Who is Osama bin Laden. Monster with ideas
Interesting facts about Osama bin Laden. The terrorist was born on the same day as Chuck Norris and was a fan of Arsenal.
2. The full name of Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Ladin.
3. The bin Laden family, whose prosperity was launched 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 such areas as construction, oil production, shipbuilding, media and telecommunications.
4. In 1991, bin Laden, settled in Sudan, went into business. He began to build roads in Sudan. Using the latest equipment and construction technologies, bin Laden paved 1,200 kilometers (a quarter of the total length) of good roads through the desert, providing work for tens of thousands of Sudanese people and connecting villages and towns of the country with the capital, Khartoum and Port Sudan for the first time. In addition to this business, bin Laden was engaged in pharmacology, having built the largest pharmaceutical plant in Africa in Khartoum, and with it a research center. Another area of \u200b\u200bbin Laden's activity in Sudan is the slave trade. This industry has long flourished in Sudan. But after the rise of the National Islamic Front, it acquired unprecedented proportions.
5. One of the most important sources of financing Osama bin Laden made the drug business. He bought modern equipment and invited chemical specialists, his main drug laboratories and warehouses were in eastern Afghanistan, not far from the city of Khost.
6. During the Bosnian war, Osama bin Laden visited Sarajevo. Bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aoduni received Bosnian citizenship in 1993.
7. Osama bin Laden has been actively involved in the Chechen conflict since 1995, sending al-Qaida agents to the North Caucasus and sponsoring Chechen terrorists
8. The name of Osama bin Laden, by and large, was little known until then, until the attention of the whole world was attracted to him by the statement of the US FBI that he was considered the main suspect in organizing terrorist acts on September 11, 2001.
10. Osama bin Laden was often described as a tall man; The FBI considers him tall and thin: height - 193-195 cm and weight - about 75 kg. Skin color is olive.
11. Bin Laden is left-handed, and usually walks with a stick.
12. Bin Laden was married five times. The first time he married in 1975 was his cousin. It was rumored that one of his wives was the daughter of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
13. Bin Laden has 17 sons and only two - Hamza and Saad - are related to Al-Qaeda.
Omar bin Laden, 26-year-old son of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, with his wife Jane Felix-Brown.
Abdullah bin Laden, the oldest son of Osama bin Laden, during an interview in Riyadh in 2001.
14. Osama's brother - Jeslam bin Laden lives in Switzerland.
15. Using unconfirmed information, the press widely wrote that Osama bin Laden inherited about 250-300 million US dollars from his father
16. In Islamabad, you can easily buy a T-shirt that says: "Osama Bin Laden is the hero of the planet." Made with an iron and carbon paper, but it costs $ 10. Moreover, prices are constantly rising.
17. In particular, in many Arabic-speaking forums, people set themselves avatars with his image, and also talk about him with undisguised admiration as the “Leo of Islam”, the defender of the Arab population of Palestine in their fight against Israel
18. The film Fahrenheit 9/11 describes the alleged friendship and business contacts in the oil business between Osama and George W. Bush.
19. Brasov Brewery (Romania) made beer under the brand name Ben Laden with its image on the label.
20. Osama was a fan of the London Arsenal.
Honestly, starting to read the book "Osama bin Laden's Family. Life Behind a Stone Wall", I didn’t really count on anything. After all, its author, Gene Sasson, is the same American writer who inspired horror films called “Princess Memoirs” about the life of princesses in Saudi Arabia. And whoever once visited the Middle East without a tour, and even better if he lived there for a couple of months, he begins to notice that Memoirs is a purely pro-American book written with so many oriental traditions and customs that are not true to the general truth, or so inverted and distorted that one can only be surprised and amazed.
But here Gene Sasson in the preface to “The Osama bin Laden Family” herself commented that this time she wouldn’t have a personal opinion in the book (more precisely, she would give it later), but she wrote the book based on the stories of Najwa, Osama’s first wife bin Laden, and Omar - their fourth son. More precisely, not even based on their stories, but this is their stories. I must say right away that the book is really divided into chapters, where narration is carried out in the first person: either of a wife, or of a son.
So, Osama bin Laden. The terrorist, the leader of the al-Qaeda group, who admitted his involvement in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York, as well as many others. But in the book very little is written about these terrorist attacks and there is practically nothing about preparing for them. As they say, Omar and Nadzhva, they simply did not know all the details, and therefore they tried not to touch on these topics. Omar was born in 1981, and when Osama bin Laden began to prepare the first attacks - for example, explosions in the American embassies of Kenya and Tanzania, he was still a young man. Nadzhva was just a woman, she was only concerned with children and household, she didn’t go out of the house when they lived in Afghanistan and, of course, Osama never shared her details. But he did not conduct all the preparations and negotiations with the militants in his house. Therefore, the book describes the details of only his personal life, relations with wives and children, his vision of the external and internal world.
Honestly, when I started reading Osama bin Laden’s Family, I literally immediately began to get the impression that this person was mentally abnormal. Of course, this did not appear immediately. As Gene Sasson writes, "people are not born terrorists and do not become terrorists in one second." But step by step, step by step ...
He married Najva for love, and she gave birth to 11 children over 25 years of life with him. In addition to her, Osama had five more wives. And, of course, when he told Najva that he wanted to take a second wife, she, like any woman, was pricked. But Osama explained to her that this was only for the sake of the children, for the Prophet Muhammad called for many of them. Najva calmed down and even then made friends with other wives. That is, from his youth (and he married Nadzhva when he was only 17 years old) bin Laden was turned on religion. And he gradually turned on it to such an extent that he came to the conclusion that there were enemies around. And first of all, American enemies who belittle Islam and Muslims.
His extremist orientation gradually got hold of the leadership of all the countries in which he lived. First, he had to leave Saudi Arabia for Sudan, then from Sudan, where he lived for five years, to Afghanistan. Moreover, together with the family, with all the wives and children. Osama bin Laden considered himself so religious that he himself interpreted the Quran as he wanted. And this was reflected not only in his activities, but, above all, in the life of his family. For example, he forbade the installation of air conditioners in the house, and even in the most terrible heat (and estimate what it is in Sudan!), All the households had to do without them, since he considered it evil. And only when one of the senior officials, visiting him, almost lost consciousness from the heat, he ordered the purchase of fans. Osama bin Laden forbade the children to watch TV and use any equipment, forced them to eat the simplest foods - rice and vegetables, sleep on the floor on hard mattresses. At the same time, he was extremely wealthy and he had money in order to create normal conditions for his family.
However, the way he treated children is simply not within my head. For example, for any fault of one of his sons, he called them all to his office, put in a row and beat with a special stick, which he bought for such cases. Beat everyone! But compared to his other actions, these are trifles!
