Abbottabad, Pakistan) is the former leader of the al-Qaeda organization responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, as well as many other terrorist attacks. He was on the "Most Wanted Terrorists" list. MostWantedterrorists) FBI in connection with the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa. From 2001 to 2011, he was one of the main targets of the international "war on terror" campaign.
On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed by US Navy and CIA SEALs in a hideout in the city of Abbottabad on the orders of President Barack Obama as part of a covert sting operation. Shortly thereafter, bin Laden's body was buried at sea. On May 6, al-Qaeda confirmed his death, promising revenge.
Biography
His birth is attributed to the second half of the 1950s, probably 1957; place of birth - Saudi Arabia, Jeddah or Riyadh. His father, Mohammed bin Laden (1908-1967), was a Saudi entrepreneur of Yemeni origin who made a fortune in the construction business, founder of the Saudi bin Laden Group, who had close ties to the Saudi royal family. The bin Laden family, whose prosperity was started by Osama's father, is now one of the richest and most influential in Saudi Arabia; The Saudi bin Laden group controls a large part of the Saudi economy in areas such as construction, oil production, shipbuilding, media and telecommunications. Osama's mother - Aliya Ghanem, according to other sources of Hamid, marriage with her became for Mohammed bin Laden, according to various sources, the 4th, 10th or 11th; in total, 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 the Al-Tager school, then at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah (the information about the specialty he received at the university is contradictory - a civil engineer, or economics and management, or public administration). Also in school years participated in an Islamist circle. At the university, he met the Islamic theologian, the ideologist of jihad, Abdullah Azzam. In his youth, he served for some time in the Saudi Sharia police.
In the years civil war in Afghanistan
Around this time, Osama bin Laden is reported to have started a career in the construction business, which did not stop him from joining the Afghan Jihad movement, where he eventually became a prominent figure. He later 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 the leaders of Islamic groups opposed to the government of Kabul. On a regular basis, he began to provide financial support to the leaders of the Afghan resistance from personal funds. Together with the leader of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam, bin Laden created the Bureau of Services (Maktab al-khidamat) 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 Soviet troops, commanding a detachment of 2,000 people (most of whom were volunteers from Arab countries).
According to former CIA officer Michael Shoer (Eng. MichaelScheuer), who led the bin Laden 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 Soviet troops, but never had contact with him.
Creation of al-Qaeda
In 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to the Jeddah-based family contracting and construction business, but his organization continued to help the opposition movement in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. During the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, Osama prepared a plan to defend his native country from the invasion of Iraqi troops and even offered the services of his Mujahideen. However, at this time, the United States and its allies came to the aid of the Gulf countries. Bin Laden spoke with slogans of active opposition to the American "occupation" of the "holy land" - Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also accused the Saudi rulers of complicity with the US. 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 highways in Sudan. Using the latest technology and building technology, in the shortest possible time, bin Laden laid 1,200 kilometers (a quarter of the total length) of good roads across the desert, providing jobs for tens of thousands of Sudanese and for the first time connecting the country's villages and towns with the capital, Khartoum and Port Sudan. In addition to this business, bin Laden took up pharmacology, building the largest pharmaceutical plant in Africa in Khartoum, and with it a research center. Another area of activity for bin Laden in Sudan was the slave trade. This fishery has long flourished in Sudan. But after the National Islamic Front came to power, it acquired unprecedented proportions. The United States demanded that the Sudanese authorities expose bin Laden, and on May 18, 1996, he and his family moved to Afghanistan on an Afghan Ariana plane.
Terrorist activity
After the end of the Afghan war, Osama decided to continue his “ghazavat” against the United States. He sponsored the fight of Somali militants against US and UN troops in 1993.
Osama bin Laden was included in the list of 10 most wanted by the FBI as a suspect in the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), which took place on August 7, 1998 - exactly on the eighth anniversary of 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 five million dollars as a reward for information that will 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 a tradition of hospitality, the Taliban refused to actively cooperate with the US government. Negotiations with the Taliban on the subject of extradition eventually led to the fact that the Taliban promised to either try Osama bin Laden under Sharia law, or promised to transfer him to a neutral Islamic country, but even this only if the necessary evidence of his involvement in the attacks was provided.
He appears more as an inspirer and instigator, rather than the leader of a terrorist network. All those arrested during the investigation of the terrorist attacks referred only to his calls to fight the Americans... Thus, Frank Anderson, who led the CIA operations in the Middle East in the mid-1990s, in the New York Times claims that bin Laden actually controls only a small part of the nearly $300 million that Washington believes he got from family capital, and even that has almost dried up. Legend has it that he bravely fought the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. However, Anderson is convinced that bin Laden is not a fighter, but a kind of philanthropist who did a lot of charitable work in Peshawar (Pakistan) among Afghan refugees.
The US government rejected the Taliban's proposal and preferred military action to the diplomatic channels available to them. About two weeks after the embassy bombings, on August 20, the US Air Force carried out air strikes against the Taliban-controlled eastern territories of Afghanistan. Suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan were hit, as was a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan where al-Qaeda was allegedly manufacturing chemical weapon. Evidence that the Sudanese factory produced anything other than medical supplies was weak enough at the time to warrant such strikes. The bombing and missile strikes on Afghanistan also failed to achieve the desired results, and, as some critics considered, all these actions were Bill Clinton's pre-planned petty political maneuver, undertaken in order to divert public attention from the scandalous case with Monica Lewinsky, a court hearing of this case. , where Monica gave her testimony about her relationship with the president, took place on the same day.
It is believed that he also actively supported the Islamists operating in the North Caucasus, in 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 ordering Muslims to destroy the US military in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. In May of that year, Sudan expelled bin Laden, largely in response to the threat of UN sanctions, over alleged Sudanese complicity in the 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia. A month later, bin Laden moved to Afghanistan, where he continued his Islamic extremist activities. In 1998, he issued a second fatwa ordering Muslims to kill American civilians.
In the summer of 2001, Mullah Omar pointed out that bin Laden had no right to issue fatwas because he had not received a full Islamic education.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Osama bin Laden visited Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. Bin Laden and his Tunisian aide Mehrez Aoduni received Bosnian citizenship in 1993. According to the Bosnian press in 1999, bin Laden's passport was issued by the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aliya Izetbegovic, in gratitude for the Mujahideen's support for his aspirations to create a "fundamentalist Islamic republic" in the Balkans. Bin Laden financed the transfer of mercenaries from Arab world to Bosnia with the help of Sudanese business partners.
Statements about the presence of bin Laden in Bosnia were also made by foreign journalists. Renate Flottau, a journalist for the German magazine Der Spiegel, claims to have seen bin Laden in Sarajevo when he visited Bosnian Muslim President Izetbegovic in 1993. On February 3, 2006, at the ICTY, in a court hearing in the case of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, British journalist, correspondent for The Guardian and The London Times, Eve-Ann Prentice] testified under oath that in November 1994 the chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina Aliya Izetbegovic personally visited by Osama bin Laden Prentice said she saw bin Laden enter Izetbegovic's office shortly before the last interview.
Albania and Kosovo
Osama bin Laden first visited Albania as a guest of the country's president, Sali Berisha, in 1994 or 1995, telling the government that he was in charge of a thriving Saudi humanitarian aid agency. The meeting between Sali Berisha and bin Laden was also attended by Hashim Thaci, Ramush Haradinayi, former head of the Albanian secret police Bashkim Gazidede.
In December 1998, Albanian intelligence chief Fatos Klosi said that bin Laden had personally visited Albania and represented one of the fundamentalist groups that sent fighters to take part in the hostilities in Kosovo. Klosi expressed the opinion that terrorists had already infiltrated various parts of Europe from bases in Albania, using illegal migration flows. Interpol, in turn, warned that the Islamists have great opportunities to acquire false documents, since more than one hundred thousand blank Albanian passports were stolen during the 1997 riots. The involvement of bin Laden's militants 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, plotting terrorist acts during the conflict in the Presevo Valley.
Osama bin Laden has been actively involved in the Chechen conflict since 1995, sending al-Qaeda 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 up access to unlimited financial resources for Khattab and allowed him to gain strong positions in Chechnya. On the other hand, from the Chechen separatists themselves, there are denials of ties to al-Qaeda. In particular, Akhmed Zakayev, at that time the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the self-proclaimed Republic of Ichkeria, denied the connection of Chechen separatists with Al-Qaeda (during the kidnapping of Russian diplomats in Iraq on June 6, 2006), and according to him it was clear that Al-Qaeda and Chechen separatists are not cooperating.
After the statement of the Iraqi fighters, Akhmed Zakayev, the head of the Foreign Ministry of Ichkeria, now living in London, categorically denied any connection between the Chechen separatists and Al-Qaeda and demanded the release of the diplomats without any conditions. “Their demands look at least naive. Especially if you remember how Russia acted, freeing the hostages in the theater on Dubrovka and in Beslan,” Zakayev said. In addition, he did not rule out that by putting forward their demands, the group associated with Al-Qaeda and Al-Qaeda itself tried to discredit the movement of Chechen separatists.
As a rule, Osama bin Laden explicitly declares his intentions towards individual countries, using the means mass media gives reasons for possible attacks and gives time to think. But in the case of a successful sabotage, he does not always immediately report his involvement. As far as we know, most of the messages are addressed to the United States, Europe and the Muslim world. According to these messages, one can judge that Russia is not included in the active sphere of interests of Osama bin Laden. He did not take responsibility for the preparation of terrorist attacks on the territory of Russia, but the main thing is that there are no his addressed messages to the CIS countries. Although he occasionally mentions Russia's participation in the war with Muslims in Chechnya as something negative, nevertheless, given his eloquence and many years of experience in conducting an information war against the United States, such messages in the context can be considered only as a small illustration of the situation in which the countries of the Muslim world are .
§ To date, it is not clear how much Osama bin Laden controlled al-Qaeda, it cannot be ruled out that some of the cells and people got out of control and began to do such work that no one assigned them. Thus, references to the existence and activities of groups associated with al-Qaeda could get into the press, although in fact the links of such organizations with Osama bin Laden and with the program settings of al-Qaeda can be very relative. For example, it is necessary to remember that on the part of the George W. Bush administration there were words about Saddam Hussein's ties with Osama bin Laden, then this information was refuted, but everyone knows well what consequences such statements led to.
According to a source who 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 enemy and almost completely switched 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 called in quotation marks "Osama bin Laden's regular biographer" (indirectly, Mir's words are confirmed by an analysis of Osama bin Laden's own messages) 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, - Mir says 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 is not at war with China, Russia, France, Japan. All he has in his mind now is America."
