Gene Sasson, Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden Osama bin Laden's family: Life behind the high wall. A fiend with ideas. Who will remember Osama bin Laden on his al-Qaeda birthday and death

Osama bin Laden

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

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

How Bin Laden Was Destroyed

Terrorist No. 1 was not found at all 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 resort village of Abbottabad in Pakistan, an hour's drive from Islamabad, that is, literally under the noses 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 the description of Reuters, was more like a real fortress. The cottage, which was built only six years ago, as it now turns out, specifically as the residence of the head of al-Qaeda, was about eight times the size of the average houses in this village, and its two-meter fence was crowned with circles of barbed wire. The inner territory was divided into zones, separated by blank walls. Inside, a fortified bunker was hidden, where bin Laden spent most of his time.

Osama bin Laden and his "right hand", the 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.

Even the residents of Abbottabad were amazed by the closed measures: garbage was never thrown out of the cottage (it was burned right on the territory), and neither the telephone nor the Internet network was connected to the house.

To figure out the real whereabouts of the al-Qaeda leader, US intelligence agencies have been tracking down one of the al-Qaeda couriers for more than four years. This courier came to light from those arrested for helping organize the 9/11 attacks. However, at first it was not even clear that he was connected precisely with bin Laden. Only in August last year did the intelligence services realize that they had probably reached 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 got several million dollars to build a real fortress.

Only after the information that bin Laden was here was finally confirmed, the American president personally gave the green light to the special operation. On Sunday, several helicopters appeared in the sky over Abbottabad.

The American marines who landed 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 hit by a bullet that hit him in the head), one of his sons was killed, and also, so far presumably, one of his wives, a courier and brother.

According to some reports, drone strikes on the house before the assault caused a fire in the building. The footage of the smoke was then shown by Pakistani television. Pakistani units were also involved in the operation itself. It is known that one of the helicopters involved crashed on approach for technical reasons, two crew members died.

justice done

After the liquidation took place, it was immediately reported to US President Barack Obama. American TV channels announced Obama's emergency speech with an unprecedented statement, but the essence of it was not known at first. Among bloggers and Twitter users around the world, a variety of assumptions appeared, the most popular of which, however, at first was the death of Muammar Gaddafi.

Late in the evening of May 1 (around 7.30 am Moscow time) Obama appeared in front of the TV cameras.

“Good evening,” the American leader greeted. “Today I can tell the people of America and the whole world that 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 done

Ten years ago, on September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda-trained terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers in Manhattan in what was “the worst attack on the people of America in all of its history,” Obama recalled, killing 3,000 people. Since then, the main task of the US intelligence services has been the elimination of the world's main terrorist, the president noted. Obama thanked the Pakistani intelligence services that took part in the elimination of the leader of al-Qaeda.

The elimination of bin Laden was the biggest victory over 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 beyond, 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 incumbent US president.

The operation in Pakistan also caused a wide international reaction. The killing of bin Laden was welcomed by the Kremlin. “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. “Retaliation will inevitably catch up with all terrorists,” the Russian authorities are sure. 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 assured journalists in turn.

After bin Laden

Although the assassination of bin Laden was officially announced, his body was never shown to the public, and the footage of the disfigured corpse that appeared on Pakistani television channels was later declared fake. The final scientific confirmation of bin Laden's death should be given by a DNA examination, the results of which the US authorities will publish in the coming days.

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

At the same time, it is claimed 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 is in doubt. The Indian television channel Gio-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 of Al-Qaeda. “The real administrator of the terrorist network was No. 2, the Egyptian Ayman Az-Zawahiri, who was in 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 over all the communications threads of this decentralized terrorist network, which included cells in Iraq, the Maghreb countries, Yemen and Europe, the political scientist notes. “Basically, nothing will change in al-Qaeda,” Mirsky is sure.

In Islamist forums, in turn, they promise to avenge the murder of terrorist number 1. “Oh, Allah, please make this news not true ... Allah cursed you, Obama,” Reuters reports from one of the Arabic-language forums.

The US authorities fear possible new terrorist attacks. The State Department urged US citizens to be as careful as possible while abroad. “If the leadership does not respond 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 terrorist attacks,” Mirsky warns.

Nevertheless, in the fight against terrorism, the death of bin Laden, according to 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 a leader is not so important here,” objected 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 biggest success of the American authorities came at the time of the strong drop in the rating of the incumbent American president. 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 election. The first debate within the intra-party primaries will start in the US this week.

By defeating 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 grow, but it is still premature to say that Obama's chances for a second term are guaranteed: it is not clear who will be his rival from the Republicans,” said the Gazeta.Ru expert.