So, while already in Afghanistan, he loved to walk along the mountains with Omar (he wanted to make him his successor). The young man was then about 17. And the mountains in Afghanistan are very steep and steep. Once Omar stumbled and almost flew into the abyss - he barely managed to grab the edge. Osama stood silently and watched his son try to get out. He never helped him. When Omar got out, he directly asked: "Father, you did not help me. What would happen if I fell and crashed now?" - "I would have buried you, son!" - was the answer.
But these are trifles. But the following story just killed me. Lobster, by the way, too. And it was after her that he completely broke with his father, escaped from Afghanistan himself and took away his mother with younger children. Here is how it was. At that time, their family lived in one of the militant training camps. Osama not only prepared them to fight with weapons in their hands, but also often read sermons to young people. And in the mosque hung a piece of paper, where after these sermons, those who wanted to put themselves on the list of suicide bombers. Omar emphasizes that bin Laden did not force anyone to become suicide bombers, but the sermons were such that very many (especially very young, with immature brains) recorded themselves.
“Once the father called all his sons, even the smallest. When we sat at his feet, the father said:
Listen to me, sons, a leaf is hanging on the wall of the mosque. It is for men who want to prove themselves as good Muslims. For those who volunteered to become a suicide bomber.
He looked expectantly at us, his eyes sparkled. Father did not tell us that we should add our names to the list of suicide bombers, but his words and expectation, clearly read on his face, implied that by doing so we would bring him great happiness.
No one moved. Father repeated his words. And then one of my younger brothers, too young to understand what life and death was, got to his feet and nodded reverently in his eyes at his father, and then ran towards the mosque. The little boy volunteered to become a suicide bomber.
I became furious and finally became speechless:
Father, how can you ask your sons about this?
He stared at me with obvious hostility and waved his hand:
Omar, you have to understand something. You occupy no more space in my heart than any other man or boy in this country. - He looked at my brothers. “This applies equally to each of my sons.”
Can a normal person say that?
The book ends with the events of September 11, 2001. Gene Sasson published it in 2009, that is, when Osama bin Laden was still alive. The Americans found and killed him at his estate in Pakistan last May.
What else can I say? According to the author of the book, Omar came to her himself, and then persuaded his mother to talk about the details of her life with her father. In general, the book is written in simple language, is read very easily, descriptions of difficult moments in it are rare. However, after reading it remains a very unpleasant aftertaste, which is not surprising when it comes to such a person.
I recommend reading to those who are interested in the details of the personal life of terrorist No. 1. But still, I repeat that I do not know how deeply you can believe the above. To be honest, I still felt some pro-Americanism in the book.
People who have a face Osama bin Laden firmly held together in memory with the footage of the settling twin towers in New York, they would rather pick up a stack of something strong (and with a good catch) not on bin Laden's birthday, but on May 2. Because on May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden ended his life's path, having received a bullet of an American commando on the outskirts of Pakistan's Abbotabad. One shot one kill. The fighter threw the second bullet into the already dead "terrorist number one" either as a control shot, or in order to divert his soul. With the help of CCTV cameras mounted on the helmets of fighters and drones, the operation from the White House was monitored 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 attacks, the FBI was 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 irony”
Soon after the terrorist attack in the USA, monstrous in design, insolence and the number of victims (3 thousand people), a guest of one of the issues of the famous TV presenter Larry Kingwas 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 said: once, after the Soviet troops left Afghanistan, Osama personally thanked the prince for bringing him with the Americans who provided invaluable assistance to the Mujahideen in the fight with the atheist communists ... "What irony," Larry King answered.
Many details of this “farsighted” support still remain under the heading “Top Secret”. But you can’t hide the sew in the bag. That is, it didn’t sew, of course, but the $ 40 billion that the CIA’s Cyclone operation received from the United States and Saudi Arabia for jihad against Soviet soldiers, and weapons that were delivered to Afghanistan, right up to the Stinger MANPADS, of which "Spirits" shot down Soviet helicopters. Later, in the States themselves, the CIA was even accused of bin Laden being trained by American specialists in guerrilla warfare and the fight against the Soviets. But, it seems, no one perceived Islamic radicals as a real threat to US security. Moreover, Osama was “their own” for them.
A boy from a good family
Osama's father Mohammed bin Laden - Saudi construction tycoon and multimillionaire, married either in turn or simultaneously in 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 under 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 the local team, supported the London Arsenal, wrote poems that he might even read to the girl whom he married at 17 ... Researchers on the life path of a “terrorist number one ”as a result, he 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 comprehend the secrets of management, as well as engineering. Perhaps a few more semesters, and the world would get 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 fired up with the ideas of fighting infidels and rebuilding the world in accordance with the laws of Islam - as they understood them there. And they understood them like this: when they succeed in “defeating the West and the Jews,” the whole world will supposedly accept Islam. In the meantime, you need to help like-minded people in Afghanistan defeat 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 combat units in their struggle 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 Abdullah Azzam, he created an organization that was involved in transporting militants and money to the Afghan resistance. The organization collected donations, recruited fighters around the world, created and supported 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 in the field of activity in Afghanistan itself, Osama bin Laden decided to open a new "business" - he founded the organization Al-Qaeda (translated from Arabic - base). In fact, it was a transnational network of people who were ready to fight for their faith and life according to its rules all over the world. This was expected to lead to conflicts with the authorities of those countries that, according to Osama bin Laden, were backing away from these rules.
Without a specific residence
In 1991, Osama was asked to exit even from his native Saudi Arabia for anti-government activities, criticism of the country's royal family’s cooperation with the Americans, and the problems created for the sheikhs. And in 1994, they completely deprived of Saudi citizenship. Two years later, the then-known leader of a terrorist organization under pressure from the United States and the United Nations, Sudan “rushed” to Ethiopia, and from Ethiopia bin Laden again moved to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in 1996.
Nasser Al-Bahri, who was from 1997 to 2001 the personal bodyguard of the Al Qaeda leader recalled in his memoirs: Osama was a modest man, but a strict father, who, however, loved to take his large family out into the countryside - on a picnic and shoot from machine guns.
Meanwhile, back in 1990, one of Al-Qaeda’s detainees detained in New York, FBI agents found papers citing plans to blow up one of New York’s skyscrapers. It is unlikely that everyone remembers: one of the cells of the international terrorist international realized this plan on February 23, 1993, blowing up a truck with several hundred kilograms of explosives in the underground garage of the very same World Trade Center. However, there were few casualties, and the damage was relatively small, the building stood.
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 loudest were the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998. More than 200 people, including 12 US citizens, became victims of those attacks. It was after those attacks that Osama was on the list of the most wanted criminals compiled by the FBI.
However, bin Laden himself clearly did not want to be regarded as just a serial killer. Already after 2001, the terrorist allowed himself to reason about the causes of the economic crisis in the United States. In 2015, US intelligence agencies declassified part of the papers seized in Osama bin Laden’s house 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. The letter revealed curious things - from it, for example, it followed that Osama was seriously concerned ... the threat of climate change on Earth and saving the planet from harmful gases ...