All 6 hours of the interview was filmed by one of bin Laden's bodyguards. The film was handed over to Islamabad after the journalist's return. 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 real enemy of Muslims is the United States. He said that the US is an enemy to anyone who tries to compete with them in economics or politics. "This is a new imperialist force," he said, "that wants to control the whole world." The Americans have been very successful in using Muslims against the USSR, and now they want to use them against China because China is a new threat to the US.
central Asia
Beginning in 1995, Osama bin Laden repeatedly held meetings with one of the leaders of the Uzbek Islamists, Takhir Yuldashev, and helped him to establish contacts with the leaders of the Taliban movement. Another Uzbek Islamist leader, Juma Namangani, received $3 million a year in funding from bin Laden.
Ties to 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 to terrorists mass destruction. These accusations were the main reason for the start of the war in Iraq. Subsequently, on September 9, 2006, in the published report of the US Senate Committee on Intelligence, these statements were refuted. Moreover, it turned out that Saddam Hussein not only did not have any connections with Al-Qaeda, but was at enmity with it. This conclusion, which refuted George W. Bush's statements about the Saddam regime's long-standing ties with terrorist organizations, significantly undermined the authority of the US government as an international arbiter, and further compromised the quality of the work of such a serious organization as the CIA. Critics have noted that with this approach, unverified accusations of cooperation with terrorists can now become a reason for invading other countries in which a regime is in power that is objectionable to the US government. Citing information provided by the FBI, the report said that Hussein turned down Osama bin Laden's request for help in 1995.
Assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud
After the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, the armed detachments of Ahmad Shah Massoud retreated to the Panjshir Gorge area, where they held the defense, not letting the Taliban go further north. Ahmad Shah Massoud led the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban military-political coalition that controlled part of the country over the next few years.
On September 9, 2001, in the village of Khoja Bahauddin, Takhar Province, Massoud received two Arab journalists. During the interview, an explosive device planted in the TV camera went off. Massoud died from his wounds.
In August 2002, the former Deputy Interior Minister of Afghanistan under the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Khaksar, announced that Massoud was killed on the personal orders of Osama bin Laden.
The name of Osama bin Laden was largely unknown until the attention of the whole world was drawn to him by the statement of the US FBI that he was considered the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, during of which three of the four passenger airliners hijacked in the air were directed at the buildings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the fourth airliner crashed in Pennsylvania. As a result, both skyscrapers, adjacent buildings and one wing of the Pentagon were destroyed, killing about three thousand people. On September 27, 2001, the FBI released photographs of 19 terrorists, accompanied by information about their possible nationality, age, and possible nicknames and pseudonyms. The FBI's investigation into the 9/11 attacks was the largest investigation in the agency's history, codenamed Operation PENTTBOM more than seven thousand employees were involved. The US government has decided that al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, was responsible for the attacks after the FBI said evidence of al-Qaeda's involvement was " clear and undeniable". The UK government has come to the same conclusion.
Osama bin Laden's declaration of jihad against America, his 1998 fatwa, and numerous other calls to kill Americans were seen as evidence that he had substantial motives for organizing such a terrorist act.
Bin Laden initially denied his involvement in the events, but later 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 appears to have been 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, this was a text message read by an 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 the same day to the bureau of the Islamic Press of Afghanistan (AIP).
The first video featuring Osama bin Laden appeared on the Al Jazeera channel only on October 7 (indirect confirmation of this is in the official list of the Al Jazeera channel dedicated to the messages of Osama bin Laden), it contains ultimatum wishes addressed to the United States and expressed satisfaction with the actions of terrorists, but Osama bin Laden did not say a word about his involvement (or non-involvement).
Prior to this, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaif, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan (September 13), an unnamed Osama bin Laden's closest aide in Afghanistan, had officially declared the innocence of Osama bin Laden (September 12 - by phone to Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail, who is chief of the Islamabad bureau of Abu Dhabi Television), as well as allegedly Osama bin Laden himself in an interview published on September 28 in Daily Ummat (Karachi) to some unknown journalist under unclear circumstances. There were other statements made on behalf of Osama bin Laden:
In this regard, the reaction of Osama bin Laden to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington is very indicative. A few hours after the explosions, bin Laden's representative in Europe, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, said that such actions are prohibited by Islam, but "valuable lessons can be learned from them" and warned of the consequences of launching a military action against Afghanistan. A week after the events, on September 18, 2001, Osama bin Laden's plenipotentiary, Suleiman Abu Ghayat, called on a Qatari Al Jazeera TV talk show and expressed admiration for the "martyrs" who committed these attacks, but denied Al Qaeda's involvement. in their preparation and implementation. On September 24, bin Laden sent a fax to Al Jazeera, mourning the deaths 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, the Islamist Urdu newspaper Ummat, published in Karachi, published the text of a conversation with bin Laden in which he denied any involvement in the attacks: “I already said that I did not participate in the September 11 attacks in the United States. I knew nothing about these operations and 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, moreover, they contain direct contradictions in relation to the previous statements and fatwas of Osama bin Laden with his ultimatum demands against United States, which can formally be 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 do this. In addition, in this interview, he delivered 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 Hamid Mir (November 7, 2001), Osama bin Laden noted that:
“The US has no serious evidence against us. They only have guesses. It is unfair to start the bombing with only these assumptions in hand.”
In November 2001, US occupying forces in Afghanistan found a videotape of bin Laden talking to Khaledd al-Harbi in a destroyed house in Jalalabad. In this video, bin Laden confirms that he knew about the attacks in advance and directly led the terrorists. The footage was widely broadcast beginning December 13, 2001.
Osama bin Laden: The brothers who did this operation, they all knew that it would be a suicide attack, 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 didn't tell them the details until they were there, until they had to go on 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 that is killing our people. and briefly mentioned his responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.
In March 2002, Osama's younger brother Sheikh Ahmed claimed in an interview with CNN that Osama could not have been the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in the United States: “He is my brother, I know him. I lived with him for many years and I know how afraid he is of God.”
Shortly before the 2004 US presidential election, in another video message, Osama bin Laden publicly confirmed the participation of Al-Qaeda in organizing the terrorist attacks of 2001, and also stated that he was directly involved in this. He also said that attacks were carried out, " because we are a free people who do not accept injustice and we want to return the freedom of our nation". In this tape, obtained by Al Jazeera on October 30, 2004, bin Laden says he was in direct control of 19 hijackers. He also reported: " I and Commander-in-Chief Mohammed Atta, may Allah have mercy on him, agreed that the entire operation should be completed in no more than 20 minutes, until Bush and his administration notice what is happening.».
Counter-terrorist operation in Afghanistan
On October 7, the United States and Great Britain launched rocket attacks on Taliban targets in Afghanistan, which was the beginning of the military operation "Enduring Freedom". Al-Jazeera, a Qatari broadcaster, broadcast Osama bin Laden's speech. In his address, he stated: “Allah has hit America in one of its most vulnerable places. America is in fear from north to south, from west to east. I thank Allah for this.".
drug business
Osama bin Laden made the drug business one of the most important sources of financing. He purchased modern equipment and invited chemists, his main drug laboratories and warehouses were located in the east of Afghanistan, not far from the city of Khost.
The search for a terrorist
Osama bin Laden's death has been reported six times since the September 11, 2001 attacks. The first time he was declared dead was 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-Pakistan border. $ 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, his appeals to his comrades-in-arms were distributed through the media.
So, for example, on April 23, 2006, in his audio message, which was broadcast through the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera, Osama bin Laden once again voiced his determination to fight against the infidels, "crusaders and Zionists who are waging war against Muslims."
On September 23, 2006, a French newspaper published a document presented as a report by the secret services of the republic, in which it was noted that, according to intelligence data from Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden died of typhus in Pakistan on August 23. However, this information was not confirmed later Pakistani President Musharraf said 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 announced in an interview on Al Jazeera that Osama bin Laden was dead and 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, along with the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, from where he led the militants.
On August 12, 2010, a US military tribunal sentenced former chef Osama bin Laden to 14 years in prison. Last month, at a trial in Guantanamo, al-Kosy, a Sudanese by origin, pleaded guilty to having links with al-Qaeda and providing material assistance to terrorists in undermining the World Trade Center 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 - 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 for this is simple, when Osama bin Laden was still a boy, he once forged something out of metal, and the metal shavings got into his right eye. the injury proved to be very serious and he was hastily taken to London to be seen by a specialist. The doctors' diagnosis upset everyone. They said that Osama bin Laden would no longer be able to see well with his right eye. Over the years, he learned to hide his flaw. he preferred to be considered left-handed than to know that one of his eyes could barely distinguish objects. And the only reason he fired while holding his rifle on the left side was because his right eye was practically blind. And as a rule, he walked with a stick. He wore a white turban, which is the traditional male headdress in Saudi Arabia.
Osama bin Laden is believed to have only spoken Arabic. In 2004 and 2005, two books containing a collection of lectures, sermons, and letters from Osama bin Laden were published in the United States. Bruce Lawrence, the author of at least one book (Messages to the World: Osama bin Laden's statements), admits that Osama bin Laden may be the new preeminent Arab poet and thinker whose views have been very misunderstood by the world.
The author of the collection himself believes that he has opened to the world a magnificent example of Arabic rhetoric of modern times. According to Bruce Lawrence, the work of Osama bin Laden is comparable to the best examples of a recognized master oratory Gamal Abdel Nasser, the first President of Egypt.
I don’t particularly want to talk about it, but I still have to say: he is a master of Arabic literature, - Bruce Lawrence, a professor at Duke University, the largest American authority on Islam, admits a little shyly, as if through “it’s impossible” ...
In Russian, a translation of only one work, made in a literary style, is known so far - this is the "Message to the Resistance Forces in Iraq" dated October 22, 2007:
"Message to the Resistance in Iraq" is written in a specific style, using saj - a special meter 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 other research center in the world does - to acquaint the visitors of the site "Islam and Politics - Institute of Religion and Politics" with the form of bin Laden's addresses and for this purpose publishes a translation of the "Message".
He was distinguished by excessive religiosity and an ambitious character. There is also evidence that bin Laden was a hard worker. The former bodyguard of Terrorist No. 1, Nasser al-Bahri, in an interview with the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, said the following:
“Osama bin Laden is a workaholic. He will always be one step ahead of Western intelligence. His day begins before dawn, when he performs the first prayers, and ends late at night. And all this time he is constantly doing something, he never rests. We lived in uncomfortable conditions, but this did not prevent 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 respite.
During the years of study at the university, he showed an interest in the history of the development of Sharia law. In order to deepen his religious knowledge, he studied with well-known theologians of Saudi Arabia, who noted his extraordinary abilities. Interested in international political life. He painfully perceived the disunity and defeat of the Arab side in the conflict with Israel. In those around him, he despised any manifestations of weakness, passivity, helplessness...
The image of bin Laden, who does not part with his personal machine gun, also received some fame - in all the photographs it is the Soviet AKS74U. According to him, he allegedly took this weapon from the Soviet general he had killed. 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.
