OSAMA BIN LADEN
THE SAUDI RADICAL FOUND HIS TRUE CALLING IN AFGHANISTAN DURING THE 1980S
1957 – 2011 SAUDI ARABIA/AFGHANISTAN/PAKISTAN
Growing up in an affluent family whose riches came from the patronage of the Saudi royals, the notorious terror leader was drawn to the Afghan jihad for reasons that are still unexplained. Like many Saudi idealists who joined the resistance, bin Laden’s own participation was limited at best. The evidence of his “soldiering” with the mujahideen is scarce and what little survives is unremarkable. But the connections he made in Pakistan, such as meeting his longtime collaborator Dr Ayman al-zawahiri, served him well later on as he set out to build a world-spanning terrorist movement.
The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent infighting among the mujahideen forced bin Laden to search for another cause. At first it was the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait but the Gulf monarchies shunned bin Laden’s offers to mobilise willing volunteers eager to liberate the country. After failing to establish the Al Qaeda organisation in Sudan, bin Laden found permanent allies with the Taliban who overran Kabul in 1996.
As the mastermind of the world’s most horrific terror attacks bin Laden spent the last dozen years of his life a fugitive. On 2 May 2011 he was killed by US Navy SEALS during a raid on a walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.