Osama bin Laden. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Ends in water
After its liquidation, the American special forces loaded the corpse of bin Laden on a helicopter and delivered to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, standing in the Arabian Sea. “The officer read pre-prepared excerpts from the funeral rite, which were then translated into Arabic by a native speaker,” said a spokeswoman for the US Department of Defense. The body wrapped in a white shroud was put in a bag with a load and gently lowered into the water. As officials explained, there was no time to negotiate with any of the countries about the funeral in their territory, and I did not want to give the opportunity for the victims to turn the grave of "terrorist number one" into an object of worship or a tourist attraction.
However, with the death of Osama bin Laden, the “battle of civilizations” did not end. Through the efforts of the United States, it became even sharper. Alive and al-Qaeda, whose Syrian "cells", for example, continue the armed struggle against the army of Bashar al-Assad, is still alive. Moreover, last year, 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. The number one offspring of the terrorist promised to avenge the death of his father and his other "spiritual brothers" to all Americans, attacking them everywhere. A bull’s not far from the apple tree.
Osama bin Laden was born March 10, 1957 in the capital of Saudi Arabia - the city of Riyadh. His father was the influential billionaire Muhammad bin Avada bin Laden, and his mother was the concubine of Hamid al-Atass. Shortly after the birth of the future terrorist No. 1, his parents divorced, and the boy stayed with his mother. Subsequently, she married again and gave birth to a new spouse of four children.
Bin Laden Jr. was raised as a Sunni. He studied at the best secular school and at the prestigious King Abdel- University, at the Faculty of Economics and Business Management. Some sources report that the young man was extremely diligent in his studies and successfully graduated from the university with a diploma. Others, in contrast, claim that Osama bin Laden dropped out of his third year.
Fotton The general condition of the bin Laden family was about $ 5 billion. After bin Laden Sr. died in a plane crash in 1967, his son Osama (one of the 52 children of a billionaire) inherited about 25-30 million dollars. While studying at the university, he began to show an increased interest in religion, diligently engaged in the interpretation of jihad and the Koran.
War in Afghanistan
Intending to increase the inheritance received, in his youth, Osama took up the construction business. He was distracted from quiet work for the benefit of his company by the military invasion of Afghanistan and the Afghan Jihad movement. The extremist was enraged by the outbreak of war and arrived in Afghanistan at the end of 1979, and at the beginning of 1980 he established the first contacts with opposition Islamic groups in the city of Lahore (Pakistan).
NTV After that, Osama bin Laden systematically supported the leaders of the Afghan resistance movement from their own financial resources. Together with Abdullah Azzam, who led the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood movement, Osama opened a Service Bureau and organized the recruitment of Muslim volunteers from the Arab world. An extremist businessman paid for all volunteers to come to Afghanistan and prepare them to participate in hostilities. Moreover, he himself participated in battles against the troops of the USSR.
Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan | Datanews When Soviet troops were withdrawn from the country, the terrorist lost interest in the Union and Russia, switching to the United States. He was infinitely angry with the presence of the American armed forces in the countries of the Muslim world, and he began to perceive the States as his key enemy. In 1989, the extremist again engaged in contracting and construction, while at the same time intensely helping the opposition from Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Al Qaeda
By the end of the 1980s, Osama bin Laden broke up with Abdullah Azzam, as the latter wanted the Arabs to join forces with the Mujahideen, while Osama himself wanted to see his compatriots as a separate military force. So Al Qaeda began to form. At first, this association was rather formal: the members of the group should only have good manners, be ready to listen and take an oath to follow their older comrades.
NTV A radical change occurred when, in late summer 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of illegally extracting Iraqi oil and sent troops into a small neighboring country. This war itself lasted only two days, but it was it that gave rise to a much larger and longer war in the Persian Gulf, in which the USA and the USSR took part.
The greatest concentration of Iraqi forces was concentrated near the border with Saudi Arabia, and Saddam Hussein actively called on neighboring nations for Arab unity. Osama bin Laden met with high-ranking government officials, hoping to dissuade them from accepting assistance from non-Muslim countries and offering powerful support to their own Arab legion. However, the extremist was denied.
Osama bin Laden with followers The head of al-Qaeda has repeatedly publicly condemned the invasion of the US armed forces on Muslim lands, arguing that only those for whom Islam is a native religion can defend Medina and Mecca. It is assumed that at the same time, Osama’s group gradually began to turn into an armed terrorist formation, and bin Laden’s discontent with US interference in Muslim affairs took on a completely finished form in the form of plans for future attacks.
Terrorist No. 1
Although the Gulf War ended in February 1991, everything was just beginning for Osama. He finally decided that the fight against the enemies of the Muslim world (with those whom he considered such) was the main goal of his life, and with enviable industriousness and determination began to engage in this struggle.
Observer So, in August 1998, his terrorist organization blew up the US embassies in Tanzan Dar es Salaam and Kenyan Nairobi. The attack was launched on August 7 (exactly seven years after the American troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War). The bombings in Nairobi alone killed 213 people, and about 5,000 people were injured in varying degrees of severity.
Since then, bin Laden has received the well-known status of "terrorist number 1" for the American intelligence services. Many bank accounts of the Islamist businessman were arrested, and for the information that would help detain an international criminal, they promised to pay five million dollars.
Fotton Nevertheless, the terrorist continued to actively support extremists living in Central Asia, the North Caucasus and other regions.
According to some sources, bin Laden even managed to establish a real “Terrorist Subsidy Fund”. The head of al-Qaeda also participated in the Bosnian war, helping the president of the state create a real “fundamentalist Islamic republic” in the Balkans. To finance the transfer of mercenary Mujahideen to Bosnia from the Arab world, Osama resorted to the help of his Sudanese business partners.
Fotton In the mid-90s, the extremist traveled to Albania, visiting the president. No authentic photos or videos have been preserved since then, but it is known that Osama represented during this visit one of the radical fundamentalist groups that sent their members to participate in the armed conflict in Kosovo. When the war in Chechnya began, the leader of the brutal and unprincipled Al-Qaeda began actively transporting his Mujahideen to this region.
September 11th Events
As you know, on September 11, 2001, a terrorist organization hijacked four passenger aircraft, which subsequently crashed into two towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a field near Shanksville (it was assumed that the fourth plane would crash into the Capitol). The monstrous acts of terrorism killed almost three thousand people.
Initially, Osama bin Laden rejected the involvement of his al-Qaeda terrorist group in carrying out these attacks. Later, he admitted that he knew about the upcoming attacks and discussed them with other leaders of the extremist underground, and after a while he completely assumed responsibility for what happened. In October 2004, Osama stated that the September 2011 attacks were, in his opinion, a fair punishment for the "tyranny" of the US-Israeli alliance in Lebanon and Palestine.
