Usama Bin Laden

Usama Bin Laden (Usāmah bin Muhammad bin `Awad bin Lādin, rear RTL أسامةبنمحمدبنعوضبنلادن), originating in the Yemen, born the March 10th 1957 with Riyadh in Saudi Arabia is the chief and founder of the terrorist network Al-Qaida. It is particularly known as being, as a chief of this network, supposed silent partner of the Attentats of September 11th, 2001 in the United States.

Although there is no official continuation engaged in its opposition, FBI indicates it like " the most required terrorist with the monde". Always according to justice, Usama Bin Laden is known under several pseudonyms in the mediums Terroriste S, of which the “Prince”, “the Emir”, “Abou Abdallah”, “Moudjahid Sheik”, “Hajj”, “the director”.

If it could be regarded as a Héros by certain populations and at certain times, it is very far from achieving the unanimity among the Musulman S. Al-Qaida does not achieve either the unanimity among the terrorist movements or islamist militarized: for example, it is shown by the Hezbollah to make the play of the American administration and its actions to carry damage to the Islam. The Islamic Commission of Spain enacted a Fatwa in its opposition.

Biography

A young jet set

Bin Laden is resulting from a rich person family of Saudi Arabia, originating in the Yemen. His/her Mohammed father succeeded in building an empire whose floret is the Bin Laden Construction group , an important company of Construction industry holder of many franchise agreements with the Saoudi government . The proximity with the royal family (princely family Ibn Saoud) takes part in the fortune of the company which, become one of the first building firms in the world, diversifies and becomes the Saudi Binladin Group with the many ramifications. Among them, the Bin Laden Telecommunications , become since 1999 the Baud Telecom Company (BTC Networks).

Usama Bin Laden has 53 half-brothers and half-sisters (several mothers). Itself has a score of children.

The young man makes commercial and technical studies at the university of Djeddah in Saudi Arabia, then it integrates the family group about the middle of the Années 1970.

He studies at this period the principal texts of the Salafisme, principal school of Moslem Droit in Saudi Arabia, as do it the majority of the Saoudi students.

1979 - 1989: against the common enemy

In 1979, it is approached by prince Turki Al Fayçal, then chief of the secret services of Saudi Arabia (of 1977 with 2001), current ambassador of Saudi Arabia to London, and wire of the former king Fayçal Ben Abdel Aziz Al-Saoud (of 1964 with 1975). At the time, the mode of the Shah of Iran comes to be reversed by a revolution which carries at its head the Ayatollah Khomeini, while the the USSR invades Afghanistan later a few months. The Islamisme starts to become an important geopolitical force, replacing little by little the Marxisme and the Panarabisme like principal popular Idéologie with the the Middle East. Many a Moudjahidin S comes to fight in Afghanistan against the USSR, supported by the Saudi Arabia which sees there a possibility of diffusion of the Wahhabisme, the Pakistan via its Inter-Services Intelligence which would be seen in the long term with the head of future international Islamic and the CIA.

Saoudi prince Turki asks an enthusiastic Bin Laden to organize the departure of the volunteers for Afghanistan and their installation at the Pakistani border. While arriving on the spot, the young man discovers motivated militants, but very little organized. Amateurism reigns. Bin Laden coordinates the arrival of the militants with Peshawar via an organization called “Office of the services”. It sets up a true organization and ensures the military and ideological formation combatants (camps of drive, mosques, schools, etc) as well as the supply weapons. Little by little, it deals with the families. It deals of the widows and the religious education of the children. The organization then becomes a true fraternity and a new political clout in Afghanistan already parcelled out.

Thus the timid young man takes insurance, while its Prestige grows. He would have taken part itself in some engagements. In 1989 its mentor and friend, the Palestinian Abdallah Youcef Azzam, are assassinated. Usama Bin Laden is found then with the head of the organization. It is the base of Al-Qaida, which is transformed soon into logistics of the international djihadism, certain veterans of Afghanistan then leaving to fight on other faces (in Chetchnia, Yugoslavia, etc) During all this decade, Bin Laden regularly returns account to prince Turki, accomplishing many voyages in Saudi Arabia.

