Osama Bin Laden

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (/oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmɨd bɪn əˈwɑːd bɪn ˈlɑːdən/; Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎, Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin ‘Awaḍ bin Lādin; 10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was the founder of al-Qaeda, the militant organization that claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the United States, along with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a Saudi Arabian, a member of the wealthy bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.

Bin Laden was born to the family of billionaire Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden in Saudi Arabia. He studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the mujahideen by funneling arms, money and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity from many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until U.S. pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.

From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, as the FBI placed a $25 million bounty on him in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by SCPO Robert O'Neill during a covert operation conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of U.S. President Barack Obama.

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