Detention and liquidation
And, and, and, tried to destroy the world-famous terrorist. The reward for bin Laden’s head increased to 25, and then to $ 50 million. During the years of the persecution of the extremist, many media and political figures reported that Osama was killed, died of typhus, and the like. However, later it turned out that the terrorist is still alive. Numerous operations to detain the terrorist were carried out in the United States, one of them is dedicated to the film “Target Number One”.
House in which Osama bin Laden was killed | Altaynews Bin Laden met his real death on May 2, 2011, when the US military conducted a secret operation in a terrorist’s villa. It was located near Islamabad, in the city of Abbottabad. Subsequently, many sources, including directly the US President Barack Obama, confirmed information about the murder of a terrorist and told where Osama was killed, how terrorist No. 1 was killed, how old he was at the time of his death, etc. Bin Laden's body, according to CNN, was buried in the Arabian Sea.
Personal life
Accurate information about the head of al-Qaeda is not so much. It was said that he was left-handed, his height was either a little over 180 cm, or 193-196 cm, he walked with a stick and was distinguished by the manner of speaking quietly. The extremist married several times and divorced several times, with a total of about 20-26 children born to him. It was reported that after the events of September 11, many of them moved to Iran.
Abbottabad, Pakistan) is the former leader of Al Qaeda, responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, as well as many other terrorist attacks. He was on the list of “most wanted terrorists” (Eng. MostWantededTerrorists) The FBI in connection with the bombings of the US embassies in Africa in 1998. From 2001 to 2011 was one of the main goals of the international campaign "war against terrorism."
On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed by members of the US Navy and the CIA SEAL unit in a shelter in the city of Abbottabad on the orders of President Barack Obama as part of a secret special operation. Shortly afterwards, bin Laden’s body was buried at sea. On May 6, al-Qaeda confirmed his death, promising to take revenge.
Biography
His birth dates back to the second half of the 1950s, probably 1957; place of birth - Saudi Arabia, the city of Jeddah or the city of Riyadh. His father, Mohammed bin Laden (1908-1967), is a Saudi entrepreneur of Yemeni origin who made a fortune in the construction business, the founder of the Saudi bin Laden Group, who had close ties with the Saudi royal family. The bin Laden family, which Osama's father initiated the prosperity of, 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 such areas as construction, oil production, shipbuilding, media and telecommunications. Osama's mother - Aliya Ghanem, according to Hamid, the marriage with her became for Muhammad bin Laden, according to various sources, the 4th, 10th or 11th; in all, 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's father died in a plane crash in 1967 (according to other sources, in 1968 or 1970). Osama grew up in Hijaz. He studied at Al-Tager school, then at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah (information on the specialty he received at the university is contradictory - a construction engineer, or economics and management, or public administration). Even in his school years, he participated in the Islamist circle. At the university, he met an Islamic theologian, jihad ideologist Abdullah Azzam. In his youth, he served in the Saudi Shariah police for some time.
During the Civil War in Afghanistan
It is reported that around this time, Osama bin Laden began his 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 subsequently 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 leaders of Islamic groups opposition to the government of Kabul. On a regular basis, he began to provide leaders of the Afghan resistance with financial support from personal funds. Together with the leader of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam bin Laden, created the Service Bureau (Maktab al-Hidamat) 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 the Soviet troops, commanding a detachment of 2,000 people (most of whom were volunteers from Arab countries).
According to former CIA officer Michael Scheer MichaelScheuer), who conducted bin Laden’s 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 the Soviet troops, but never had any contact with him.
The Creation of Al Qaeda
In 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to the family-owned contracting business headquartered in Jeddah, but his organization continued to support the opposition movement in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. During the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, Osama prepared a plan to protect his native country from the invasion of Iraqi troops and even offered the services of his Mujahideen. However, at that time, the United States and its allies came to the aid of the Gulf countries. Bin Laden spoke with the slogans of actively opposing the American "occupation" of the "holy land" - Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also accused the Saudi rulers of aiding USA. 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.
Sudanese period of life. Business
In 1991, bin Laden moved to Sudan, where the Islamists came to power. Having settled in Sudan, he was mainly engaged in business. He began to build roads in Sudan. Using the latest equipment and construction technologies, bin Laden paved 1,200 kilometers (a quarter of the total length) of good roads through the desert, providing jobs for tens of thousands of Sudanese and connecting the country's villages and towns with the capital, Khartoum and Port Sudan for the first time. In addition to this business, bin Laden was engaged in pharmacology, having built the largest pharmaceutical plant in Africa in Khartoum, and with it a research center. Bin Laden's other area of \u200b\u200bactivity in Sudan is the slave trade. This industry has long flourished in Sudan. But after the rise of the National Islamic Front, it acquired unprecedented proportions. The USA demanded that the Sudanese authorities expose bin Laden, and on May 18, 1996, he and his family moved to Afghanistan on the plane of the Afghan company Ariana.
Terrorist activity
After the end of the Afghan war, Osama decided to continue the "ghazavat" against the United States. He sponsored the struggle of Somali militants against US and UN forces in 1993.
Osama bin Laden was put on the list of 10 most wanted by the FBI criminals as a suspect in organizing bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) on August 7, 1998 - exactly on the eighth anniversary of the day 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 out five million dollars as a reward for information that would help his arrest. At that time, Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan and was considered a guest of the Taliban movement, which controlled 2/3 of Afghanistan. Using the pretext of the tradition of hospitality, the Taliban denied active assistance to the US government. Negotiations with the Taliban on the subject of extradition eventually led the Taliban to either promise to judge Osama bin Laden under Sharia law, or promised to transfer him to a neutral Islamic country, but this is only if the necessary evidence of his involvement in the terrorist attacks is provided.
He appears more as the inspirer and instigator, rather than the leader of the terrorist network. All those arrested during the investigation of the attacks referred only to his calls to fight with the Americans ... Thus, Frank Anderson, head of the CIA operations in the Middle East in the New York Times in the mid-90s, claims that bin Laden actually only controls a small part of the nearly 300 million dollars that, in the opinion of Washington, went to him from family capital, and even that was almost exhausted. Legend has it that he bravely fought with Soviet troops in Afghanistan. However, Anderson is convinced that bin Laden is not a fighter, but a kind of philanthropist who carried out a large charity work in Peshawar (Pakistan) among Afghan refugees.
The US government rejected the offer of the Taliban and preferred to use force over diplomatic channels available to them. About two weeks after the embassy bombings, on August 20, the US Air Force launched air strikes on the eastern territories of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. There were attacks on alleged terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, as well as attacks on a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, where, according to an unconfirmed assumption, al-Qaeda produced chemical weapons. Evidence that the Sudanese factory was producing anything other than medicine was weak at that time to deal with such attacks. The bombing raids in Afghanistan also did not achieve the desired results, and, as some critics considered, all these actions were Bill Clinton’s pre-planned minor political maneuver, taken to divert public attention from the scandalous case with Monica Lewinsky - a court hearing of this case , where Monica testified about her relationship with the president, took place on the same day. [
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.
