after his birth, and Osama grew up with his mother and her new husband, Muhammad al-Attas.

Osama bin Laden was married five times. He married his first cousin in 1975. It was rumored that one of his wives was the daughter of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. But in an interview with Hamid Mir, Osama bin Laden said that all of his wives (of which there are three) are of Arab origin, and also said that he was connected with Mullah Omar only by religious duty and mutual respect.

Umm Khaled, a native of Saudi Arabia.

Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, is a Yemeni woman whom bin Laden married in the spring of 2000 (she is called the youngest wife of Osama bin Laden).

Umm Hamza, a native of Saudi Arabia.

Children. 17 sons. Their whereabouts are unknown.

Fourth son, Omar, at age 19, broke with his father and refused to fight with the Taliban. He became involved in the scrap metal trade in Jeddah. He, however, has repeatedly tried to speak to a wider audience in order to show that his father is not a terrorist, but rather a protector, and the very formulation used in relation to him is not correct. Just like Osama bin Laden himself, his son repeatedly tried to explain that the causes of the conflict lie in the aggressive foreign policy of the United States itself; according to Omar, the terrorist attacks were the result of despair - his father did not find a better way to achieve his goals. Omar claimed that he had not seen his father since 2000 and was in no way connected with his activities. In 2007, he married British woman Jane Felix-Brown, 24 years older than him, but they were married for only five months. In November 2008, Omar arrived in Madrid, asking for political asylum in Spain, but the Spanish authorities refused him.

The remaining children, most of whom live in Saudi Arabia, are engaged in legal business. According to another source, all the children of Osama bin Laden are mujahideen (that is, people leading the lifestyle of fighters for the triumph of the ideology of Islam). It should also be noted that according to the same source, Osama bin Laden called one interview (published in one of the Arab newspapers) taken from one of his sons a fake.

Other relatives: Osama's brother Yeslam bin Laden lives in Switzerland. According to him, he has not been to Saudi Arabia since 1987 and has not seen his brother since then. In 1974, Yeslam married Carmen, who is of half-Iranian and half-Swiss origin. The couple separated after 11 years. After the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's former daughter-in-law recounted her encounter with him: “Someone knocked on the door, I instinctively opened it, and there was this man standing in the doorway. I barely looked at him, after which he turned away, because my face was uncovered and Osama did not want to look at me. I know Osama was very pious. He is the only brother who refused to look at me.” The daughter of Yeslam and Carmen, Wafa Dufur, was born in California, lived for some time in Saudi Arabia, after which she was taken first to Switzerland and then to the USA. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, she took her mother's maiden name, and in 2005 she posed semi-nude for the men's magazine GQ.

Name: Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden

State: Saudi Arabia

Field of activity: Terrorism

Greatest Achievement: Became the number 1 terrorist in the world

Some are famous for their scientific discoveries, others for their talent as a singer, actor or artist. But there are some individuals who are famous not only for their abilities, but also for their cruelty to others. Moreover, to achieve goals, all means are good for them.

The 90s and the beginning of the 2000s were truly the years of a surge in terrorism, when countries were shaken by horrific waves of terrorist attacks. The bandits did not spare anyone - children, women, and old people became victims. What goals the terrorists pursued and what guided them when choosing new attack sites is now difficult to say, and even useless. It's already done. But even people who are far from law enforcement agencies and the technology of conducting various special operations understand that all the actions of the militants were controlled by one person - the leader of the group.

And during this period, one name began to sound most often in the press and on the lips of ordinary citizens (and even more so after the tragedy of September 11, 2001 in New York). The man who became the number 1 target of the American intelligence services. Responsible for the deaths of thousands of people (and we’re not just talking about the passengers of the fatal flights and the workers of the twin towers). This name still evokes hostility, even several years after his death. But sometimes you want to understand how a person came to this path? What made him start terrorist activities and create an entire army called Al-Qaeda? How did Osama Bin Laden become the #1 terrorist?

Early life

The biography of this man is quite scanty, there is not much information about him, but we will try to lift the veil of secrecy. Future terrorist No. 1 was born in the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, on March 10, 1957 in the family of millionaire Mohammed Bin Laden, a Yemeni by birth, who made his fortune in real estate construction. Osama's mother was a Syrian, one of Mohammed's wives.

My father started out as a simple laborer and soon became successful in business, even so successful that he made good friends with members of the royal family. When Osama was still young, his parents separated, and the child lived with his mother, who soon remarried and gave birth to four more offspring. And in 1968, his father died in a plane crash.

His father’s connections and considerable family money allowed Osama to receive an excellent education - first at school, then at the university at the Faculty of Economics. After his father's death, he inherited part of his fortune. Considering that Mohammed had as many as 52 heirs, the amount of his total fortune accumulates is considerable. However, it was he, the “son of a slave” (as Osama’s numerous brothers and sisters contemptuously called him), who inherited the construction business. At first he followed in his father’s footsteps and became involved in real estate, but he was distracted from further secular profession by the war in Afghanistan. In this country, the jihadist movement was gradually raising its head, and Osama, having arrived on the front line in 1979, did not fail to join the radicals.

It should be noted that Bin Laden was a very young man. He was unhappy that Western influence on Arabic was getting stronger and worse. Therefore, the ideas of holy jihad by Abdullah Azzam, the leader of the extremist group Muslim Brotherhood, came to fruition.

Killing of Osama Bin Laden

Osama personally participated in the battles and paid from his own pocket for the equipment and travel of everyone who wanted to fight in Afghanistan. At first, the main enemy was, but after the withdrawal of troops, Osama switched to the United States, because the country deployed its armed forces everywhere, in almost all Arab countries. In the late 1980s, Bin Laden created his own group and called it “Al-Qaeda,” which translated meant foundation, principle. It is gradually growing - training centers are appearing in many Arab and European countries. Already since the 1990s. Osama strikes at American forces - in 1992, a hotel in Yemen was blown up by a bomb, in 1993, Somali extremists are training in Bin Laden's camps.

For his harsh statements, Bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1994, and then, in 1996, from Sudan. He settled in Afghanistan. Now his enemy was not only the United States, but also its allies, and this was not about the military, but about the civilian population.

The most famous attack occurred on September 11, 2001. Four passenger planes were hijacked by terrorists - two crashed into the World Trade Center towers, one crashed into the Pentagon, and another into a field. The number of victims was in the thousands. After this tragedy, American authorities announced a real hunt for Bin Laden.

For 10 years from the date of the attack, the special services tried to eliminate terrorist No. 1. The reward for his head was constantly increasing, but to no avail. There were rumors that he died of illness, was killed, but everything turned out to be a rumor. Until May 2, 2011. On this day, American intelligence agencies conducted a secret operation to eliminate Osama at his estate near Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.

The operation was successful - the US President himself confirmed the death of the former enemy. Osama Bin Laden's body was buried at sea to avoid pilgrimages to the grave of other extremists for whom he was a cult figure.