"Osama" and "bin Laden" redirect here. For other uses, see Osama (disambiguation) and bin Laden (disambiguation). Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (
/oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn ˈlɑːdən/; Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن, ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011)note a[3][4][5] was the founder of al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.[6]
Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.[7][8][9] From 2001 to 2011 bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror.
After being put on the FBI's Most Wanted list, bin Laden managed to remain in hiding during three U.S. presidential administrations. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a secured private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs in a covert operation ordered by U.S. President Barack Obama. Shortly after his death, bin Laden's body was buried at sea. Al-Qaeda acknowledged his death on May 6, 2011, concurrently vowing to retaliate.[10]
The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. In its expanded form, it means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (Arabic: القحطاني, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden never officially registered the name.[12]
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū ʿAbdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الالمجاهد, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šayḫ), the "Jihadist Shiek" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, al-Muǧāhid Šayḫ), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥaǧǧ), and the "Director".[13] The word ʾusāmah (أسامة) means "lion",[14] earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".[15]
/oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmɪd bɪn əˈwɑːd bɪn ˈlɑːdən/) was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,[16] a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family,[17] and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem).[18] In a 1998 interview, Osama gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.[19]
Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born; Osama's mother then[when?] remarried Mohammed al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.[18]
Osama was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.[20] From 1968 to 1976, he attended the élite secular Al-Thager Model School.[18][21] He studied economics and business administration[22] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,[23] or a degree in public administration in 1981.[24] One source described him as "hard working",[25]; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree.[26] At university, Osama's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.[27] Other interests included writing poetry;[28] reading, with the works of Field Marshal Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the fortunes of Arsenal F.C..[29]
In 1974, at the age of 17, Osama married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia;[30] Najwa divorced him in 2001 before the attacks. He married five other women: Khadijah Sharif (1983), who divorced him in the 1990s; Khairiah Sabar (1985), whose fate is unknown; Siham Sabar (1987), whose fate is also unknown; an unknown wife with whom his marriage was immediately annulled; and Amal al-Sadah (2000).[31] Through these women bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children.[32][33] Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and as of 2010 Iranian authorities reportedly continued to control their movement.[34]
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot misjudged a landing.[35] Osama's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described Osama as an adult as tall and thin, between 6 ft. 4 in and 6 ft. 6 in. (193– 198 cm) in height and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). Interviewer Lawrence Wright, on the other hand, described him as quite slender, but not particularly tall.[36] Osama had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white turban and he had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male headdress.[37] Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild mannered in demeanor.[38]
/oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn ˈlɑːdən/; Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن, ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011)note a[3][4][5] was the founder of al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.[6]Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.[7][8][9] From 2001 to 2011 bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror.
After being put on the FBI's Most Wanted list, bin Laden managed to remain in hiding during three U.S. presidential administrations. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a secured private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs in a covert operation ordered by U.S. President Barack Obama. Shortly after his death, bin Laden's body was buried at sea. Al-Qaeda acknowledged his death on May 6, 2011, concurrently vowing to retaliate.[10]
Name
There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English;[11] bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other U.S. governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin", both of which may be abbreviated as "UBL". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of bin is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions and articles uncapitalized in surnames; however, bin means "son of" and is not strictly speaking a preposition or article.[citation needed] The spellings with o and e come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. In its expanded form, it means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (Arabic: القحطاني, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden never officially registered the name.[12]
Osama bin Laden had also assumed the kunyah "Abū ʿAbdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الالمجاهد, al-Amīr), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, aš-Šayḫ), the "Jihadist Shiek" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, al-Muǧāhid Šayḫ), "Hajj" (حج, Ḥaǧǧ), and the "Director".[13] The word ʾusāmah (أسامة) means "lion",[14] earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".[15]
Childhood, education and personal life
See also: Bin Laden family
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden ( /oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmOsama's parents divorced soon after he was born; Osama's mother then[when?] remarried Mohammed al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.[18]
Osama was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.[20] From 1968 to 1976, he attended the élite secular Al-Thager Model School.[18][21] He studied economics and business administration[22] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,[23] or a degree in public administration in 1981.[24] One source described him as "hard working",[25]; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree.[26] At university, Osama's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.[27] Other interests included writing poetry;[28] reading, with the works of Field Marshal Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the fortunes of Arsenal F.C..[29]
In 1974, at the age of 17, Osama married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia;[30] Najwa divorced him in 2001 before the attacks. He married five other women: Khadijah Sharif (1983), who divorced him in the 1990s; Khairiah Sabar (1985), whose fate is unknown; Siham Sabar (1987), whose fate is also unknown; an unknown wife with whom his marriage was immediately annulled; and Amal al-Sadah (2000).[31] Through these women bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children.[32][33] Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and as of 2010 Iranian authorities reportedly continued to control their movement.[34]
Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot misjudged a landing.[35] Osama's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden, the subsequent head of the bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas in the United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.
The FBI described Osama as an adult as tall and thin, between 6 ft. 4 in and 6 ft. 6 in. (193– 198 cm) in height and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). Interviewer Lawrence Wright, on the other hand, described him as quite slender, but not particularly tall.[36] Osama had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white turban and he had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male headdress.[37] Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild mannered in demeanor.[38]
| Osama bin Laden أسامة بن لادن | |
|---|---|
 Bin Laden in 1998 | |
| Born | March 10, 1957 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |
| Died | May 2, 2011 (aged 54) Abbottabad, Pakistan |
| Cause of death | Gunfire |
| Residence | Abbottabad, Pakistan |
| Years active | 1979–2011 |
| Successor | Ayman al-Zawahiri |
| Religion | Sunni Islam (Qutbism)[1][2] |
| Children | Abdallah Laden Saad bin Laden (K.I.A.) Omar bin Laden Hamza bin Laden (K.I.A.) (see bin Laden family for more) |
| Military career | |
| Place of birth | Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |
| Place of death | Abbottabad, Pakistan 34°10′9″N 73°14′33″E / 34.16917°N 73.2425°E |
| Resting place | North Arabian Sea |
| Allegiance | Al-Qaeda |
| Battles/wars | Soviet war in Afghanistan War on Terror: |
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