In 1996, bin Laden issued a fatwa instructing Muslims to destroy the US military in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. In May of that year, Sudan expelled bin Laden, mainly in response to the threat of UN sanctions, due to the alleged complicity of the Sudanese authorities in the assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995 in Ethiopia. A month later, bin Laden moved to Afghanistan, where he continued Islamic extremist activities. In 1998, he issued a second fatwa directing Muslims to exterminate American civilians.
In the summer of 2001, Mullah Omar noted that Bin Laden has no right to issue fatwas, because he did not receive a complete Islamic education.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
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, the passport to bin Laden was issued by the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aliya Izetbegovic, in gratitude for the support by the Mujahideen of his desire to create a “fundamentalist Islamic republic” in the Balkans. Bin Laden funded the transfer of mercenaries from the Arab world to Bosnia with the help of Sudanese business partners.
Statements about the presence of bin Laden in Bosnia were made by foreign journalists. René Flottau, a journalist for the German journal Spiegel, claims to have seen bin Laden in Sarajevo when he visited the Bosnian Muslim president Izetbegovic in 1993. On February 3, 2006, at the ICTY, in court hearings on the case of the President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic, British journalist, correspondent for the Guardian and the London Times, Eve-Ann Prentice, swore that in November 1994 the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina Aliya Izetbegovic was personally visited by Osama Bin-Laden.Prentis stated that she saw bin Laden entering the office of Izetbegovic shortly before taking the last interview.
Albania and Kosovo
For the first time, Osama bin Laden visited Albania as a guest of President Sali Berish in 1994 or 1995, telling the government that he was heading a thriving Saudi humanitarian aid agency. At the meeting, Sali Berisha and bin Laden were also attended by Hashim Thaci, Ramush Haradinai, the former chief of the Albanian secret police Bashkim Ghazidede.
In December 1998, the head of Albanian intelligence, Fatos Klosi, said that bin Laden personally visited Albania and represented one of the fundamentalist groups that sent fighters to participate in hostilities in Kosovo. Klosi expressed the opinion that the terrorists had already leaked to different points of Europe from bases in Albania, using the flows of illegal migration. Interpol, in turn, warned that the Islamists have great opportunities to acquire fake documents, since during the riots of 1997, more than one hundred thousand forms of Albanian passports were stolen. Bin Laden’s involvement 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. In 2000, bin Laden also worked in Kosovo, developing terrorist acts during the conflict in the Presevo Valley.
North Caucasus
Osama bin Laden has been actively involved in the Chechen conflict since 1995, sending al-Qaida agents to the North Caucasus and sponsoring Chechen terrorists.
Bin Laden's representative in the North Caucasus was the field commander Khattab, whom he met back in 1987. The connection with bin Laden opened access to unlimited monetary resources to Khattab and allowed him to gain strong positions in Chechnya. On the other hand, Chechen separatists themselves sound denials of links to al-Qaida. In particular, Akhmed Zakayev, then the head of the Foreign Ministry of the self-proclaimed republic of Ichkeria, denied the connection of Chechen separatists with al-Qaeda (during the abduction of Russian diplomats in Iraq on June 6, 2006), and he said it was clear that Al-Qaida and the Chechen separatists are not cooperating.
Following a statement by Iraqi militants, Ichkeria’s Foreign Minister Akhmed Zakayev, who is now living in London, categorically rejected any connection between the Chechen separatists and al-Qaeda and demanded the release of diplomats without any conditions. “Their demands look at least naive. Especially if you recall how Russia acted, freeing hostages in the theater on Dubrovka and in Beslan, ”said Zakaev. In addition, he did not rule out that having put forward their demands, the al-Qaeda-related group and al-Qaeda itself tried to discredit the Chechen separatist movement.
As a rule, Osama bin Laden explicitly declares his intentions to individual countries, with the help of the media he communicates the causes of possible attacks and gives time for reflection. But in the case of a successful diversion, he does not always immediately report his involvement. As far as we know, most of the messages are addressed to the USA, Europe and the Muslim world. From these messages one can judge that Russia is not in the active sphere of Osama bin Laden’s interests. He did not take responsibility for the preparation of terrorist acts on the territory of Russia, but most importantly, his targeted messages to the CIS countries did not exist. Although Russia’s participation in the war with Muslims in Chechnya is occasionally referred to as something negative, given its eloquence and many years of experience in waging an information war against the United States, such messages in the context can only be considered as a small illustration of the situation in the Muslim world. .
§ To date, it is unclear how Osama bin Laden controlled Al Qaeda, it cannot be ruled out that some of the cells and people left the subordination and began to carry out such work that no one entrusted to them. Thus, references to the existence and activities of groups associated with al-Qaeda could get into the press, although in reality the relations of such organizations with Osama bin Laden and with Al-Qaeda software installations can be very relative. For example, it is necessary to remember that the administration of George W. Bush sounded words about the ties of Saddam Hussein with Osama bin Laden, then they refuted this information, but everyone knows what the consequences of such statements were.
According to a source that can be called close to Osama bin Laden, it seems that after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden lost interest in the USSR and Russia as an adversary and almost completely turned 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 quoted as “the regular biographer of Osama bin Laden” (indirectly, the words of the World are confirmed by an analysis of the messages of Osama bin Laden himself) says.
“Now I can say for sure that Osama bin Laden is not a fighter for Islam. His main and only goal is the war with America, says the World and explains: “He is not at war with the West. There is a stereotype - the war of the West and the rest of the world. No, he does not fight with China, Russia, France, Japan. All America has in his head now. ”
Throughout the 6 hours of the interview, one of bin Laden's guards was filming on camera. The film was transferred to Islamabad after the return of the journalist. When Hamid Mir asked the terrorist why he was so opposed to the Americans, he replied that he only now realized that the USSR and Russia were not a threat to Muslims, since the United States is the real enemy of Muslims. He said that the United States is an enemy for anyone trying to compete with them in economics or politics. “This is a new imperialist force,” he said, “which wants to control the whole world.” The Americans have very successfully used Muslims against the USSR, and now they want to use them against China, since China is a new threat to the United States.
central Asia
Since 1995, Osama bin Laden has repeatedly met with one of the leaders of the Uzbek Islamists, Tahir Yuldashev, and helped him to establish contacts with the leaders of the Taliban movement. Another leader of the Uzbek Islamists, Juma Namangani, received from bin Laden funding of $ 3 million a year.