Personal life Family
There are many conflicting rumors about Osama bin Laden's life, including his family life. There were also contradictions in the official "Report No. 15 of the US Congress Commission on the Investigation of Terrorist Attacks on the United States (the 9-11 Commission). Thus, in one case, the report says that Osama bin Laden, being a multimillionaire, spent his fortune on the war in Afghanistan, and almost 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 financed mainly by Arab patrons.
Contrary to popular belief, bin Laden did not fund al-Qaeda with his fortune or the proceeds of his own business. In fact, al-Qaeda received money from a network of sponsors that it developed over time. Bin Laden never inherited $300 million. Between 1970 and circa 1994, he earned about a million dollars a year, which, while a significant amount, does not compare with the $300 million that would be enough to fund a worldwide jihad. According to Saudi officials and bin Laden's relatives, Osama was stripped of his share of the family fortune. Bin Laden also owned several businesses and assets in Sudan, but most of them were small and not economically viable.
There are also suspicions that some of the false information about Osama bin Laden is spread by the CIA to undermine his authority among Muslims (today, ideological confrontation is considered one of the important measures to combat terrorism associated with Islam).
In addition, the CIA plans included shooting "scenes from the life" of the head of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. As conceived by the CIA directors, Osama and his entourage, sitting on a halt by the 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 1997 to 2000 in Kandahar, recalls that Umm Hamza was bin Laden's favorite 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, delivered their wives.” She also taught the Quran to all of bin Laden's children."
§ Umm Khaled, a native of Saudi Arabia
§ Yemeni Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, whom bin Laden married in the spring of 2000 (she is called the youngest wife of bin Laden)
Bin Laden has been married five times. He first married in 1975 to his cousin. It was rumored that one of his wives was the daughter of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. But in an interview with Hamid Mir, Osama bin Laden said that all his wives (of which there are three) are of Arab origin, and also said that he was connected with Mullah Omar only by religious duty and mutual respect.
17 sons. Their whereabouts are unknown.
The fourth son, Omar, broke with his father at the age of 19 and refused to fight in the ranks of the Taliban. He took up the scrap metal 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 protector, and the very wording applied to him is not correct. Just like Osama bin Laden himself, his son has repeatedly tried to explain that the causes of the conflict lie in the aggressive foreign policy the United States itself, according to Omar, the attacks were the result of hopelessness - his father did not find a better way to achieve his goals. Omar claimed that he had not seen his father since 2000 and had nothing to do with his activities. In 2007, he married British Jane Felix-Brown, 24 years older than him, but they were married for only five months. In November 2008, Omar arrived in Madrid, asking for political asylum in Spain, but the Spanish authorities refused him.
The rest of the 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 a lifestyle of fighters for the triumph of the ideology of Islam). It should also be noted that according to the same source, Osama bin Laden called one interview (published in one of the Arab newspapers) taken from one of his sons a fake.
Other relatives
Osama's brother Yeslam bin Laden lives in Switzerland. According to him, he has not been to Saudi Arabia since 1987 and has not seen his brother since. In 1974, Yeslam married Carmen, who is half Iranian and half Swiss by origin. The couple separated after 11 years. After the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's former daughter-in-law recounted her meeting with him: “Someone knocked on the door, I instinctively opened it, and this man was standing on the threshold. I barely looked at him before he turned away because my face was uncovered and Osama didn't want to look at me. I know that Osama was very pious. He is the only one of the brothers who refused to look at me.". The daughter of Yeslam and Carmen - Wafa Dufur, 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 posed semi-nude for the men's magazine GQ.
State
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 disseminated publications, many people have the wrong image of a terrorist-money bag. Osama bin Laden has passed many enterprises in various countries of the world, including Sudan, Kenya, Yemen, Germany, Great Britain, and the USA. But as the 9-11 Commission Report stated, such ventures 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, funds were spent on digging wells, providing medical care to the population (children and families of the wounded and killed Mujahideen).
It is generally accepted that Islamic terrorism comes from poverty - they say, the underdeveloped countries of the Middle East are terribly jealous of the civilization of the West, because they live in poverty. That's how they get rich, they will immediately understand that this is not worth doing, and they will begin to build Western democracy in their country. This is partly true. In the Afghan refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, people who have lived for years on bare ground shouted in my face - “Osama bin Laden is our father! For the USA he is a killer, but for us he is above all saints! He digs wells, buys medicine 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 by American special forces, as Pakistani intelligence chief Ahmed Pasha said on state television.
This information was also confirmed in his speech by US President Barack Obama:
A little over a week ago, I decided we had enough intelligence, and I agreed to go ahead with the operation. Under my leadership, there was an operation near Islamabad, in Pakistan, during which the US military showed incredible courage, eliminated bin Laden and obtained his remains, "Obama said.
At that time, US President George W. Bush made a promise to kill bin Laden 10 years ago. For the head of "terrorist number one" the US government has promised 25 million dollars. In 2007, the US Senate doubled the bonus to 50 million. According to AFP, citing an unnamed official, his son, two couriers and a woman used by bin Laden's associates as human shields were killed along with the terrorist leader. Bin Laden's two wives, four sons and four closest associates have been arrested. According to the President of the United States, American 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 members 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, Osama bin Laden's body was buried in the Arabian Sea according to Muslim custom, although Islam prohibits 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 the necessary Muslim rituals. Burial at sea is extremely rare among Muslims, but not prohibited. Usually, this method of burial is used only when it is not possible to bury a Muslim on land within the next day. The sea as a grave was chosen in order to prevent Osama bin Laden's grave from becoming a place of pilgrimage (as a shahid. Some of Osama bin Laden's sons openly expressed their dissatisfaction with such treatment of their father's body).
After the death of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda made public his last call to the 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 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda released 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 speech was recorded shortly before his death.
Image in art
The figure of bin Laden has become popular in youth pop culture: on posters, T-shirts, badges, calendars, etc., and not only in Arab countries but also Western. However, in the pro-Islamic and Arab world, there is a completely different attitude towards the popularity of Osama bin Laden.
In particular, in many Arabic-speaking forums, people put avatars with his image for themselves, and also talk about him with undisguised admiration as the “Lion of Islam”, about 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 is usually presented with a negative or humorous connotation. His personality becomes the object of jokes, cartoons, humorous songs, entertaining humorous videos.
The film Fahrenheit 9/11 describes the friendship and business contacts in the oil business between Osama and George W. Bush.
Body of Lies (2008), directed by Ridley Scott, is about a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The depth of the subordinate position in relation to Osama bin Laden of the head of one influential militant group is shown.
Allusions to bin Laden also appear in the Russian TV series Men's Work (Al Said) and Spetsnaz (Bearded).
The Romanian brewing company Brassov made Bin Laden beer.
In the American animated series South Park, Osama is often ridiculed and mocked.
In the game "Postal 3" Osama is one of the story characters. Bin Laden is mentioned to have retired and opened his own restaurant, but continues to make explosives.
The character of the opera by Russian composers Vladimir Martynov and Leonid Fedorov "Binladen, St. Francis and the End of Composers' Time", the main composition of which "Bin Laden" was included in the music album "Tayal".
On May 2, the media reported that Osama bin Laden (also known as Osama bin Laden) died on May 1. According to the Americans, the American and Pakistani special forces managed to find his shelter - a mansion in the city of Abbottabad, 50 km from the capital of Pakistan - Islamabad, a shootout ensued and Bin Laden was shot in the head during it. (The media is trying to hush up the fact that bin Laden's son and three other people, including a woman who were next to him, were killed in the shootout.) The operation was allegedly personally led by US President Barack Obama.
These are the media reports. What actually happened near Islamabad: whether bin Laden was killed or anyone else, whether there was a shootout or whether there was a vaunted “operation” at all, a very narrow circle of people knows, and none of this circle will share the truth with the public. The death of bin Laden immediately became a myth, but even during his lifetime he turned into a myth that has very little in common with real person with the same first and last name. In fact, since the late 1970s, there have been two bin Ladens, one is real, real, but of no interest to anyone, the other is widely known, turned into America's enemy No. 1, but is just a phantom created by information warfare specialists from the CIA and the Pentagon , journalists, ideologists, etc. According to them, bin Laden is a two-meter giant, fabulously wealthy, heading a global terrorist network, which has branches in dozens of countries, personally directing most of the terrorist attacks carried out by Islamists since the late 1990s, and above all the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Before us is a classic hero of Hollywood films - a crazy evil genius, only with an oriental flavor.
The reality is completely different, but in order to pull it out into the light of God through layers of lies, you need to work hard.
The full name of "terrorist number 1" is Osama bin Muhammad bin Awar bin Ladin. He was born on March 10, 1957 in Saudi Arabia in the family of billionaire Muhammad bin Laden, a descendant of Yemeni peasants who made a fortune in construction. The bin Laden clan is one of the most influential clans in the Kingdom, and its members are famous for their proximity to the throne. He owns the Saudi Bin Laden Group, which controls up to 48% of the Saudi Arabian economy, primarily such industries as construction, oil, telecommunications, and has branches in 60 countries around the world. Bin Laden's father was worth $5 billion.
Osama was the 17th child in a family of 52 children (not surprising given that his father actually had about 20 wives). Osama's mother, Hamida, was a zealous Muslim, and her influence can explain Bin Laden's piety, which seems excessive even to the Saudis (there are many pro-Western people in the Bin Laden family, so his niece Vafa not only lives in the United States, but also starred naked there for men's magazine).
Osama studied at a college in Riyadh, then at the King Abdulaziz University, where he received a degree in economics. He repeatedly traveled abroad (according to some reports, he studied in the UK), knew the life of Western countries well, was not alien to Western culture and way of life. For example, bin Laden's favorite writer was the American science fiction writer (of Russian origin) Isaac Asimov. It was in honor of Asimov's "Foundation" - an organization of scientists who wish to prevent the degradation of the Galaxy and create a new galactic empire - that Bin Laden named his organization ("Al-Qaeda" is the Arabic translation of the title of Asimov's cycle of novels "Fundation"). The logic is quite transparent - Bin Laden also dreamed of creating a new empire - a world Islamic caliphate. Bin Laden loved football and supported London's Arsenal. He also loved Coca-Cola, drove American cars (however, he preferred Soviet weapons - a Kalashnikov assault rifle).
After tragic death father (in a plane crash), he received part of the inheritance (about $ 300 million), as well as part of the family business, which he then increased.