At one time, George W. Bush managed to show the Americans the detention of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Bush then won. It is 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 has been designated terrorist #1 in the US and other countries.

In this collection you will see very different photos of Osama bin Laden and his relatives. In these pictures you will see Osama as a teenager, Osama as a loving father, Osama as a Dushman, and finally Osama as the leader of al-Qaeda.

1. Osama bin Laden (second from right) during a visit to the Swedish city of Falun in 1971. The picture shows 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 older brothers held a business meeting at Volvo. Osama was remembered then as a calm, restrained 16-year-old guy who did not stand out from the crowd.

2. 1978: Osama bin Laden sits in a cave in the Jalalabad region of Afghanistan. It was then that he first took up arms.

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

4. 1989: Osama (right) in Afghanistan.

12. Osama bin Laden at a meeting with a group of reporters in the mountains of the southern Afghan province of Helmand December 24, 1998. Bin Laden was later implicated in a series of terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, the 1995 car bombing in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia in 1996, in which 19 American soldiers were killed and in the 1998 attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

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

15. An 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 into 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 broadcasting on Italian television in 2008.

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

People who have a face Osama bin Laden firmly stuck in memory with footage of the sinking twin towers in New York, they would rather 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 commando on the outskirts of Pakistani Abbottabad. 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 CCTV cameras mounted on the helmets of the fighters and drones, the operation was observed from the White House by the then US President Barack Obama.

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

"What an irony"

Shortly after the monstrous in design, audacity and number of victims (3 thousand people) terrorist attack in the United States, 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 path of the leader of Al Qaeda (an organization banned in the Russian Federation), the Saudi noted: they say, once after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, Osama personally thanked the prince for bringing him together with the Americans, who provided the Mujahideen with invaluable assistance in the fight with godless communists... "What an irony," said Larry King.

Many of the details of this far-sighted support are still top secret. But you can't hide an awl in a bag. That is, she didn’t sew, of course, but 40 billion dollars, which, as part of the CIA 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 at that time no one seemed to perceive Islamic radicals as a real threat to US security. Moreover, Osama was like “their own” for them.

Boy from a good family

Osama's father Mohammed bin Laden- Saudi construction tycoon and multimillionaire, married either in turn, or at the same time 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 to one of his close associates. But he did not refuse his son, and after the death of his father, he received an inheritance worth three tens of millions of dollars.

The boy studied at a prestigious school in Jeddah, where he entered the University of King Abdulaziz. He studied economics and business management, played football as a center forward in a local team, rooted for the London Arsenal, wrote poems, which, perhaps, he even read to a girl whom he married at the age of 17... one ”as a result, he had 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 comprehend the secrets of management, as well as engineering. Perhaps a few more semesters, and the world would have received another unprincipled world-eater from the construction business with offices in London and Riyadh, a villa on the French Riviera, 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 got excited 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 allegedly accept Islam. In the meantime, it is necessary 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 left the university and went to Pakistan, which at that time was the rear of the combat detachments in their struggle against the 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, Abdullah Azzam, he created an organization that was involved in the transfer of militants and money to the Afghan resistance. The organization collected donations, recruited fighters around the world, and established and maintained fighter training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Things were going well.

The USSR eventually had to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 1989. But back in 1988, apparently anticipating the imminent reduction of 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 - base). In fact, 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 even asked to leave his native Saudi Arabia for his anti-government activities, criticism of the cooperation of the country's royal family with the Americans and the problems created for the sheikhs. And in 1994, they were completely deprived of Saudi citizenship. Two years later, the leader of the terrorist organization, already known by that time, under pressure from the United States and the UN, was "kicked out" by Sudan to Ethiopia, and from Ethiopia, bin Laden in 1996 again moved to Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban.

Nasser Al-Bahri, who was from 1997 to 2001 the personal bodyguard of the leader of al-Qaeda, recalled in his memoirs: Osama was a modest man, but a strict father, who, however, liked to take his large family somewhere in nature - to a picnic and shoot from 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 is unlikely that everyone remembers: one of the cells of the international terrorist international carried out this plan on February 23, 1993, blowing up a truck with several hundred kilograms of explosives in the underground garage of the same World Trade Center. However, there were few casualties and relatively little damage, the building survived.