Relations with Saddam Hussein
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 to the hands of terrorists. These allegations were the main reason for the outbreak of war in Iraq. Subsequently, on September 9, 2006, in a published report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee, these allegations were refuted. Moreover, it turned out that Saddam Hussein not only had no ties with al-Qaida, but was at enmity with her. This conclusion, which refuted the statements of George W. Bush about the long-standing ties of the Saddam regime with terrorist organizations, significantly undermined the credibility of the US government as an international arbiter, and also further compromised the quality of work of such a serious organization as the CIA. Critics have noticed that with this approach, unverified accusations of collaborating with terrorists can now become a reason for invading other countries that have a regime in power that is not acceptable to the US government. Referring to information provided by the FBI, the report said that Hussein rejected Osama bin Laden’s request for help in 1995.
The assassination of Ahmad Shah Masoud
After the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, the armed detachments of Ahmad Shah Masoud retreated to the Panjshir Gorge region, where they held the defense, not letting the Taliban go further north. Ahmad Shah Masoud led the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban military-political coalition that overseas part of the country over the next few years.
On September 9, 2001, in the village of Khoja Bahauddin, Tahar province, Masoud received two Arab journalists. During the interview, an explosive device planted in the camera worked. From his wounds, Masood died.
In August 2002, the ex-Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Afghanistan under the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Haksar, said that Masoud was killed by personal order of Osama bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden’s name, by and large, was little known until the attention of the whole world was attracted to the statement by the US FBI that he was considered the main suspect in organizing terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, during of which three of the four passenger airliners trapped in the air were sent to the buildings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the fourth airliner crashed in Pennsylvania. As a result of the obane skyscraper, the buildings adjacent to them and one wing of the Pentagon were destroyed, about three thousand people were killed. On September 27, 2001, the FBI released photos of 19 terrorists, accompanying them with information about their possible nationality, age, and possible nicknames and pseudonyms. The FBI investigation of the September 11 attacks was the largest investigation in the entire history of the agency, in an operation codenamed Penttbom more than seven thousand employees were involved. The US government has decided that Al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, is responsible for the attacks, after the FBI said Al-Qaida’s evidence of involvement was “ clear and undeniable". The UK government came to the same conclusion.
Osama bin Laden’s announcement of jihad against America, his fatwa from 1998, as well as numerous other calls for the killing of Americans were seen as evidence that he had significant motives for organizing such a terrorist act.
Bin Laden initially denied his participation in the events, but subsequently confirmed it. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden declared his non-involvement in the attacks on the broadcast of the Qatari television channel Al-Jazeera, in particular, he said: “I emphasize that I did not carry out this act, which seems to be 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 has not been preserved, it makes sense to mention that according to other sources it was a text message read out by the 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 on the same day to the Islamic Press Office of Afghanistan (AIP).
The first video with the image of Osama bin Laden appeared on Al-Jazeera channel only on October 7 (indirect confirmation of this is on the official list of Al-Jazeera channel dedicated to Osama bin Laden's messages), it contains ultimatum wishes for the United States and satisfaction was expressed from the actions of the terrorists, but Osama bin Laden did not say a word about his involvement (or non-involvement).
Prior to this, Mullah Abdul Salam Zayf, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan (September 13), unnamed closest assistant to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan (September 12, by telephone to Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail, who was the chief of the Abu Dhabi Television bureau of Islamabad), as well as Osama bin Laden himself, in an interview with an unknown journalist published on September 28 in the Daily Ummat (Karachi) under mysterious circumstances. There were other statements made on behalf of Osama bin Laden:
In this regard, the reaction of Osama bin Laden to the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington is very indicative. A few hours after the bombings, bin Laden’s representative in Europe, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, said such actions were banned by Islam, but “valuable lessons could be learned from them” and warned of the consequences of launching a military action against Afghanistan. A week after the events of September 18, 2001, Osama bin Laden’s plenipotentiary representative Suleiman Abu-Gayat phoned the Qatari al-Jazeera talk show and expressed admiration for the "martyrs" who committed these attacks, but denied Al-Qaeda in their preparation and implementation. On September 24, bin Laden sent a fax to Al Jazeera, expressing grief over the death of anti-American demonstrators in Karachi, without mentioning the events of September 11, 2001 in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. A few days later, on September 28, 2001, an Islamist newspaper in Karachi, Urmat Urdu, published the text of a conversation with bin Laden, where he denied any involvement in the attacks: “I have already said that I did not participate in the September 11 attacks in the United States. I did not know anything about these operations and I do not consider it acceptable to kill innocent women and children. ”
The authenticity of the words of all sources before the appearance of Osama bin Laden on the air of Al-Jazeera on October 7, 2001 is practically difficult to verify, besides they contain direct contradictions with respect to previous statements and fatwas of Osama bin Laden with his ultimatum requirements The United States, which can be formally regarded as a threat.
However, in an interview broadcast on Al-Jazeera on October 7, 2001, 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 uttered 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. However, in an interview with Hamidu Miru (November 7, 2001), Osama bin Laden noted that:
“The US has no serious evidence against us. They have only speculations. It is unfair to start the bombing, having only these assumptions in hand. ”
In November 2001, US occupation forces in Afghanistan discovered a video in a ruined house in Jalalabad in which bin Laden was talking to Khaledd Al-Harby. In this video, bin Laden confirms that he knew about the attacks in advance and directly led the terrorists. The video was widely broadcast starting December 13, 2001.
Osama bin Laden: The brothers who performed this operation, they all knew that it would be a death row, and we sent them to America, but they did not know anything about the operation itself, not a single letter. But they were trained, and we did not disclose the details to them, until they were there, until the moment when it was necessary to board.
On December 27, 2001, bin Laden released another video. In this video, he stated that “ Terrorism against America is commendable because it is a response to injustice aimed at forcing America to stop supporting Israel, which is killing our people", And also briefly mentioned his responsibility for the September 11 attacks.
In March 2002, Osama’s younger brother, Sheikh Ahmed, said in an interview with CNN that Osama could not be the organizer of the September 11 attacks in the United States: “He is my brother, I know him. I have lived with him for many years and I know how afraid he is of God. ”
Shortly before the 2004 US presidential election, Osama bin Laden publicly confirmed Al-Qaeda’s involvement in the organization of the terrorist attacks of 2001 in a video message from Osama, and also stated that he had a direct relationship to this. He also said that the attacks were committed, " because we are a free people that does not accept injustice, and we want to restore the freedom of our nation". On this tape, which was put at the disposal of Al-Jazeera on October 30, 2004, bin Laden says that he directly controlled the 19th hijackers. He also said: “ me and Commander-in-Chief Mohammed Atta, may Allah be merciful to him, agreed that the whole operation should be completed in no more than 20 minutes, while Bush and his administration did not notice what was happening».
Counter-Terrorist Operation in Afghanistan
On October 7, the United States and Britain launched rocket attacks on Taliban targets in Afghanistan, which marked the start of the Enduring Freedom military operation. Qatari television station Al Jazeera broadcasts Osama bin Laden’s performance. In his address, he stated: “Allah has hit America in one of its most vulnerable places. America is seized with fear from north to south, from west to east. I thank Allah for this ".