Bin Laden served in the Royal Sharia Police in Saudi Arabia, according to some reports, was associated with the Saudi intelligence services. In 1979, after the introduction of a limited contingent of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, he went to Afghanistan to assist the Islamist rebels who opposed the Karmal regime and the Soviet contingent. In Afghanistan, bin Laden was the official representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the de facto link between the Afghan Islamist rebels and the Arab world. As an official, he also had connections with the American intelligence services, the nature of which is still unclear (it is no coincidence that the Americans preferred to kill Bin Laden, rather than take him alive and did not judge him - he knew a lot of secrets of the CIA, as well as the Bush clan, with whom the Bin Laden clan has strong business and even friendly relations). In Afghanistan, bin Laden created the Maktab al-Khidamat (Bureau of Services) organization, which was engaged in the preparation and transfer of Islamist volunteers from Asia and Africa to Afghanistan (by the way, the organization's main office was on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York). New York). The organization collected donations for the war in Afghanistan around the world (up to 600 million dollars were collected per year). The bin Laden family, through Osama, directly funded training camps for Islamist volunteers, where CIA officers worked as instructors. Then America was a friend to Osama, however, later he will regret it. Years later he would say that Soviet Union unlike America, he was not a bitter enemy of Islam, and that the Americans used Muslims in order to defeat their enemy. Thus, according to Bin Laden, the Muslims who fought in Afghanistan themselves paved the way for the Americans to world domination and to the "war against Islam" (as Bin Ladan understood US expansion).
According to official biography Bin Laden, which is strongly imposed on the world by both the Islamists and their opponents from the US State Department, bin Laden personally participated in combat clashes in Afghanistan and even led a volunteer armed unit of 2,000 people. However, according to other sources (in particular, statements by former CIA employees published on the Internet), bin Laden was a simple financier and philanthropist (part of the Saudi money went to charitable purposes - supplying food, clothes and medicine to the civilian Afghan population in territories controlled by Islamists). Even if he wanted to take part in military clashes, no one would let him do it: only a madman would allow a person on whom the financing of militants depended to risk his life.
In 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia and proposed a defense plan in case of a possible attack on the kingdom of Hussein's Iraq (contrary to Bush's assurances, bin Laden had a negative attitude towards Hussein and he reciprocated). However, the authorities of the Kingdom preferred the protection of the United States, the contingent of the US army was sent to Saudi Arabia and American military bases were established. Bin Laden accused the government of betrayal, because for Muslims the territory of Saudi Arabia is the Holy Land (there are the main Muslim shrines). Bin Laden considered that the presence of Gentile troops on this land is a desecration of shrines. In response to these allegations, the Saudi Arabian government expelled bin Laden from the country (1991) and stripped him of his citizenship (1994). There was also a break with the family. Under the threat of freezing accounts and deprivation state support the family publicly renounced Osama (people who are unfamiliar with the culture of Islamic peoples do not understand the seriousness of this step, but he is really serious, and this has shown the future: after the murder of Osama in Pakistan, the family refused to accept his body and bury him in his homeland). As a result of the gap, Osama bin Laden lost his share in the family business and inheritance (the very fabulous 300 million that supposedly allowed him to finance global terrorism for twenty years). According to the most reliable data, only the enterprises he created remained at his disposal, which generated an income of about a million dollars a year - a solid amount, of course, but not the fabulous wealth that the media trumpets. This would hardly be enough to become a financier of global terrorism. Moreover, Bin Laden had to somehow support his own and not a small family - he had 4 wives and 17 sons (the sources do not indicate the number of daughters).
Bin Laden goes to Sudan, where he opens a construction business. His company was engaged in the construction of highways (in total, laying 1200 km of roads through the desert). In addition, bin Laden built the largest pharmaceutical plant in Africa in Khartoum, and with it a research center. The Americans subsequently accused bin Laden of producing drugs and even bombing the plant, but these accusations are not proven and, quite possibly, they are nothing more than part of an information war aimed at discrediting bin Laden. True, bin Laden himself did not hide the fact that he was engaged in the slave trade in Sudan, but in this he did not differ much from many other Arab big businessmen.
For us, the slave trade is a vile evil, and on Arab East- everyday life. Recall that Islamic law - Sharia allows slavery, and hence the slave trade (although it significantly limits them: for example, Muslims, even criminals, cannot be slaves). Slavery officially exists in 17 Muslim countries to this day. In bin Laden's homeland, Saudi Arabia, slavery was formally abolished in 1962 under pressure from the United States (although in 2003 the country's religious authorities demanded that slavery be re-legalized), unofficially it still exists today. According to the UN in 1982, there were about 250,000 slaves in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia per 25 million population (about 1 slave per 100 Saudis), mostly foreigners. It is clear that such a number of slaves implies a well-developed slave market and it also exists. Moreover, before 2009, the slave trade in the Kingdom was not even a criminal offense. In 2009, under pressure from the United States, a law was passed banning the slave trade under the threat of a fine of 266 thousand dollars or imprisonment, which naturally does not frighten anyone in the Kingdom. For us, this sounds strange and wild, but for the orthodox inhabitants of the Arab world, bin Laden's involvement in the slave trade does not in the least discredit him, and in any case, does not make him a criminal unique in his kind.
It was in Sudan that Al-Qaeda (since 1998 - the International Islamic Jihad Front against Jews and Crusaders) loudly announced itself as the successor of Maktab al-Khidamat (although formally it arose back in Afghanistan in 1988 as a result of a merger several Islamic organizations). The official goal of Al-Qaeda was the creation of a world Islamic state (“New Caliphate”) and the struggle against America and the regimes supporting it, the liquidation of the State of Israel, the withdrawal of American troops from the Gulf countries. In 1996, bin Laden called for jihad ( religious war) against America and stated that the killing of adult male American citizens (both military and civilians) is the duty of every Muslim (bin Laden blamed the victims for the support of the American government, either directly or through the payment of taxes). Bin Laden declared terror and sabotage by activists from among the population of Muslim countries to be the main means for the implementation of his plans.
It is widely believed that Al-Qaeda is a branched structure with branches in 34 countries of the world and numbering several hundred thousand people - (from 100 to 300 thousand people). Its backbone is made up of "Afghan veterans" loyal to bin Laden. Bin Laden personally directs the organization, although formally the power belongs to the council (shuro), which forms subcommittees (religious, military, financial, etc.), and national cells and training camps are subordinate to them. Al-Qaeda members are said to have fought and are fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Russian North Caucasus, Central Asia, in the former Yugoslavia, and also carry out sabotage in the Gulf countries and in North Africa. Al-Qaeda is credited with the most major terrorist attacks modernity - the attack on American soldiers in Somalia in October 1993, the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, the attack on the US aircraft carrier Cole on October 12, 2000, and, of course, on September 11, 2011, which served as the starting point for the war US with terrorism and turned bin Laden into America's number one enemy. The media claim that bin Laden personally sends instructions to the militants and gives assignments.
It is also believed that bin Laden, through a network of his firms (construction, pharmaceutical, and clandestine drug factories), finances al-Qaeda and its training camps, which were first located in Sudan, and after 1996, when the Sudanese government expelled bin Laden, moved to Afghanistan and are still there. The same money is used to arm the militants, supply them with equipment, bribe officials, as well as help the families of the killed militants, and, finally, propaganda work.
The picture is impressive, but, alas, the facts somewhat contradict it.
Al-Qaeda and bin Laden began to be talked about after the attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), which took place on August 7, 1998 - the eighth anniversary of the deployment of American troops in Saudi Arabia. Arabia. These attacks attracted attention due to their unprecedented scale. As a result, more than 200 of them died, more than 5 thousand people were injured. But here's the bad luck - a previously unknown organization, the Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Places, and not Al-Qaeda, which the Americans hastened to declare the true organizer, took responsibility for the terrorist acts. Moreover, in response to accusations of preparing these attacks, bin Laden, in an interview with Time magazine on December 22, 1998, literally said the following: "International Islamic Jihad" declared jihad against the United States and its allies, and these actions took place with God help. If incitement to jihad…is seen as a crime, then I am a criminal. Our task is to call for jihad, and with God's help we do it." That is, in fact, bin Laden claimed that he did not prepare the attacks and did not lead them, he simply called for a religious war, and this is all his fault. However, the Americans insisted that bin Laden was at fault. According to them, Khaflan Khamis Mohammed, who was later arrested and was involved in the preparation of the explosion in Dar es Salaam, admitted his connection with Al-Qaeda. But after the details of the stay of the accused in the Abu Ghraib prison and in the Guantanam camp became known, it is difficult to believe in the sincerity of such confessions, since we now know by what means they are knocked out (starting from torture with insomnia and ending with suffocation with a plastic bag). So, alas, Al-Qaeda's involvement in the attacks on US embassies is proven only in the eyes of those who believe every word of the US State Department.
Also vague is the case with Al-Qaeda's involvement in the terrorist attack in New York on September 11, which actually began the war on terrorism, almost identical to the war with bin Laden. Bin Laden himself and representatives of his organization have repeatedly denied their involvement in the events of September 11 (however, no one heard their voices, since in the so-called "free" and "democratic" world, the media are also easily controlled, however, using other mechanisms than those that were used in "totalitarian countries").
So, a few hours after the terrorist attack in New York, Al-Qaeda's representative in Europe, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, said that such actions are prohibited by Islam, but "valuable lessons can be learned from them." On September 18, 2001, Osama bin Laden's plenipotentiary, Suleiman Abu Ghayat, called Al Jazeera and, on behalf of Al Qaeda, denied that the organization was involved in the attack in New York. Denied the possible involvement of Osama bin Laden in this and his brother Sheikh Ahmed. Then Osama bin Laden himself, in an interview with the same Al Jazeera, said: "I emphasize that I did not carry out this act, which seems to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation." On September 28, in an interview with the Ummat newspaper, bin Laden once again repeated: "I knew nothing about these operations and I do not consider it acceptable to kill innocent women and children." And even in the famous interview of October 7, 2001, about which Bush said that in it bin Laden actually took responsibility for this crime, bin Laden did not say a word about his involvement (there were only ultimatum threats to America). For three years in a row, bin Laden repeated that America did not have any serious evidence of his guilt. The Americans, however, showed a video allegedly found in a destroyed house in Jalalabad, where, as they say, "a person similar to bin Laden" boasted of this terrorist attack. But the Americans also presented a recording where “a person similar to bin Laden” declared himself a homosexual and stated that he was drinking wine, then it turned out that this was a fake of the CIA, designed to discredit bin Ladan in the eyes of Muslims.
Only on October 30, 2004, when, thanks to the information war unleashed Western media, the whole world was absolutely convinced that the skyscraper towers were attacked on the orders of bin Laden, he admitted this in an interview with Al Jazeera, but he did it in a deliberately absurd form, attributing to himself the direct leadership of all 19 terrorists. One gets the impression that bin Laden, indeed, was not involved in the terrorist attack in New York, did not know who committed it, and in general all this was a surprise for him (which fits well with the conspiracy theory, according to which the terrorist attack was carried out by an independent Islamist group located under the full control of US intelligence). It seems that he was simply tired of repeating the truth for three years in a row, which no one needs, and he accepted the conditions of the game that America imposed on him.
