36 Facts About Osama

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi Arabian-born militant and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization.

Osama's father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group.

Osama studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Osama helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs.

Osama was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, lost his Saudi citizenship in 1994, and shifted his base to Sudan until US pressure forced him to leave in 1996.

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Osama became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt, during which the FBI offered a $25million bounty on him.

Osama studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University.

Osama describes him as a frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert.

Osama opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, and democracy.

Osama subscribed to the Athari school of Islamic theology.

Osama called for the elimination of Israel, and called upon the United States to withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Middle East, as well as from every Islamic country of the world.

Osama was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.

Osama believed this would lead to economic collapse of the enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry.

Osama invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system—American law being "the law of the rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death.

Osama denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable.

Osama stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the US of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment.

Osama claimed that the US State Department and US Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving the Israeli state's goals.

Osama was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other.

Osama alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.

Osama's research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an 11 August 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abdullah Azzam, and bin Laden, where it was agreed to join bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.

Osama offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow the Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal.

Osama then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd.

Osama was angered by the internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans.

Osama funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'etat attempt and lobbied the Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Osama bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on the Blue Nile.

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Osama was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys, and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan.

Osama was generous to the poor and popular with the people.

Osama chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight on 18 May 1996; there he forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Osama is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canada–United States border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials.

Osama was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.

Head of Albania's State Intelligence Service, Fatos Klosi, said that Osama was running a terror network in Albania to take part in the Kosovo War under the guise of a humanitarian organisation and it was reported to have been started in 1994.

Osama claimed bin Laden had used Albania as a launchpad for violence in the region and Europe.

Osama claimed that they had informed Richard Holbrooke that KLA was being aided by al-Qaeda but the US decided to cooperate with the KLA and thus indirectly with Osama despite the 1998 United States embassy bombings earlier.

Osama bin Laden was first indicted by a grand jury of the United States on 8 June 1998, on a charges of conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden was the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide.

Osama asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties.

Osama instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.