Osama bin Laden ::: Project ETERNITY

Usāmah bin Muhammad bin `Awad bin Lādin (born March 10, 1957 or July 30, 1957) (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عود بن لادن), commonly known as Osama bin Laden (أسامة بن لادن), is the head of al-Qaeda, a militant Islamist organization that has been involved in terrorist attacks against civilians and military targets around the world.

He is a member of the immensely wealthy bin Laden family. The bin Laden family publicly disowned Osama bin Laden in 1994, shortly before the Saudi Arabian government revoked his citizenship, and several years before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The government of the United States named Osama bin Laden the prime suspect in the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed at least 2,752 people, although he has not been formally charged. For more information, see Osama and September 11 below.

Bin Laden is widely proclaimed to be the "most wanted man in the world." On March 18 2004, the United States House of Representatives unanimously voted to double the reward for information leading to his capture from US$25 million to US$50 million. His current whereabouts are unknown, although some believe he is hiding along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border or in the semi-autonomous Pakistani tribal area of Waziristan near the border.

Osama bin Laden speaks and writes Arabic, and possibly knows Pashto.

Names

Osama bin Laden's name can be transliterated in several ways. The form used here, Osama bin Laden, is used by most English-language mass media, including CNN and the BBC. The second most common English-language form of the name is Usama bin Laden (used by the FBI and FOX News), commonly abbreviated to UBL. Less common renderings include Ussamah Bin Ladin and Oussama Ben Laden (used in French-language mass media). The latter part of the name can also be found as ibn Laden, Binladen or Binladin.

Strictly speaking, under the Arabic naming convention, it is incorrect to use "bin Laden" as though it was a Western surname. His full name means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Laden." However, the bin Laden family (or "Binladin," as they prefer to be known) generally use the name as a surname, in the Western style. The family company is known as the Binladin Brothers for Contracting and Industry and is one of the largest corporations in Saudi Arabia. For this reason, although the Arabic convention would be to refer to him either as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden," using "bin Laden" is in accordance with the family's own usage of the name and is the near-universal convention in Western references to him.

Osama bin Laden has several aliases and nicknames, including the Prince, the Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, and the Director.

Appearance and manner

Bin Laden is often described as lanky — tall and thin, the FBI describes his height as 6' 4" (193 cm) to 6' 6" (198 cm) and his weight as about 160 pounds (75 kg). He has an olive complexion, is left-handed and usually walks with a cane. He wears a plain white turban and no longer dons the traditional Saudi male headdress.

Childhood

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Muhammad Awad bin Ladin, a wealthy businessman involved in construction and closely tied to the Saudi royal family. There is no definitive account of the number of children Mohammed bin Laden had, but the number is generally put at 54. In addition, various accounts place Osama as his seventeenth son, while others say he was the last of 25 sons.

His family originally came from Hadhramaut, Yemen. He was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim and in interviews he frequently invokes Allah (God). After his graduation from secondary school in 1973, bin Laden went to Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and allegedly frequented bars and nightclubs. As a college student, he studied business and project administration. He also earned a degree in civil engineering from King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah in 1979, possibly in preparation for taking over parts of his father's extensive construction and civil engineering business.

After his father died, bin Laden inherited what was first estimated to be a fortune of US$300 million; more recent estimates put his holdings at about US$25 million.

In 1974, at the age of 18, bin Laden married his first wife (and first cousin), Najwah Ghanem. Islam permits men to take as many as four wives at one time and Bin Laden reportedly married four other women, divorcing one. He has fathered at least 24 children. Najwah, a Syrian and his mother's niece, reportedly had 11 children by bin Laden, seven of them sons, including Abdallah, Omar, Saad, and Muhammad. Saad, born in 1979, is reportedly active in an Iran-based al-Qaida network. Omar and Abdallah were reportedly organizing the U.S. branch of the World Congress of Muslim Youth in Falls Church, Virginia during the 1990s.

Afghan Jihad

His wealth and connections permitted him to pursue his interest in supporting the mujahedeen, Muslim guerrillas fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. (See: the History of Afghanistan.) By 1984 he had established an organization named Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK) (Office of Order in English), which funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the world into the Afghan war.

Formation of al-Qaeda