After that, al-Qaeda begins to take on any significant terrorist attacks against the Americans and their allies, to the great delight of the world media. It looked like this. At first, bin Laden gave a speech on the Internet. In it, he repeated his old slogans about jihad against America and threatened new attacks, without specifying where and when they would occur. Then some anonymous or previously unknown group committed a terrorist attack. If it was more or less large-scale and received a response in the media, then a person who introduced himself as one of the leaders of Al-Qaeda would phone (send a fax or e-mail) to the editorial office of an Arab channel or an Arab newspaper and declare the responsibility of this organization for terrorist attack. Then in the next Internet address, bin Laden could confirm this.
Experts in the field of international terrorism argue that we are simply playing an information game. In reality, al-Qaeda is a small group of people who are personally loyal to bin Laden and have gone with him from the Afghan-Soviet to the Afghan-American war. They do not have any branches in other countries and their power extends only to a small territory in Afghanistan itself, so they are not involved in terrorist attacks around the world. The so-called al-Qaeda cells outside of Afghanistan are autonomous groups that act at their own discretion, without any external control (with the exception of control by the secret services, who infiltrate some of them with their agents and make terrorism manageable). Bin Laden only shared the Al-Qaeda brand with them, as he believed that the creation of the myth of a global terrorist network is beneficial for the Islamist rebels, this should attract more and more new people to their ranks and at the same time demoralize the Western community. Here, his interests coincided with the interests of the Western (primarily American) intelligence services, which needed the myth of a global terrorist network in order to receive funding from their governments, and with the interests of the US political leadership, which needed a reason to invade other countries (as it was with Afghanistan).
Officials in Washington (speaking informally to reporters on condition of anonymity) have long admitted that if bin Laden were to fall into the hands of American justice, it would be extremely difficult to prove the charges against him in court. I think this is another reason that bin Laden was killed during the arrest, and not taken alive. It would be a shock to the American public if bin Laden's lawyers proved that he was not involved in the attacks in New York (and they most likely would have proved it).
The fact that bin Laden is not the head of a network of thousands of terrorists is also proved by the analysis of his instructions to the national cells of Al-Qaeda. Take, for example, the "Message to the Resistance in Iraq" dated October 22, 2007 and posted online. Here is an excerpt from it: “You survived the war against Bush and his thugs, and you were ready for this, and the greater is your merit. After all, you are children of wars, and there are no valiant knights among you! After all, you are people of weapons, people of blades and smashing spears, you inherited them as elders from elders - beat any apostate and unfaithful with them! The world froze in amazement and admiration, seeing how the divisions of cruel America disintegrate under your blows, how its regiments crumble under your attacks, how its battalions are exterminated under your onslaught ...
I see how between the Euphrates and Barka
There is a battle where horses step on human skulls,
And valiant men fight as if their palms
Earlier than the wrists, they got used to the spears of the Rudains.
Protect him from the enemy, from all sides pressing
Swords of the sons of Islam, protecting from any tyrant.
They are the best at attacking in the heat of battle
And even better is that they are equal in their merits
They saved us, but in battle
They are less bashful than the blades of swords,
For a quick death is a rest for them,
And life for them is like scratches in the throat.
Somehow this is a little like an instruction given by a cunning and rational leader of a global terrorist network to his subordinates. What we have before us is actually Arabic rhythmic prose (in the original - with internal rhymes), turning into verses using archaic turns characteristic of Arabic classical poetry. In other words, this is the appeal of a poet who does not lead and instruct, but simply inspires his comrades-in-arms to fight, and, most likely, without even knowing them personally. It is significant that the American orientalist Bruce Lawrence, who translated bin Laden's messages into English and published them in the United States as a separate book, believes that "Osama bin Laden is a poet and thinker whose views were very misunderstood by the world."
The version about bin Laden's financing of terrorist cells around the world does not stand up to criticism either. As already mentioned, after the break with the family, bin Laden lost the notorious 300 million (and if they had stayed with him, they would not have been enough for a “global jihad” lasting 20 years). Let us repeat once again that in reality his income was about 1 million dollars a year. At the same time, some of them left to support a large family, as well as to philanthropic activities. The latter is hardly talked about in the media, while in Afghanistan, thanks to it, he was and still is wildly popular. With bin Laden's money, wells are dug, roads are laid, hospitals are built and equipped with medicines, food and water are purchased for refugees in camps. After that, there probably isn't much left. Of course, bin Laden spent part of the money on financing Afghan Taliban fighters, whom he knew personally, but it is unlikely that this money went beyond the territory of Afghanistan.
The Americans claim that bin Laden made huge profits from the drug business in Afghanistan. But again, there is no direct evidence for this, but there are facts that make at least doubt the correctness of this. Thus, bin Laden's friends and associates, the Taliban, when they were in power in Afghanistan, banned the drug trade, methodically destroyed poppy plantations and drug laboratories. And as soon as the Americans came, Afghanistan again became the largest producer of drugs. According to experts, "it was after the start of the US operation and the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan that a record increase in the production of opium (raw opium - a narcotic raw material for the production of heroin) began, which in the fall of 2005 approached a record mark of 15,000 tons annually." Moreover, in the territories controlled by the Americans (in particular, in the city of Kandahar), a banking network has even been created that issues loans for future harvests of raw opium and supply plantations with fertilizers directly from the chemical plants of Pakistan. It seems that it is not bin Laden who derives the proceeds from the Afghan drug trade, but his opponents, the Americans and their Kabul puppets.
But even if bin Laden had been a drug lord, this criminal business would not have brought him much income. As already mentioned, at present, the drug market in Afghanistan is largely controlled by pro-American forces, the mafia pseudo-state of Karzai, which even Western media write about.
Of course, bin Laden was a terrorist. Of course, he financed the terrorist activities of the Islamists in Afghanistan and Sudan. Of course, with his speeches on the Internet and in the media, he spread anger and hatred and destabilized the situation in the world. But terrorist number one, the head of the global network, he was not a modern-day Frankenstein. Who was he?
At the very beginning of the article, I already wrote that bin Laden, according to his own statements, was inspired by the fantasy of the American writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov's Foundation cycle of novels depicts a community of scientists, the Foundation, as it becomes the core of a new Galactic Empire. The creator of this community and the architect of the future empire is the brilliant psycho-historian Gary Seldon, who managed to predict the development of history a thousand years in advance and leads the "Foundation" to the cherished goal, having designed for this several manageable crises through which humanity passes. Moreover, Seldon controls people with the help of his holographic video messages.
Bin Laden saw himself as the next Gary Seldon. Bin Laden also had a dream - to create an Islamic world empire by the year 2100. For this, in his opinion, it was necessary to undermine the power of the West and, above all, America, plunging them into a series of crises provoked by terrorist attacks. Moreover, he saw his task in calling for these attacks with the help of video messages, and not at all in organizing them himself. And at first he was honest about it. “I must say that it is my duty to simply wake up the Muslims,” these are the words from his video message. But from the very beginning, no one in the West believed him. America wanted to see him as the organizer of a terrorist war. Having lost enemy No. 1 after the fall of the USSR, America needed a new image of the enemy, because it remained the military fist of the Western world, once intended to defeat the Soviet superpower. Neither America's powerful military-industrial complex, nor its agitprop, nor thousands of advisers, experts, and intelligence officers have gone anywhere. And, in the end, bin Ladan gave in and began to play by the rules of the information war unleashed by the United States. And in doing so, he - half ruthless maximalist fanatic, half naive political dreamer - signed his own sentence, which was carried out on May 1, 2011.
Bin Laden was needed by the US only up to a certain point. His murder means only one thing: the US political leadership has decided that the Osama bin Laden media project has exhausted itself. There are at least two reasonable explanations for this. First, things are so bad for Barack Obama that he decided to go down in history as the winner of "Osama bin Laden himself" to increase his popularity. And secondly, the United States simply no longer needs terrorist attacks as reasons for invading the “necessary country” (as was the case with Afghanistan and partly Iraq). The United States adopted the concept of humanitarian intervention, according to which it is enough for the government to act against the “civilian population” (“civilian population” is supplied with weapons in advance and organized using computer technology) to start bombing. Since almost any government is fighting against its armed opponents (take, for example, Spain with its Basque problem, Great Britain with its Irish problem or Russia with its Caucasian problem), humanitarian intervention can be launched against almost any state.
The world has entered a new next stage of its development. America's "war on terror" has escalated into a series of wars against US hostile or at least US-independent states. Now it does not make sense to invest in the image of the terrorist number 1. The Moor has done his job, the Moor must go.
Rustem Vakhitov
PhD in Philosophy
Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden (arab. أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن, born March 10, 1957, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - May 2, 2011, Abbottabad, Pakistan) - founder and former leader of an international Islamist terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, which claimed responsibility for a number of large-scale terrorist attacks in various parts of the world, such as the bombings of US embassies in Africa and the September 11, 2001 attacks.
He was on the FBI's list of "most dangerous terrorists" and until 2011 was the main target of an international campaign led by the United States, called the "war on terrorism" (eng. War on Terror), in which the invasion of Afghanistan took place, one of the declared goals which was the capture of bin Laden.
According to the official version, voiced by the US authorities, bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 as a result of a special operation conducted by the United States in one of the cities of Pakistan. His death was confirmed by al-Qaeda. After his assassination, the leadership of the organization passed to Ayman al-Zawahiri.
About the biography of Osama bin Laden, about his family life, conflicting information is often found in different sources. The same goes for assessing his personality and methods for achieving goals.
His birth is attributed to the second half of the 1950s, probably 1957, which is indirectly confirmed by his own testimony that he lost his father when he was 10 years old; place of birth - Saudi Arabia, Jeddah or Riyadh.
Osama grew up in Hijaz. He studied at the al-Tagher school, then at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah (there is contradictory information about the specialty he received at the university - a civil engineer, or economics and management, or public administration). Among his teachers may have been the brother of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sayyid Qutb, Muhammad Qutb.
Around this time, Osama bin Laden began his career in the construction business, which did not prevent him from joining the Afghan Jihad movement, where he eventually became one of the prominent figures. He later 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 the leaders of Islamic groups opposed to the government of Kabul. On a regular basis, he began to provide financial support to the leaders of the Afghan resistance from personal funds. Together with the leader of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam, bin Laden created the Bureau of Services (Maktab al-khidamat) 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 the 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 Scheuer, who led the bin Laden case and by 2011 a professor at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, US intelligence knew about bin Laden's activities in Afghanistan against Soviet troops, but contacts with never had it.
After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden lost interest in the USSR and Russia as an enemy and almost completely switched 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 seen from what Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who is referred to in quotation marks as "Osama bin Laden's regular biographer," says.