Drug business
Osama bin Laden has made the drug business one of the most important sources of financing. He bought modern equipment and invited chemical specialists, his main drug laboratories and warehouses were in eastern Afghanistan, not far from the city of Khost.
Search for the terrorist
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, Osama bin Laden’s death has been reported six times. The first time he was declared dead in December 2001, shortly after the large-scale American bombing of the Tora Bora region in eastern Afghanistan. Subsequently, it was alleged that bin Laden was hiding in the Afghan-Pakistani borderland. $ 50 million was promised for his head. For about ten years, the Americans and their allies could not find bin Laden. From time to time, through the media, his appeals to colleagues were spread.
So, for example, on April 23, 2006, in his audio message that was transmitted through the Qatari TV channel Al-Jazeera, Osama bin Laden again voiced his determination to fight against the infidels, "Crusaders and Zionists waging war against Muslims."
On September 23, 2006, a French newspaper published a document presented as a report by the republic’s intelligence services, which noted that, according to Saudi intelligence, Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan on August 23. However, this information was not confirmed in the future. Pakistani President Musharraf stated that bin Laden may be hiding in the Afghan province of Kunar under the guise of field commander Hekmatyar.
Shortly before her death, on November 2, 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto stated in an interview on Al Jazeera that Osama bin Laden was dead and was killed by Omar Sheikh.
On February 9, 2008, based on information from Washington, a statement appeared in the media that Osama bin Laden was hiding in the Pakistani city of Quetta together with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, from where he led the militants.
On August 12, 2010, the U.S. Military Tribunal sentenced former chef Osama bin Laden to 14 years in prison. Last month, at a trial in Guantanamo al-Qosi, a Sudanese descent pleaded guilty to ties to al-Qaeda and providing material assistance to terrorists in undermining the WTC and the Pentagon.
Appearance and character
Osama bin Laden was often described as a tall man; The FBI considers him tall and thin: height - 193-195 cm and weight - about 75 kg. Skin color is olive. Bin Laden is right-handed, but he sees poorly with his right eye and is forced to use his left when he needs to clearly distinguish objects in the distance, including aiming. The explanation is simple, when Osama bin Laden was still a boy, he once forged something from metal, and metal shavings fell into his right eye. the injury was very serious, and he was hastily taken to London to show to a specialist. the diagnosis of doctors upset everyone. They said that Osama bin Laden could no longer see well with his right eye. Over the years, he learned to hide his flaw. he preferred to be considered left-handed than they knew that one of his eyes barely distinguishes objects. And the only reason he shot while holding a rifle on his left side was because his right eye was practically blind. And as a rule, he walked with a stick. He wore a white turban, a traditional male headdress in Saudi Arabia.
It is believed that Osama bin Laden spoke only Arabic. In 2004 and 2005, two books were published in the United States with a collection of lectures, sermons, and letters from Osama bin Laden. The author of at least one of his books (“Messages to the World: Osama bin Laden’s Statements”), Bruce Lawrence, admits that Osama bin Laden may be a new prominent Arab poet and thinker whose views were very misunderstood by the world.
The author of the collection himself believes that he discovered for the world a magnificent example of the Arab rhetoric of modern times. According to Bruce Lawrence, Osama bin Laden’s work is comparable to the best examples of recognized master of oratory Gamal Abdel Nasser, the first president of Egypt.
I don’t really want to talk about it, but I still have to say: he is a master of Arabic literature, a little shy, as though through “not allowed”, Bruce Lawrence, professor at Duke University, the largest American authority on Islam, admits ...
In Russian, so far, only one translation of the work, made in the literary style, is known - this is the "Message to the resistance groups in Iraq" of October 22, 2007:
The “Message to the Resistance Units in Iraq” is composed in a specific style, using the Saj - a special size of rhymed and rhythmic prose; it is replete with archaic vocabulary and historical-military allusions. The Institute of Religion and Politics considers it necessary to do what no research center in the world does, to familiarize visitors to the Islam and Politics - Institute of Religion and Politics website with bin Laden’s appeal form and to this end publishes a translation of the Message.
He was distinguished by excessive religiosity and an ambitious character. There is also evidence that bin Laden was hardworking. Former No. 1 terrorist bodyguard Nasser al-Bahri said in an interview with the British newspaper Daily Telegraph:
“Osama bin Laden is a workaholic. He will always be one step ahead of Western intelligence. His day begins even before dawn, when he performs the first prayers, and ends late at night. And all this time he constantly does something, never rests. We lived in uncomfortable conditions, but this did not stop him from working, thinking and planning all the time. After prayer, he proceeds to organizational matters, and then receives prominent people who come to visit, sometimes secretly. But for the whole day he does not take a single break. ”
Over the years of study at the university, he showed interest in the history of the development of Sharia law. In order to deepen religious knowledge, he studied with renowned theologians of Saudi Arabia, who noted his extraordinary abilities. He was interested in international political life. He painfully perceived the disunity and defeat of the Arab side in the conflict with Israel. In those around, he despised any manifestations of weakness, passivity, helplessness ...
The image of bin Laden, who does not part with a personal automatic machine, also gained certain fame - in all the photographs this is the Soviet AKS74U. According to him, he allegedly took this weapon from the Soviet general killed by him. It is possible that Osama got the machine gun of General Petr Shkidchenko (father of the former Minister of Defense of Ukraine Volodymyr Shkidchenko). In January 1982, his helicopter was shot down by the Mujahideen.
Life Style Family
There are many conflicting rumors about the life of Osama bin Laden, including the family one. Contradictions also occurred in the official "Report No. 15 of the US Congress Commission on the Investigation of Terrorist Attacks on the United States (" Commission 9-11 "). So, in one case, the report says that Osama bin Laden, being a multi-millionaire, was spending his fortune on the war in Afghanistan, and practically on the next page there is refuting information that Osama bin Laden, contrary to popular belief, did not inherit $ 300 million after the death of his father, and the jihad was funded mainly by Arab philanthropists.
Contrary to popular belief, bin Laden did not finance Al Qaeda from his wealth or from his own business. In fact, al-Qaeda received money from a network of sponsors that formed over time. Bin Laden never inherited $ 300 million. Between 1970 and about 1994, he earned about a million dollars a year, which, although it is a significant amount, is not comparable to the 300 million dollars sufficient to finance world jihad. According to the Saudi officials and bin Laden’s relatives, Osama was deprived of a share in the marital status. Bin Laden also owned several enterprises and assets in Sudan, but for the most part they were small and economically unsustainable.
There are also suspicions that some of the false information about Osama bin Laden is being distributed by the CIA to undermine his authority among Muslims (today, ideological confrontation is considered as one of the important measures to combat terrorism associated with Islam).
In addition, the CIA's plans included shooting “scenes from life” of the head of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. As conceived by the CIA directors, Osama and his associates, sitting on a halt near a fire, were supposed to discuss the delights of homosexual sex and the comparative merits of various types of alcoholic beverages.