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

However, bin Laden himself clearly did not want to pass for just a serial killer. Already after 2001, the terrorist allowed himself to speculate on the causes of the economic crisis in the United States. In 2015, US intelligence agencies declassified some of the papers seized from the house of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan: among them, for example, was a letter to the “American people,” apparently written shortly after Barack Obama became president of the United States in 2009. Curious things were found in the letter - from it, 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 elimination, American special forces loaded the corpse of bin Laden onto a helicopter and delivered it to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson standing in the Arabian Sea. “The officer read pre-prepared excerpts from the burial rank, 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 bag with a load and carefully lowered into the water. As officials explained, there was no time to negotiate with any of the countries for 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 death of Osama bin Laden did not end the "battle of civilizations". Through the efforts of the same United States, it has become even sharper. Al-Qaeda is also alive, whose Syrian "cells", for example, continue the armed struggle against the army of Bashar al-Assad. Moreover, the 25-year-old son of the late Osama bin Laden, Hamza, called for rallying militants in Syria - to fight Israel and its American allies - last year. The offspring of terrorist number one promised to avenge the death of his father and his other "spiritual brothers" to all Americans by attacking them anywhere and everywhere. The apple fell not far from the tree.

Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden (arab. 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 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 September 11, 2001 attacks.

He was on the FBI's list of "most dangerous terrorists" and until 2011 was the main target of an international campaign led by the United States, called the "war on terrorism" (eng. War on Terror), in which the invasion of Afghanistan took place, one of the declared 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 conducted by the United States in one of the cities of Pakistan. His death was confirmed by al-Qaeda. After his assassination, the leadership of the organization passed to Ayman al-Zawahiri.

About the biography of Osama bin Laden, about his family life, conflicting information is often found in different sources. The same goes for assessing his personality and methods for achieving goals.

His birth is attributed 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 Hijaz. He studied at the al-Tager school, then at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah (there is contradictory information about the specialty he received at the university - a civil engineer, or economics and management, or public administration). Among his teachers may have been the brother of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb.

Around this time, Osama bin Laden began his career in the construction business, which did not prevent 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 the first contacts with the leaders of Islamic groups opposed to the government of Kabul. On a regular basis, he began to provide financial support to the leaders of the Afghan resistance from personal funds. 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 the battles against the 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, US 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 "Osama bin Laden's regular biographer," says.

In 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to the Jeddah-based family contracting and construction business, 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 complicity with the US. According to Said Buryatsky, in 1991, the issue of bringing American troops into the country was being resolved in Saudi Arabia, 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, recently hero, a struggle unfolded not for life, but for death.

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 pressured the Sudanese authorities to extradite Osama bin Laden in connection with the charges of terrorism (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 the Sudanese authorities in the 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia, the Sudanese authorities expelled Osama bin Laden from the country, giving him the opportunity to move to Afghanistan, where he continued Islamic extremist activity.

In Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden was considered a guest of the Taliban, which controlled 2/3 of Afghanistan. Using the pretext of a tradition of hospitality, the Taliban refused 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 transfer him to a neutral Islamic country, but even this only if they were provided with the necessary evidence of his involvement in the 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 carried out air strikes against the Taliban-controlled eastern territories of Afghanistan. There were strikes on alleged terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, as well as attacks on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, where al-Qaeda allegedly produced chemical weapons.

Evidence that the Sudanese factory produced anything other than medical supplies was weak enough at the time to warrant such strikes. The bombing and missile strikes in Afghanistan also fell short, and some critics felt that all of these actions were Bill Clinton's pre-planned petty political maneuver, undertaken in order to divert public attention from the scandalous case with Monica Lewinsky, a court hearing of this the case where Monica testified 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 eventually became the meaning of his life and occupied almost all of his time. The former bodyguard of Terrorist No. 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 step ahead of Western intelligence. His day begins before dawn, when he makes his 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 prevent him from working, thinking and planning all the time. After prayer, he proceeds to organizational issues, and then receives prominent people who come to visit, sometimes secretly. But for the whole day he does not do anything one respite".

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 the US military 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. With these fatwas, the World Front against the Jews and the Crusaders was officially created.

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

Since that day, US intelligence agencies have assigned Osama bin Laden the status of "terrorist number one", seized his bank accounts and promised to give five million dollars as a reward for information that will help his arrest.

It is believed that he also actively supported the 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.

Osama bin Laden visited Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. Bin Laden and his Tunisian aide Mehrez Aoduni received Bosnian citizenship in 1993. According to the Bosnian press in 1999, bin Laden's passport was issued by the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aliya Izetbegovic, in gratitude for the Mujahideen's support for his aspirations 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.

Renate Flottau, a correspondent for the German magazine Der Spiegel, 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 court hearings in the case of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the British journalist, correspondent for The Guardian and The London Times, Eve-Ann Prentice, testified under oath that in November 1994 the chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina Aliya Izetbegovic was personally visited by Osama bin Laden. Prentice said she saw bin Laden enter Izetbegovic's office shortly before the last interview.