In 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to the Jeddah-based family contracting and construction business, but his organization continued to help the opposition movement in Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
During the Iraqi aggression against Kuwait, Osama prepared a plan to defend his native country from the invasion of Iraqi troops and even offered the services of his Mujahideen. However, at this time, the United States and its allies came to the aid of the Gulf countries. Bin Laden spoke with slogans of active opposition to the American "occupation" of the "holy land" - Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also accused the Saudi rulers of complicity with the US. According to Said Buryatsky, in 1991, the issue of bringing American troops into the country was being resolved in Saudi Arabia, and Islamic scholars were divided into supporters and opponents of this idea: “It was then that Sheikh Osama opposed the entry and declared it kufr - and against him, recently national hero, a struggle unfolded not for life, but for death.
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.
The US government pressured the Sudanese authorities to extradite Osama bin Laden in connection with terrorism charges (he is believed to have sponsored the fight of Somali militants against US and UN troops in 1993).
In May 1996, in response to the threat of UN sanctions due to the alleged complicity of the Sudanese authorities in the 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia, the Sudanese authorities expelled Osama bin Laden from the country, giving him the opportunity to move to Afghanistan, where he continued Islamic extremist activity.
In Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden was considered a guest of the Taliban, which controlled 2/3 of Afghanistan. Using the pretext of a tradition of hospitality, the Taliban refused the US government's request for his extradition. Negotiations with the Taliban on the subject of extradition only led to the fact that the Taliban promised to either try Osama bin Laden under Sharia law, or promised to transfer him to a neutral Islamic country, but even this only if they were provided with the necessary evidence of his involvement in the attacks.
The US government rejected the Taliban's proposal and preferred military action to the diplomatic channels available to them. About two weeks after the embassy bombings, on August 20, the US Air Force carried out air strikes against the Taliban-controlled eastern territories of Afghanistan. There have been strikes on alleged terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, as well as attacks on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, where al-Qaeda allegedly produced chemical weapons.
Evidence that the Sudanese factory produced anything other than medical supplies was weak enough at the time to warrant such strikes. The bombing and missile strikes in Afghanistan also fell short, and some critics felt that all of these actions were Bill Clinton's pre-planned petty political maneuver, undertaken in order to divert public attention from the scandalous case with Monica Lewinsky, a court hearing of this the case where Monica testified about her relationship with the president took place on the same day.
The fight against those whom Osama bin Laden considered the main enemies of the Islamic world eventually became the meaning of his life and occupied almost all of his time. The former bodyguard of Terrorist No. 1, Nasser al-Bahri, in an interview with the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, said the following: "Osama bin Laden is a workaholic. He will always be one step ahead of Western intelligence. His day begins before dawn, when he makes his first prayers, and ends late at night. And all this time he is constantly doing something, never resting "We lived in uncomfortable conditions, but this did not prevent him from working, thinking and planning all the time. After prayer, he proceeds to organizational issues, and then receives prominent people who come to visit, sometimes secretly. But for the whole day he does not do anything one respite".
After the end of the Afghan war, Osama decided to continue the battle against the United States.
In 1996, bin Laden issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to destroy the US military in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. In 1998, he issued a second fatwa ordering Muslims to kill American civilians. The fatwas were written on behalf of a group of radical Islamic theologians. Osama bin Laden himself only brought them to the attention of the general public and he did not have the right to create fatwas as a person who did not have a spiritual education. With these fatwas, the World Front against the Jews and the Crusaders was officially created.
Osama bin Laden was included in the list of 10 most wanted by the FBI as a suspect in the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), which took place on August 7, 1998 - exactly on the eighth anniversary of 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 five million dollars as a reward for information that will help his arrest.
It is believed that he also actively supported the 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.
Osama bin Laden visited Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. Bin Laden and his Tunisian aide Mehrez Aoduni received Bosnian citizenship in 1993. According to the Bosnian press in 1999, bin Laden's passport was issued by the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aliya Izetbegovic, in gratitude for the Mujahideen's support for his aspirations to create a "fundamentalist Islamic republic" in the Balkans. Bin Laden financed the transfer of mercenaries from the Arab world to Bosnia with the help of Sudanese business partners.
Renate Flottau, a correspondent for the German magazine Der Spiegel, claims to have seen bin Laden in Sarajevo when he visited Bosnian Muslim President Izetbegovic in 1993. On February 3, 2006, at the ICTY, in the court hearings in the case of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the British journalist, correspondent for The Guardian and The London Times, Eve-Ann Prentice, testified under oath that in November 1994 the chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina Aliya Izetbegovic was personally visited by Osama bin Laden. Prentice stated that she saw bin Laden enter Izetbegovic's office shortly before the last interview.
Osama bin Laden first visited Albania as a guest of the country's president, Sali Berisha, in 1994 or 1995, telling the government that he was in charge of a thriving Saudi humanitarian aid agency. In December 1998, Albanian intelligence chief Fatos Klosi said that bin Laden had personally visited Albania and represented one of the fundamentalist groups that sent fighters to take part in the hostilities in Kosovo. Klosi expressed the opinion that terrorists had already infiltrated various parts of Europe from bases in Albania, using illegal migration flows. Interpol, in turn, warned that the Islamists have great opportunities to acquire false documents, since more than one hundred thousand blank Albanian passports were stolen during the 1997 riots. The involvement of bin Laden's militants 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. According to the same article, in 2000 Osama bin Laden worked in Kosovo, developing terrorist acts during the conflict in the Presevo Valley.
Osama bin Laden has been actively involved in the Chechen conflict since 1995, sending al-Qaeda agents to the North Caucasus and sponsoring Chechen terrorists.
Bin Laden's representative in the North Caucasus was field commander Khattab, whom he met back in 1987. The connection with bin Laden gave Khattab access to unlimited financial resources and allowed him to gain a strong position in Chechnya. On the other hand, the Chechen separatists themselves denounce ties to al-Qaeda. In particular, Akhmed Zakayev, at that time the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the self-proclaimed Republic of Ichkeria, denied the connection of Chechen separatists with Al-Qaeda (during the kidnapping of Russian diplomats in Iraq on June 6, 2006), and according to him it was clear that Al-Qaeda and Chechen separatists are not cooperating.
Beginning in 1995, Osama bin Laden repeatedly held meetings with one of the leaders of the Uzbek Islamists, Takhir Yuldashev, and helped him to establish contacts with the leaders of the Taliban movement. Another Uzbek Islamist leader, Juma Namangani, received $3 million a year in funding from bin Laden.
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 into the hands of terrorists. These accusations were the main reason for the start of the war in Iraq. Subsequently, on September 9, 2006, in the published report of the US Senate Committee on Intelligence, these statements were refuted. Moreover, it turned out that Saddam Hussein not only did not have any connections with Al-Qaeda, but was at enmity with it. This conclusion, which refuted George W. Bush's statements about the Saddam regime's long-standing ties with terrorist organizations, significantly undermined the authority of the US government as an international arbiter, and further compromised the quality of the work of such a serious organization as the CIA. Critics have noted that with this approach, unverified accusations of cooperation with terrorists can now become a reason for invading other countries in which a regime is in power that is objectionable to the US government. Citing information provided by the FBI, the report said that Hussein turned down Osama bin Laden's request for help in 1995.
In August 2002, the former Deputy Minister of the Interior of Afghanistan under the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Khaksar, said that Ahmad Shah Massoud (the head of the Northern Alliance, the main opponent of the Taliban movement that controlled a significant part of Afghanistan) was killed on the personal order of Osama bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden's name was, by and large, little known until the attention of the whole world was drawn to him by the US FBI's statement that he was considered the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as a result which killed about three thousand people. The FBI said the evidence of al-Qaeda involvement is "clear and undeniable" this view has become official point US government perspective. The UK government has come to the same conclusion.
Osama bin Laden's declaration of jihad against America, his 1998 fatwa, and numerous other calls to kill Americans were seen as evidence that he had substantial motives for organizing such a terrorist act.
Bin Laden initially denied his involvement in the events, but later confirmed it. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden declared that he was not involved in the attacks. in a broadcast by the Qatari television channel Al Jazeera, in particular, he said: "I emphasize that I did not carry out this act, which appears to have been 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 to the source has not been preserved, it makes sense to mention that, according to other sources, this was a text appeal read by an 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 the same day to the bureau of the Islamic Press of Afghanistan (AIP).
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaif, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, officially declared that Osama bin Laden was not involved (September 13), the same was stated by an unnamed close assistant to Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan (September 12 - by phone to Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail, who is the chief of the Islamabad bureau of Abu Dhabi Television), as well as allegedly Osama bin Laden himself in an interview published on September 28th in the Daily Ummat (Karachi) to some unknown journalist under unclear circumstances.
The first video featuring Osama bin Laden appeared on the Al Jazeera channel only on October 7 (indirect confirmation of this is in the official list of the Al Jazeera channel dedicated to the messages of Osama bin Laden), it contains ultimatum wishes addressed to the United States and expressed satisfaction with the actions of terrorists, but Osama bin Laden did not say a word about his involvement (or non-involvement).
Thus, 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 delivered 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. Although, in fact, that video did not contain direct evidence. This, a month later, caused Osama bin Laden to express dissatisfaction with the methods practiced by the United States in an interview with Hamid Mir (November 7, 2001): “The US has no serious evidence against us. They only have guesses. It is unfair to start the bombing with only these assumptions in hand..
Shortly before the 2004 US presidential election, in another video message, Osama bin Laden publicly confirmed the participation of Al-Qaeda in organizing the terrorist attacks of 2001, and also stated that he was directly involved in this. He also said that the attacks were carried out "because we are a free people who do not accept injustice and we want to restore the freedom of our nation". In this tape, obtained by Al Jazeera on October 30, 2004, bin Laden says he was in direct control of 19 hijackers. He also reported: “I and Commander-in-Chief Mohammed Atta, may Allah have mercy on him, agreed that the entire operation should be completed in no more than 20 minutes until Bush and his administration notice what is happening”.
On October 7, the United States and Great Britain launched rocket attacks on Taliban targets in Afghanistan, which was the beginning of the military operation "Enduring Freedom". Al-Jazeera, a Qatari broadcaster, broadcast Osama bin Laden's speech. In his address, he stated: “Allah has hit America in one of its most vulnerable places. America is in fear from north to south, from west to east. I thank Allah for this.".
Promises to kill Osama bin Laden, the President of the United States, remained "on paper" for a long 10 years. For the head of "terrorist number one" the US government promised 25 million dollars. In 2007, the US Senate doubled the award (thus, by the time of the actual death, the amount of the award was $ 50 million).
Osama bin Laden's death has been reported six times since the September 11, 2001 attacks. The first time he was declared dead was in December 2001, shortly after the large-scale American bombing of the Tora Bora region in eastern Afghanistan. On September 23, 2006, a French newspaper published a document presented as a report by the secret services of the republic, in which it was noted that, according to intelligence of Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden died of typhus in Pakistan on August 23. However, this information was not confirmed later. Shortly before her death, on November 2, 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto announced in an interview on Al Jazeera that Osama bin Laden was dead and killed by Omar Sheikh.
