Most Wanted Criminal

Osama bin Laden

Mastermind of the jihad experience, bin Laden forges unprecedented bonds among the world's radical Islamite, turning them in spirit and in direct combat experience into a single army of "holy" warriors. Bin Laden's goal from 1979 is to remove Western "infidels" from Muslim countries. That is the Russians from Afghanistan, the American military from Saudi Arabia and other points in the Gulf. To do this he pledged the downfall of many government of Muslim states, and for the destruction of the United States and its allies.

Bin Laden emerged from early Afghan war experience determined to overthrow Saudi Arabia's pro-Western rulers and institute a radical brand of Islamic rule. When U.S. troops landed onto Saudi soil to defend them against Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden began to call for a global jihad against the U.S. because of its support for Israel and for moderate Arab regimes.

Attacks linked to Bin Laden

1993 World Trade Center bomb

1996 Killing of 19 US soldiers in Saudi

Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombs

2000 Attack on USS Cole in Yemen

What He Does

He set up camps in Afghanistan and the Sudan. he combined his own personal fortune with funds raised throughout the Arab world to maintain his "Al Qaida" ("The Base") organization, which began sending fighters to Bosnia, Chechnya and to Muslim insurgencies all over East Asia. Bin Laden also extended his reach by turning his camps into a terrorism college providing highly specialized training to Islamic fighters from all over the world.

Financed by Bin Laden and the Taliban, thousands of Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) students trained at camps in Khost, Afghanistan. Many joined the Taliban. These camps were hit by U.S. cruise missiles in 1998, and reportedly were targets in recent American bombing raids. This army has become all but invisible. With the Taliban, bin Laden, and al-Qaeda, the result is a force that is powerful, well-financed, and deeply programmed in the ways of the jihad (terrorist 'holy' war).

Tentacles exist throughout Central Asia, creating a series of religious militias ready to fling themselves into jihad. As the U.S. attacks the Taliban in Afghanistan, the bombing is perceived as a war on the fundamentalists. Thus, America and NATO are hauled into a war over religion. American troops must expect to be attacked in places like Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, as the enemy replicates and strikes seemingly at will.

More (Time magazine article, October 15, 2001)

Bin Laden Recruits

CNN's Mike Boettcher got together a chilling video that is used by associates of Osama Bin Laden to recruit for al-Qaeda (September 21): http://www.cnn.com/video/world/2001/09/21/mb.bin.laden.affl.med.html

QUESTIONS

Recently, a spokesperson for bin Laden proposed that bin Laden might answer some questions, that he wants to talk with the US media. CNN questions put forward to Osama bin Laden on October 16, 2001:

1. Your spokesman has praised the September 11 attacks that killed thousands of innocent people and threatened to carry out more attacks involving planes and tall buildings. How can you and your followers advocate the killing of innocent people?

2. What was your role and the role of the al-Qaeda organization in the September 11 attacks?

3. What was your role and the role of your organization in the subsequent anthrax attacks in the United States?

4. Did any of the September 11 hijackers or their accomplices receive al-Qaeda financial support or training at al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and was any other government or organization involved?

5. In the past you have called on your followers to acquire weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Do you or any of your followers have any such weapons and, if so, will those weapons be used?

6. The vast majority of Muslim and Arab leaders, including Muslim clerics and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat, say there is no justification in Islam for the terrorist attacks you advocate. They have denounced you, your followers, and your self-declared holy war. How do you respond to their criticism?

In 1998 bin Laden established the International Islamic Front for Holy War Against Jews and Crusaders. This is an umbrella organization linking Islamic extremists in scores of countries around the world, including Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan. The group issued a religious edict upon its establishment: to kill the Americans and their allies, civilians, and the military, is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Mosque.

Bin Laden partly finances, inspires or directly organizes various terrorist attacks. His name has been linked to the killings of Western tourists by militant Islamic groups in Egypt, bombings in France by Islamic extremist Algerians, the maintenance of a safe-house in Pakistan for Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and sheltering Sheikh Omar Abd Al-Rahman (the Blind Sheikh), who was also convicted in the World Trade Center bombing. He has also been linked to the 1992 bombings of a hotel in Yemen, which killed two Australians, but was supposedly targeted against American soldiers stationed there; the 1995 detonation of a car bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; the 1995 truck bomb in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen; and the 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Bin Laden has been directly connected to the August 7, 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people, and the October 2000 attack of the U.S. destroyer ship Cole in Yemen.