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Birth
Born Osama bin Mohammad bin Awad bin Laden in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was the seventh child of more than fifty sons. His fathers name was Mohammad bin Laden, and he was a billionaire building tycoon, His mothers name is unknown, but she was of Syrian decent. This is due largely to the fact that 22 different women fathered his 54 kids, all his wives. However, he would only have a maximum of four wives at any given time. -
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Osama Bin Laden
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Mohammed bin Laden dies
When Osama was eleven years old, his billionaire father died when his company plane crashed during landing in southwest Saudi Arabia. The American pilot apparently misjudged the landing, killing everyone on board. Mohammed had planned on marrying his 23rd wife that night, and was heading to the wedding when the plane crashed. It is believed that Osama inherited an amount of money somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 million. -
War in Afghanistan
The war between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union has gone on since 1979, but it is not until 1984 that Bin Laden played a significant role in the fighting. At this time, he begins to finance the war effort and takes command of a militia complete with 20,000 Islamic soldiers recruited from all around the world. Together with Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood leader, Abdullah Azzam, they established military training bases and set up a services office, a support network for recruitment and money. -
Al-Qaeda created
With the network that Osama had created during the successful campaign in Afghanistan, he decided to create Al-Qaeda, whose goals were the advancement of Islamic revolutions throughout the Muslim world and the repelling of foreign intervention in the Middle East. The focus has never been just the United States, but all western influences that the group felt threatened by. -
Al-Qaeda declares war against US
Following the first Gulf War, Al Qaeda shifted its focus to fighting the growing U.S. presence in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s most sacred shrines. Al Qaeda vociferously opposed the stationing of U.S. troops on what it considered the holiest of Islamic lands and waged an extended campaign of terrorism against the Saudi rulers, whom bin Laden deemed to be false Muslims. The Saudi regime subsequently deported bin Laden in 1992 and revoked his citizenship in 1994. -
Truck bombings
Al Qaeda escalated its war against the U.S. In August 1998, Al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in East Africa (Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) killing more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. In retaliation, the U.S. attacked targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. This was a step up from any minor attacks of the past four years, and it put bin Laden and Al-Qaeda strongly on America's radar. Following the bombings, he was placed on the FBI's top ten most wanted list. -
Twin Towers fall
The most devastating attack on the US by Al-Qaeda was on this date, when 19 Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four passenger planes, flying two into the Twin Towers in New York City and one into the Pentagon; a fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania after the hijackers were attacked by the passengers. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attack. US-led strikes on Afghanistan begin, aimed at forcing the ruling Taliban to hand over Bin Laden. Finding bin Laden is now the primary goal for the US. -
First Video
An 18-minute video is sent to Al-Jazeera in which Bin Laden claims credit for the first time for orchestrating 9/11, and verbally attacks Bush days before the US presidential election. He claims that his inspiration for the 9/11 attack was an Israeli aircraft bombing tower blocks in Lebanon in 1982. He also says that the best way to avoid future bombings is to not threaten the security of any muslim nations. -
Second Video
Rumours that Bin Laden is dead due to a long stretch of silence are confounded by the first new video in three years. In this video, bin Laden does not say much in the 26 minutes that it runs. He criticizes American society and foreign policy in a direct addressing of the American people. He mentions 9/11 and suggest that America convert to Islam. -
Audio tape
This new tape from bin Laden claims responsibility for the foiled attack on Delta flight 253 en route to Michigan on Christmas Day and warns the United States of more attacks. He says that safety will not be dreamed of in America until it is a truth in Palestine. Obama released a statement after the tape was released saying that Al-Qaeda had been weakened by the efforts of the US. -
bin Laden is DEAD!
On this day, Barack Obama announced to the country that Osama bin Laden had been found and killed at his compund in Pakistan by a team of navy seals of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group. The mission was called Operation Neptune Spear and it was led by the Central Intelligence Agency. After he was killed and the body identified, he was buried at sea within 24 hours of his death. Al-Qaeda confirmed his death on May 6th, vowing revenge.
