Who is Osama bin Laden?

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (Arabic: أسا‌مة بن محمد بن عو‌ض بن لا‌د‌ن, romanized: Usāmah ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAwaḍ ibn Lādin; 10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi Arabian-born militant and founder of the pan-Islamic militant organization Al-Qaeda. The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various other countries. Under bin Laden, Al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.

As a member of the wealthy Bin Laden family, Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia. His father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined the Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, lost his Saudi citizenship in 1994, and shifted his base to Sudan until US pressure forced him to leave in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, launching a series of bombings and other violent related attacks. His involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings landed him on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists.

Bin Laden masterminded the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people and led President George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan and launch the "War on Terror". He became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt, during which the FBI offered a $25 million bounty on him. On 2 May 2011, he was killed by U.S. special operations forces at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

A highly influential ideologue, bin Laden was able to first acquire sympathizers in the Islamic World due to his status a war-hero of the Afghan Jihad and subsequent focus on attacking Western imperialism. His targeting of civilians and hostile activities against Western governments have made him a reviled figure in the Western world and Western culture, and his role in the September 11 attacks has made public opinion of him in the United States unequivocally negative.