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 was in charge of a thriving Saudi humanitarian aid agency. In December 1998, Albanian intelligence chief Fatos Klosi said that bin Laden had personally visited Albania and represented one of the fundamentalist groups that sent fighters to take part in the hostilities in Kosovo. Klosi expressed the opinion that terrorists had already infiltrated various parts of Europe from bases in Albania, using illegal migration flows. Interpol, in turn, warned that the 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 militants 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, developing terrorist acts during the conflict in the Presevo Valley.

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, the Chechen separatists themselves denounce ties to 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 of Chechen separatists with Al-Qaeda (during the kidnapping of Russian diplomats in Iraq on June 6, 2006), and according to him it was clear that Al-Qaeda and Chechen separatists are not cooperating.

Beginning in 1995, Osama bin Laden repeatedly held meetings with one of the leaders of the Uzbek Islamists, Takhir Yuldashev, and helped him to establish contacts with the leaders of the Taliban movement. Another Uzbek Islamist leader, Juma Namangani, received $3 million a year in funding from bin Laden.

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 were the main reason for the start of the war in Iraq. Subsequently, on September 9, 2006, in the published report of the US Senate Committee on Intelligence, these statements were refuted. Moreover, it turned out that Saddam Hussein not only did not have any connections with Al-Qaeda, but was at enmity with it. This conclusion, which refuted George W. Bush's statements about the Saddam regime's long-standing ties with terrorist organizations, significantly undermined the authority of the US government as an international arbiter, and 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 can now become a reason for the invasion of other countries in which a regime is in power that is objectionable to the US government. Citing information provided by the FBI, the report said that Hussein turned down Osama bin Laden's request for help in 1995.

In August 2002, the former Deputy Minister of the Interior 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 that controlled a significant part of Afghanistan) was killed on the personal order of Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden's name was, by and large, little known until the attention of the whole world was drawn to him by the US FBI's statement 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 for al-Qaeda involvement was "clear and undeniable", a view that became the official view of the US government. The UK government has come 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 substantial motives for organizing such a terrorist act.

Bin Laden initially denied his involvement in the events, but later confirmed it. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden declared that he was not involved 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 appeal read by an announcer on the air of Al Jazeera. It was probably a fax message - the same or similar message signed by Osama bin Laden was sent by someone the same day to the bureau of the Islamic Press of Afghanistan (AIP).

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaif, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, officially declared that Osama bin Laden was not involved (September 13), the same was stated by an unnamed close assistant to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan (September 12 - by phone 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 28th in the Daily Ummat (Karachi) to some unknown journalist under unclear circumstances.

The first video featuring 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 the messages of Osama bin Laden), it contains ultimatum wishes addressed to the United States and expressed satisfaction with the actions of 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. In addition, in this interview, he delivered new ultimatum wishes to the United States, after which George W. Bush, through his press service, said that Osama bin Laden actually took responsibility for the attacks. Although, in fact, that video did not contain direct evidence. This, a month later, caused Osama bin Laden to express dissatisfaction with the methods practiced by the United States in an interview with Hamid Mir (November 7, 2001): “The US has no serious evidence against us. They only have guesses. It is unfair to start the bombing with only these assumptions in hand..

Shortly before the 2004 US presidential election, in another video message, Osama bin Laden publicly confirmed the participation of Al-Qaeda in organizing the terrorist attacks of 2001, and also stated that he was directly involved in 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 restore the freedom of our nation". In this tape, obtained by Al Jazeera on October 30, 2004, bin Laden says he was in direct control of 19 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 notice what is happening”.

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

Promises to kill Osama bin Laden, the President of the United States, remained "on paper" for a long 10 years. For the head of "terrorist number one" the US government promised 25 million dollars. In 2007, the US Senate doubled the award (thus, by the time of the actual death, the amount of the award was $ 50 million).

Osama bin Laden's death has been reported six times since the September 11, 2001 attacks. The first time he was declared dead was in December 2001, shortly after the large-scale American bombing of the Tora Bora region in eastern Afghanistan. On September 23, 2006, a French newspaper published a document presented as a report by the secret services of the republic, in which it was noted that, according to intelligence of Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden died of typhus in Pakistan on August 23. However, this information was not confirmed later. Shortly before her death, on November 2, 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto announced 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 operation, Osama bin Laden was killed by members of the US Navy SEAL unit in a villa in the city of Abbottabad, 50 km from Islamabad.