On May 2, 2011, as a result of a 4-hour secret operation, Osama bin Laden was killed by members of the US Navy SEAL unit in a villa in the city of Abbottabad, 50 km from Islamabad.
Information about the assassination of Osama bin Laden has been confirmed by a number of sources. So, on May 6, a confirmation was published on behalf of Al-Qaeda. The message about the death of Osama bin Laden was also confirmed by Pakistani intelligence chief Ahmed Pasha and personally by the US president: “Just over a week ago, I decided we had enough intelligence, and I agreed to the operation. Under my leadership, an operation was carried out near Islamabad, Pakistan, during which the US military showed incredible courage, eliminated bin Laden and picked up his body" Obama said.
According to AFP, citing an unnamed official, his son, two couriers and a woman used by bin Laden's associates as human shields were killed along with the terrorist leader. Bin Laden's two wives, four sons and four closest associates have been arrested. According to the President of the United States, American 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 members 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, Osama bin Laden's body was buried in the Arabian Sea according to Muslim custom, although Islam prohibits the burial of the bodies of the dead in the sea. According to other sources, burial at sea among Muslims is extremely rare, but not prohibited. The sea was chosen as a grave to prevent Osama bin Laden's grave from becoming a place of pilgrimage (as a martyr who died for his faith). Typically, this method of burial is used only when it is not possible to bury a Muslim on land within the next 24 hours. It is reported that the burial took place in compliance with all necessary Muslim rites. Some of the sons of Osama bin Laden expressed dissatisfaction with such treatment of the body of their deceased father.
Osama bin Laden's family:
Father: Mohammed bin Laden(1908-1967) - Saudi entrepreneur of Yemeni origin, who made a fortune in the construction business, founder of the Saudi bin Laden Group, who had close ties to the Saudi royal family. The bin Laden family, whose prosperity was started 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 areas such as construction, oil production, shipbuilding, media and telecommunications.
Osama's father died in a plane crash in 1967 (according to other sources, in 1968 or 1970).
Mother: Aliya Ghanem, according to other sources Hamida, marriage with her became for Mohammed bin Laden, according to various sources (information is contradictory), 4th, 10th or 11th; in total, 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 bin Laden has been married five times. He first married in 1975 to his cousin. It was rumored that one of his wives was the daughter of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. But in an interview with Hamid Mir, Osama bin Laden said that all his wives (of which there are three) are of Arab origin, and also said that he was connected with Mullah Omar only by religious duty and mutual respect.
Umm Khaled, a native of Saudi Arabia.
Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, - a Yemeni woman whom bin Laden married in the spring of 2000 (she is called the youngest wife of Osama bin Laden).
Umm Hamza, a native of Saudi Arabia.
Children. 17 sons. Their whereabouts are unknown.
Fourth son, Omar, at the age of 19 broke with his father and refused to fight in the ranks of the Taliban. He took up the scrap metal 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 protector, and the very wording applied to him is not correct. Just 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 itself, 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 had nothing to do with his activities. In 2007, he married British Jane Felix-Brown, 24 years older than him, but they were married for only five months. In November 2008, Omar arrived in Madrid, asking for political asylum in Spain, but the Spanish authorities refused him.
The rest of the 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 a lifestyle of fighters for the triumph of the ideology of Islam). It should also be noted that according to the same source, Osama bin Laden called one interview (published in one of the Arab newspapers) taken from one of his sons a fake.
Other relatives: Osama's brother Yeslam bin Laden lives in Switzerland. According to him, he has not been to Saudi Arabia since 1987 and has not seen his brother since. In 1974, Yeslam married Carmen, who is half Iranian and half Swiss by origin. The couple separated after 11 years. After the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden's former daughter-in-law recounted her meeting with him: “Someone knocked on the door, I instinctively opened it, and this man was standing on the threshold. I barely looked at him before he turned away because my face was uncovered and Osama didn't want to look at me. I know that Osama was very pious. He is the only one of the brothers who refused to look at me.” The daughter of Yeslam and Carmen - Wafa Dufur, 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 posed semi-nude for the men's magazine GQ.
Graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Management of King Abdulaziz University. He continued his studies in Riyadh and London, where he specialized in management and engineering.
At the age of 16, bin Laden joined one of the Islamic fundamentalist groups operating in Saudi Arabia.
In Afghanistan, during the war of 1979-1989, he fought on the side of the Mujahideen against the Soviet troops. During this period, together with a Palestinian member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdullah Azzam, he created the Maqtab al-Khadamat (Service Bureau) to send fighters and money to the Afghan resistance. This bureau has opened recruitment centers around the world, organized and financed military training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Osama bin Laden was killed by a US Navy special forces unit on the outskirts of the Pakistani city of Abbottabad. His body, in the strictest secrecy, was thrown into the sea from the side of an American warship.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
bin laden usama
Real name - Osama (Osama) bin Mohammed bin Awada bin Laden (born in 1957)
Terrorist No. 1, also known by the nicknames Emir, Mujahil Sheikh and Abu Abdullah. "Islamic warrior" who declared jihad on America. A man who became a symbol of terrorism in the 20th century. American services declared him dead and immediately offered a reward of one billion dollars for his head.
The name of Osama (Osama) bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden has been haunting the intelligence services of many countries for almost 20 years and enjoys unflagging attention from the media. For the Western world, he seems to be the embodiment of almost universal evil. Islamists see in him a hero and a fighter against the "Great Satan", as with the light hand of the late head of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini, they call the United States of America. By the time of the death of the formidable Ayatollah bin Laden was 32 years old and he certainly managed to imbue the ideas of the spiritual teacher of the Shiites. However, the political realities of the last two decades have forced the famous terrorist to expand his field of activity. If for Khomeini the main enemies were the United States and Israel, then Osama declared war on all Western countries, one way or another supporting US policy. This war has no boundaries. It primarily affects civilians. This is the ideological platform of bin Laden, who once said: “We do not distinguish between those who are dressed in military uniform and those wearing civilian clothes. All of them are walking targets for us.” With bloody acts of terrorism, he outlawed himself, but gained immense popularity among Muslims, imbued with the ideas of holy war, jihad, against the "infidels", that is, non-Muslims.
Until the world learned the real name of terrorist number 1, Osama bin Laden was known by the nicknames Mujahid, Director, Hajj, Abu Abdullah. Information about him was collected bit by bit, until the biography of the leader of the most powerful Muslim terrorist organization, Al-Qaeda, became known in general terms. To this day, however, much of bin Laden's life remains unclear.
The "protagonist" of Muslim terrorism was born on July 28, 1957. The place of birth is called either the capital of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, or Jeddah, a city that for many centuries served as the departure point for Muslim pilgrims on the Hajj to Mecca. Osama spent his childhood in the homeland of Islam - in Hijaz, a province of Saudi Arabia. It should be noted that this country to this day is a theocratic state of the Islamic persuasion, where Sharia law is in force; for a long time it was practically closed to "infidels". Thus, one should not be surprised that Osama absorbed Islamic principles, as they say, with his mother's milk. According to rumors, she really was distinguished by deep piety. Her son with early childhood imbued with the ideas of Islam and, along with this, was distinguished by aggressiveness and intolerance to any dissent. According to classmates, the boy even then incited his peers to beat fellow students who, in his opinion, did not honor Allah. At the age of 16, he became a member of one of the Islamic fundamentalist groups. And later he served in the Sharia police of the kingdom, whose duties included overseeing the observance of Sharia by the citizens of the state. However, the young man's views were obviously too radical even for Saudi Arabia. He didn't fit in with the police.
Bin Laden's ancestors were Yemeni peasants who moved to Saudi Arabia. During the oil boom, the family managed to get rich building buildings and roads. By the time Osama was born, his father Mohammed bin Laden, having gone from a laborer to a successful businessman, became a major construction magnate, was associated with royal family and, of course, had several wives. In total, he had 52 children. Osama was only son tenth wife. This, however, did not affect his well-being in any way. The boy was raised by a governess. He communicated only with children from aristocratic families, for which he received the nickname Prince among his family. In 1979, after the death of his father in a plane crash, the inheritance was divided among the 20 sons of Muhammad. Osama's part was $80 million.
Osama later graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Management of King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. There he met the famous Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, who had a great influence on the young fanatic. It was he who was the spiritual leader of the so-called "Afghan Arabs", who already then managed to carry out several bloody terrorist attacks around the world.
In 1989, Abdullah Azzam and his family were victims of unidentified individuals who planted explosives in their car. The perpetrators were never found. However, it was bin Laden who was most interested in the death of the "teacher". Now leadership among the "Afghan Arabs" has passed to him.
Immediately after graduating from university, Osama went to Afghanistan. The Royal Family, which supported Muslim anti-government groups here, made him its representative in this country. In January, a young man who was barely 21 years old showed up in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, commanding 2,000 young Arabs who wanted to join the jihad against Soviet troops. Operating on the territory of Afghanistan, this detachment became famous for its particular cruelty against Soviet prisoners of war and drug trafficking. And the commander mastered military affairs and several times acted as an intermediary in the transfer of money to Afghan anti-government groups from Pakistani intelligence. From the very first steps, the millionaire commander earned respect among the Mujahideen. He renounced personal weapons and declared that he would capture them in battle. Osama fulfilled this promise.
Apparently, bin Laden was closely associated with the Saudi intelligence services. It is known that on behalf of Prince Turki al-Faisal, who led the kingdom's special services, he transferred huge donations to the Mujahideen. Interest from intermediary services remained in the pockets of the royal representative. Ideas are ideas, and business is business. The former special agent has always acted as an excellent businessman.
Having gone "on business", Osama brought construction equipment with him. With her help, he started tunneling under the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was through them that the Mujahideen penetrated into Afghanistan and weapons were delivered. According to some reports, he also participated in the creation of a system of underground fortifications in the mountains, which, after a few years, probably allowed him to avoid American captivity. With Saudi money, Osama recruited volunteers and organized military training camps for them in southern Sudan, Peshawar and Afghanistan. Around the same time, the future terrorist made contact with the CIA, who contacted him through the Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdurrahman.
Having taken part in the siege of Jalalabad, which served as an impetus for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, bin Laden returned home. In one of the last battles, a grenade that exploded nearby deprived him of one of his eyes. After healing the wound, he turned to business. Osama's father's business was able to expand significantly, adding to his fortune a number of large firms in the Arab countries, Germany and the UK. However, the hero of the Afghan war soon fell out of favor. According to one version, the royal house did not like bin Laden's criticism of his policies, accusations of the ruling elite of corruption and deviation from the norms of Islam. Osama spoke negatively about the deployment of anti-Iraqi coalition forces on the holy Saudi soil before Operation Desert Storm, and therefore was persecuted. In 1994, he was also stripped of his Saudi citizenship: in addition, he took responsibility for the bombings of American military bases in Riyadh and Dhahran. The terrorist had to move to neighboring Sudan.