§ Umm Hamza, a native of Saudi Arabia, “Nasr al-Bahri, Osama’s bodyguard from Kandahar from 1997 to 2000, recalls that Umm Hamza was a favorite of bin Laden because of her deep knowledge of Islamic sciences. Osama often consulted with his wife, who was 8 years older than him. According to a former bodyguard, “Umm Hamza was like a mother to almost all jihadists. She solved their family problems, took delivery from their wives. " She also taught the Qur'an all bin Laden’s children. ”
§ Umm Khaled, a native of Saudi Arabia
§ Yemeni Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, whom bin Laden took as his wife in the spring of 2000 (she is called bin Laden's youngest wife)
Bin Laden was married five times. The first time he married in 1975 was his cousin. It was rumored that one of his wives was the daughter of Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. But in an interview with Hamidu Miru, Osama bin Laden said that all his wives (of whom there are three) are of Arab origin, and also said that only religious duty and mutual respect bind him to Mullah Omar.
17 sons. Their whereabouts are unknown.
The fourth son, Omar, broke his father at the age of 19 and refused to fight in the ranks of the Taliban. He went into the scrap 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 defender, and the wording applied to him is not true. 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, 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 was in no way connected with his activities. In 2007, he married British Jane Felix-Brown, 24 years older than him, but they were only five months married. In November 2008, Omar arrived in Madrid, seeking 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, one interview (published in one of the Arab newspapers) taken from one of his sons, Osama bin Laden called a fake.
Other relatives
Osama's brother - Jeslam bin Laden lives in Switzerland. According to him, he had not been to Saudi Arabia since 1987 and since then had not seen his brother. In 1974, Jeslam married Carmen, who was half Iranian and half Swiss by birth. The couple broke up after 11 years. After the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's ex-daughter-in-law spoke about her meeting with him: “Someone knocked on the door, I instinctively opened it, and this man stood on the threshold. I barely looked at him, after which he turned away, because my face was bare and Osama did not want to look at me. I know that Osama was very devout. He is the only brother who refused to look at me. ”. The daughter of Jeslam and Carmen, Wafa Dufour, 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 starred half-naked for the men's magazine GQ.
condition
Using unconfirmed information, the press widely wrote that Osama bin Laden inherited about 250-300 million US dollars from his father. Because of these widely circulated publications, many people have the wrong image of a fat-money terrorist. Osama bin Laden has been transferred to many enterprises in various countries of the world, including Sudan, Kenya, Yemen, Germany, Great Britain, and the USA. But as stated in Commission Report 9-11, such enterprises were often not profitable and profitable. In addition, Osama bin Laden spent his personal fortune on helping the most needy sections of society. In particular, the funds went into digging wells, providing medical assistance to the population (children and families of the wounded and killed Mujahideen).
It is generally accepted that Islamic terrorism comes from poverty - they say that the underdeveloped countries of the Middle East are terribly jealous of the civilizations of the West, because they live in poverty. This is how they get rich, they will immediately understand that this is not worth doing, and will begin to build Western democracy at home. This is partly true. In an Afghan refugee camp near Pakistan's Peshawar, people living for years on bare land shouted in my face, “Osama bin Laden is our father! This is for the USA he is a killer, but for us above all saints! He digs wells, buys medicines for our children, distributes food to women. He is a real Muslim - we will die for him! ” However, paradoxically, in the richest oil countries of the Persian Gulf, bin Laden is even more popular ...
Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 in a mansion in the city of Abbottabad, 50 km from Islamabad, as a result of a 4-hour operation of US special forces, Pakistani intelligence chief Ahmed Pasha said on the air of the state television channel.
This information was also confirmed in his speech by US President Barack Obama:
A little 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 conducted near Islamabad, in Pakistan, during which the US military showed incredible courage, eliminated bin Laden and received his remains, Obama said.
The promise to kill bin Laden at that time, US President George W. Bush made 10 years ago. For the head of "terrorist number one" the US government has promised $ 25 million. In 2007, the US Senate doubled the premium to 50 million. According to AFP, citing an unnamed official, along with the leader of the terrorists, his son, two couriers and a woman whom bin Laden’s associates used as a human shield were destroyed. Two wives of bin Laden, four sons and four closest associates were arrested. According to the US president, US 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 employees 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, the body of Osama bin Laden was buried in the Arabian Sea according to Muslim custom, although Islam forbids the burial of the bodies of the dead in the sea. (According to another source, Osama bin Laden was buried at sea in compliance with all necessary Muslim rituals. Muslim burial at sea is extremely rare, but not prohibited. Usually, this method of burial is used only when it is not possible to bury a Muslim on land for the next 24 hours. The sea was chosen as a grave in order to prevent the transformation of the grave of Osama bin Laden into a place of pilgrimage (as a shahid.) Some of the sons of Osama bin Laden openly expressed their dissatisfaction about such treatment of their father’s body).
After the death of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda published his last appeal to Muslims in which he praises the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and speaks of a “rare historical opportunity” for Muslims to rise
On the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Al Qaeda issued another message. Both the current leader of the group Ayman al-Zawahiri and the former leader of the extremists Osama bin Laden appeared on the screen. According to the authors of the video, bin Laden’s performance was recorded shortly before his death.
Image in art
The bin Laden figure has become popular in youth pop culture: on posters, t-shirts, badges, calendars, etc., and not only in Arab countries, but from Western countries. However, in the Islamic and Arab world, a completely different attitude to the popularity of Osama bin Laden.
In particular, in many Arabic-speaking forums, people set themselves avatars with his image, and also talk about him with undisguised admiration as the “Leo of Islam”, the defender of the Arab population of Palestine in their struggle against Israel. At the same time, the image of Osama bin Laden in American culture, as a rule, is presented with a negative or humorous connotation. His personality becomes the object of jokes, caricatures, humorous songs, entertaining humorous videos.
The Fahrenheit 9/11 film describes friendships and business contacts in the oil business between Osama and George W. Bush.
In the film “The Set of Lies” (2008), directed by Ridley Scott, we are talking about a terrorist group associated with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The depth of the subordinate position with respect to Osama bin Laden, the head of one influential combat group is shown.
Allusions to bin Laden also appear in the Russian television series "Men's Work" (Al Saeed) and "Special Forces" (Bearded).
The Romanian brewery Brassov produced Bin Laden beer.
In the American animated series "South Park" (English South Park) often make fun of Osama and mock him.
In the game "Postal 3" Osama is one of the plot characters. It is mentioned that Bin Laden retired and opened his own restaurant, but continues to produce explosives.
The character of the opera of Russian composers Vladimir Martynov and Leonid Fedorov “Binladin, St. Francis and the end of the time of composers”, the main composition of which “Bin Laden” was included in the musical album “Thawed”.