Information about the assassination of Osama bin Laden has been confirmed by a number of sources. So, on May 6, a confirmation was published on behalf of Al-Qaeda. The message about the death of Osama bin Laden was also confirmed by Pakistani intelligence chief Ahmed Pasha and personally by the US president: “Just over a week ago, I decided we had enough intelligence, and I agreed to 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 AFP, citing an unnamed official, his son, two couriers and a woman who was used by bin Laden's associates as human shields were killed along with the terrorist leader. Bin Laden's two wives, four sons and four closest associates have been arrested. According to the President of the United States, American special forces did not suffer losses in the operation. As it became known later from the testimonies of the participants in the operation, they were not tasked with taking bin Laden alive.

Two members of 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, who was killed by US intelligence agencies, 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 the burial of the bodies of the dead in the sea. According to other sources, burial at sea among Muslims is extremely rare, but not prohibited. The sea was chosen as a grave 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 rites. Some of the sons of Osama bin Laden expressed dissatisfaction with such treatment of the body of their deceased father.

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 to 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 part 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 sources Hamida, marriage with her became for Mohammed bin Laden, according to various sources (information is contradictory), 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 in the family of his mother and her new husband, Muhammad al-Attas.

Osama bin Laden has been married five times. He first married in 1975 to his cousin. 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 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, - 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 the age of 19 broke with his father and refused to fight in the ranks of the Taliban. He took up the scrap metal trade in Jeddah. However, he repeatedly tried to speak to a wide audience in order to show that his father is not a terrorist, but rather a protector, and the very wording applied 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 attacks were the result of hopelessness - the father did not find a better way to achieve his goals. Omar claimed that he had not seen his father since 2000 and had nothing to do with his activities. In 2007, he married British 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 rest of the 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 a 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. In 1974, Yeslam married Carmen, who is half Iranian and half Swiss by origin. The couple separated after 11 years. After the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's former daughter-in-law recounted her meeting with him: “Someone knocked on the door, I instinctively opened it, and this man was standing on the threshold. I barely looked at him before he turned away because my face was uncovered and Osama didn't want to look at me. I know that Osama was very pious. He is the only one of the brothers 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 United States. After the September 11 attacks, she took her mother's maiden name, 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

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

The 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s were truly years of a surge in terrorism, when countries shuddered from terrifying waves of terrorist attacks. The bandits did not spare anyone - children, women, and the elderly became victims. What goals the terrorists were pursuing, what guided them when choosing new places of attack - now it is difficult to say, and it is useless. The deed is already done. But even people who are far from law enforcement agencies and the technique 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 after the tragedy of September 11, 2001 in New York). The man who became the number 1 target of American intelligence agencies. Guilty for the deaths of thousands of people (and it's not just about the passengers of fatal flights and employees of the Twin Towers). This name still causes dislike, even a few years after 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 Osama Bin Laden Became Terrorist No. 1?

Early life

The biography of this person is rather scarce, there is little information about him, but we will try to lift the veil of secrecy. The future terrorist No. 1 was born in the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, on March 10, 1957, in the family of a millionaire Mohammed bin Laden, a Yemeni by origin, who made a fortune in real estate construction. Osama's mother was a Syrian, one of Mohammed's wives.

My father started out as a simple handyman and soon succeeded in business, even so successful that he made good friends with members of the royal family. When Osama was still small, 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.

The father's connections and the family's considerable money allowed Osama to get an excellent education - first at school, then at the university at the Faculty of Economics. After the death of his father, he inherited part of his fortune. Given that Mohammed had as many as 52 heirs, the amount of the general fortune accumulates a considerable amount. However, it was he, the “son of a slave” (as Osama was contemptuously called by numerous brothers and sisters), who inherited the construction business. At first, he followed in the footsteps of his father and began to deal in real estate, but the war in Afghanistan distracted him from his further secular profession. In this country, the jihadist movement gradually raised its head, and Osama, having arrived at 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 the influence of the West on Arabic was getting stronger and worse. Therefore, the ideas about the holy jihad of Abdullah Azzam, the leader of the extremist group "Muslim Brotherhood", came to court.

Assassination of Osama bin Laden

Osama personally participated in the battles and paid from his own pocket for equipment and the relocation of everyone who wanted to fight in Afghanistan. At first he was the main enemy, 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 creates his own group and calls it "al-Qaeda", which in translation meant the foundation, the principle. Gradually, it grows - training centers appear in many Arab and European countries. Already since the 1990s. Osama strikes at American forces - in 1992, a hotel in Yemen was blown up with 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 their allies, and it was not about the military, but about the civilian population.

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

For 10 years from the date of the attack, the secret services tried to eliminate terrorist No. 1. The reward for his head was constantly increased, but to no avail. There were rumors that he had died of illness, 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. The body of Osama bin Laden was buried at sea to avoid pilgrimages to the graves of other extremists, for whom he was a cult figure.