However, the construction company of the bin Laden family quietly continued to work, carrying out an important order for the government to expand the Holy Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. It began to be implemented back in 1984 and was considered one of the largest projects of the 20th century. Interest from the family's construction contracts continued to flow into the accounts of her offspring, who is very respected in Islamist circles and widely known in the Muslim world. In addition, American intelligence claims that Saudi Arabia continued to transfer funds to bin Laden for his terrorist activities, although outwardly they looked like enemies.
In Sudan, on the banks of the Blue Nile, bin Laden had a farm. Here he settled, doing a seemingly purely peaceful business: he grew sunflowers and exported seeds to Italy. Later he built a tannery, whose products he sold to the Apennines, built a highway. It is curious that it connected the city of Port Sudan, located on the shores of the Red Sea, with the capital of Saudi Arabia, where the disgraced businessman seemed to have no access.
He had influential friends in Sudan. In 1989, General al-Bashir seized power in the country. He supported the National Islamic Front, which claimed to be the vanguard of Islamic fundamentalism. Bin Laden maintained a close relationship with its leader Hassan Turabi. Of course, the farm served only as a cover for a completely different activity - supporting Islamic terrorist organizations wherever they existed, and the head of Islamic terrorism never stopped doing business. Soon, with his active participation in Europe and the United States, through nominees, various organizations were registered through which Osama carried out his ideas.
And the plans of the extremist Muslim leader were huge. As a follower of the Wahhabis, he viewed Western civilization as flawed and corrupted. Osama hatched the idea of creating a "United Islamic State", which was supposed to include 50 states of Asia, Africa and even Europe. Along with typically Muslim countries, former Soviet republics, Albania, Bosnia, even Israel and Armenia, whose religious principles have nothing to do with Islam. Then the expansion of Islam will have to be carried out on the territory of the North and South America, Australia and even Greenland. Thus, by 2100, the entire planet was supposed to be turned into a single Muslim state - a caliphate with its capital in Saudi Arabia. At the same time, Islam, as the youngest, and therefore, in his opinion, the most correct of religions, was to spread throughout the world.
However, for ordinary Muslims, more specific, close and understandable goals were set. It was necessary to strive to overthrow the secular regimes in the Arab states in order to establish there the regime of Islamic law, that is, Sharia. The most important task was to be the fight against the United States and the countries that support them. First of all, it was planned to expel their troops from the Persian Gulf. The military presence of these countries was seen as an American crusade against the Muslims. A separate goal was the destruction of Israel.
In 1988-1989, bin Laden organized and led the international terrorist organization al-Qaeda, which means "foundation", "foundation". It was called upon to fulfill all of the above tasks by creating new terrorist Islamic formations and radicalizing existing ones. It took several years for its formation and development.
Now the organization has from 3 to 7 thousand members. Ai-Qaeda's strike force are veterans of the Afghan war. It is a large international association, since among its militants there are citizens of Algeria, Bosnia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, Tunisia, Uganda, Chechnya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Philippines. Several training camps have been set up for their training in Afghanistan, Somalia, Kenya and Pakistan.
Organizationally, the brainchild of bin Laden is built on the principle of a strict hierarchy. Only the head and creator of Al-Qaeda knows the entire structure. In the event of his death, the place of the head will be taken by the next one on the list of the leaders of the organization. The leaders and militants of individual detachments do not know where the rest of the members of the organization are. Al-Qaeda cells are believed to exist around the world. At the same time, they name from 35 to 85 countries.
However, let us return to Sudan, where the hero of this essay still resides. His activities could not go unnoticed. In the mid-1990s, the United States and its supporters launched a broad campaign at the UN to accuse this country of supporting international terrorism. In 1996, the Sudanese government was forced to demand that bin Laden cease activities on its territory, and he moved to Afghanistan. However, the training of terrorists in Sudan did not stop. Training camps that trained militants continued to operate under the guise of Islamic hospitals, mosques and schools. Osama still financed them.
It is known that in June 1996, bin Laden, at the head of 400 militants, reappeared in Peshawar. His two sons, Omar and Saadat, were also in the combat detachment. The eldest is 17, the youngest is 15. From there, the group moved to Afghanistan and joined the fundamentalist Taliban movement. It was thanks to bin Laden's financial backing that the Taliban were able to take over much of Afghanistan so quickly. Shortly before the decisive attack on Kabul in September 1996, he donated $3 million to them. With this money, weapons were purchased and commanders of government troops were bribed. The alliance was also reinforced by family ties - the terrorist married off one of his daughters to Taliban leader Mohammed Omar.
The bin Laden family, consisting of 4 wives (one of them Filipina) and 13 children, settled in a villa in Kandahar. Osama earned money from construction work and drug dealing. His capital by that time was already 300 million dollars. However, its main task was not to increase it.
Initially, Osama and his militants settled in Jalalabad, and then moved to one of the mountain villages in the south of the country, east of Kandahar. They set up headquarters there. A small hut was equipped with an ultra modern technology computers, fax machines, cell phones. At night, accompanied by armed guards in armored personnel carriers, Osama from time to time drove into Kandahar. His bodyguards were armed with American Stringer missiles, capable of withstanding unexpected air raids.
While in Afghanistan, bin Laden could carry out his activities with complete impunity. The Taliban, who seized power in most of the country, created all the conditions for this.
Another terrorist training camp was organized in the Afghan province of Nangarhar. Osama then turned his attention to the massive Zawaqili al-Badr complex of military bases and training camps, which he created during his first stay in Afghanistan. Commanders, propagandists, experts in mine-explosives, reconnaissance and communications were trained here. Contacts were established with the leaders of the Pashtun tribes in the south and southeast of Afghanistan.
Bin Laden did not disregard the neighboring countries either. It was then that the most extremist part of the United Tajik Opposition fell under his influence. He was especially interested in Islamic groups in European countries and USA. According to the CIA, bin Laden provided a large sum of money to support such organizations that exist in Brooklyn, New Jersey and Detroit. Sometimes he traveled abroad. It is known that in June 1996 the main sponsor of terrorism took part in a conference of Islamic terrorist organizations in Tehran, which was held under the patronage of the Iranian intelligence agency.
In 1998, Osama published a fatwa (fatwa) - an appeal to Muslims calling for the destruction of Americans and their allies - both military and civilian. And in a fatwa in 1999, he demanded that the faithful kill American taxpayers because their funds are spent on military operations in Arab countries. By that time, bin Laden had already accumulated a number of major terrorist acts. Since 1998, the United States has included him in the list of the 10 most dangerous criminals in the world.
In the same year, the Americans received information that Osama was in one of the training camps in Afghanistan, and brought down on the camp cruise missiles. However, 2 hours before that, they nevertheless informed the government of Afghanistan about the impending operation. Of course, bin Laden was warned. In the government, the terrorists had their own people who helped him escape.
And then the events of September 11, 2001 broke out. The largest terrorist attack in history was immediately attributed to the activities of al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden was declared the enemy of the United States No. 1. In October 2001, the United States and its allies launched military operation ended with the defeat of the Taliban. One of the main goals of the operation was the capture of Osama bin Laden. However, all the power of the most powerful of the world powers was not enough to catch the terrorist. Every day, the media offered different versions of where Osama was. It cannot be said that they were all false. Most likely, the terrorist was hiding in the mountain fortification of Tora Bora near Jalalabad. In any case, this is confirmed by the data of radio intercepts.
Tora Bora was a labyrinth of tunnels, bunkers, storage facilities, arsenals, living quarters, communication points equipped with modern technology dug into the mountain. Its length was 25 km! The only road between steep cliffs and an abyss led to the fortification, on which traps were placed. On December 16, 2001, the Americans finally managed to capture the impregnable fortress. However, this victory can be seen as a complete fiasco of the American war machine. During the operation, only a few dozen wounded were captured. Most of the defenders went through the mountains to the “tribal zone” between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where only “Pashtunwali” tribal laws were in force, which prescribed not only to receive the guest, but also to protect him from danger.
As for the leader of the terrorists, he disappeared from the fortress even earlier. During the hunt for him, Osama used a simple trick. According to his personal bodyguard, Moroccan Abdallah Tabaran, better known by the nickname Abu Omar, who was captured, bin Laden gave him his satellite phone. From time to time, Omar called on him, directing the pursuit on a false trail.
Since then, the whereabouts of the leader of the terrorists is not known. He became the most elusive person in the world. From time to time there are reports that Osama is among the Pashtun tribes, on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, or in Pakistan itself. They even call the Pakistani capital Islamabad. According to other sources, bin Laden moved to his father's homeland, in the remote Yemeni province of Hadramut. Sometimes there are video or audio recordings in which Osama conveys another message to the world with threats of new large-scale terrorist attacks. The year 2003 was particularly fruitful in this respect. Apparently, the Americans needed to justify the attack on Iraq.
In February, Al-Ansaar Agency (Birmingham) announced that it had acquired a videotape in which Osama allegedly promised to die as a martyr in 2003. The words: "I pray that I will die not under a green banner in a coffin, but in the belly of an eagle ..." are interpreted as an intention to die during a grand terrorist attack in America. This, however, did not happen. Most likely, this information should be considered as another "duck".
One of the most interesting reports concerns the fact that in April Osama held the largest meeting of international Muslim terrorists since 9/11 in the mountains of Afghanistan. If these data are true, then bin Laden continues to actively lead the organization. Rumor has it that he regularly sends notes and floppy disks with instructions to his associates and associates. Materials are transmitted through numerous couriers who do not know what they are transmitting. Before such a system, despite its primitiveness, the means of electronic intelligence are powerless.
So, bin Laden continues to operate. But it is difficult to say whether his role in the escalation of Muslim terrorism is as great as it seems to the Americans. It is not for nothing that opinions are expressed that bin Laden is a CIA agent, and Al-Qaeda is the brainchild of American intelligence services. Data are given that Osama's brother, until very recently, maintained close commercial ties with President Bush's brother, that Microsoft has more than once provided financial support to terrorists through various charitable organizations. True, the rationale is given that the company could not know where its funds were directed. However, this does not look very convincing.
But the most curious is the information that the videos that were shown to the whole world after the September 11 attacks do not depict bin Laden, but the actor and singer Mohammed bin Yusuf, known for his participation in several soap operas. Moreover, the analysis of the recordings indicates that they were filmed not in Afghanistan, but in the caves of McCrum-Suyaz in the Sinai Peninsula and on a plateau in the state of Nevada. The secret services excused themselves by saying that Osama allegedly uses doubles. However, this whole story suggests that the US government simply needed to find a scapegoat. That's Osama bin Laden. The US government is now offering $25 million for help in his arrest. Another 2 million are offered by non-governmental organizations. Wishing, however, has not yet been found. In addition, the capture or death of a Muslim extremist will still not shed light on one of the largest disinformation of the beginning of the new millennium, which, perhaps, is the figure of Osama bin Laden, who became the most famous terrorist in the history of mankind.
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