Bin Laden's Rise to Power

Bin Laden's rise to most wanted international terrorist was not an overnight sensation. From 1979 to 1989, the Soviet Union fought a disastrous, and ultimately unsuccessful, war to conquer the mountain passes and arid plains of Afghanistan.  In the early 1980s bin Laden joined the ranks of the American-backed mujahadeen, the "holy warriors" who fought the Soviet troops with an estimated $6 billion in American weapons. When the fighting ended, bin Laden emerged as the leader of an organization of battle-hardened veterans and religious fundamentalists crusading to oppose non-Islamic governments with violence. Osama Bin Laden calls his group al Qaeda, Arabic for "The Base."

According to court papers, al Qaeda quickly developed a strong anti-American outlook. The United States' involvement in the 1991 Gulf War and 1992 famine relief mission in Somalia only strengthened bin Laden's hatred -- al Qaeda considered the U.S. military's continued presence in the Middle East "American occupation of Islamic countries."

Terrorism Against America

In a Declaration of Jihad dated Aug. 23, 1996, bin Laden publicly challenged the United States for the first time.  He called for religious youths to kill the American occupiers of the kingdom. “The walls of oppression and humiliation,” said the fatwa, “cannot be demolished except in a rain of bullets.”
In February 1998,  he issued a fatwa calling for the deaths of all Americans. He did not differentiate between military and civilian, or between man, woman, or child.

His followers have been tied to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York; a blast at the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan; the killing of German tourists outside Luxor, Egypt; plots to assassinate Bill Clinton, the president of Egypt Mubarak in Ethiopia; and a scheme to blow up six American 747 airliners over the Pacific Ocean.

In speaking of his connection with these attacks and with those who perpetrate them, bin Laden uses a kind of double talk.  On the one hand he expresses support and praise for acts of terror, referring to them as righteous and just acts, while at the same time disavowing all responsibility for their execution.

"If someone can kill an American soldier," bin Laden once said in an  interview, "it is better than wasting time on other matters."

Osama Bin Laden uses the internet to...

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