The organization of Bin Laden remains nevertheless, at the time, that one of the many factions existing in Afghanistan, country obeying davantages with tribal logics that ideological. Whereas in much of Afghan areas, a moderate version of Islam is respected, much moudjahiddins are wary of the arrival from abroad conveying the Salafisme. The commander Massoud, in particular, refuses any alliance. Usama Bin Laden approaches then to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a local fundamentalist chief and “principal recipient, according to Noam Chomsky, the 3,3 billion dollars of assistance (official) of the United States to the Afghan rebels (an about equivalent amount being, says one, provided by the Saudi Arabia)”. Hekmatyar, at the time, is also supported by the Pakistan would like to see it with the head of the country after the departure of the Soviets.

In February 1989 the Soviets announce their withdrawal of Afghanistan. The djihadists want to continue the combat until the seizure of power to Kabul. However, the United States which achieved their goal, and Saudi Arabia, stop the financing and the massive logistical support.

1989 - 1993: rupture

Usama Bin Laden feels betrayed, but on its return in Saudi Arabia, he is considered as hero. He organizes conferences in the mosques, in the schools, at the university on his “Djihad” against the Soviet armed .

At the time of the War of the Gulf (1990-1991), Usama Bin Laden proposes with the king Fahd to use his militia to defend the country against a possible invasion of the troops Iraq iennes. This last refuses and prefers to open its territory with the American armed , thus lending the side to the charge according to which it would have authorized the “inaccurate ” “to soil the crowned ground” of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden is done increasingly critical then with respect to the royal family, and goes until showing the princes of corruption. In 1994, it is deposed Saoudi nationality.

Pressed to leave the country, it goes then to Khartoum, with the Sudan, where it is accommodated by Hassan Al-Tourabi, which directs the Islamic National front Sudanese (FNI). It settles in the country, there invests and makes some deals (land roads, agricultural exports, acquisitions, bankings in agreement with the principles of the Islamic Banque).

It remains however in discrete relations with certain members of the Saoudi mode (the royal family is indeed not very plain). In the same way, it would have kept relations with the CIA; its code name would have been “Tim Osman”.

1993 - February 1996: turbid years

Bin Laden follows and finances the islamist moudjahidins the most radical incomes after the war of Afghanistan in their country of origin (they are called there “the Afghans”). It also finances camps of drive. As of December 1992 a group financed by Bin Laden is responsible for an attack to the Yemen against the American soldiers on the way for the operation Restore Hope in Somalia.

The same year, an attack touches the World Trade Center, and makes 6 dead. A group related to Usama Bin Laden is suspected. However, the investigation of FBI is slowed down by the CIA.

Usama Bin Laden benefits indeed from the policy of part of the administration Clinton, supported by the oil lobby. This one has several objectives: the support for stable modes in Central Asia in order to allow the routing of oil, the fight against the Russian influence in the area and a resolutely committed policy against the Shiite Iran . For that, it is necessary to support the Islamisme sunnite resulting in particular from the Pakistan and the Saudi Arabia. This is why Usama Bin Laden is not perceived solely like one threat. However, this strategy is inflected in last times of the mandate of Bill Clinton.

In February 1996, Usama Bin Laden launches a call to tackle the American interests everywhere in the world. He consequently becomes an official enemy of the United States, which obtains its expulsion of the Sudan. He takes refuge then in Afghanistan, passed under control of the Taliban S since 1996.

Since 1996: the terrorism of mass, tracking and the communication

The the United States hold it for person in charge of the bomb attacks directed against the American embassies of Nairobi with the Kenya (213 dead including eight Americans) and of Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania (eleven died, all Tanzanians) the August 7th 1998.

A tangible proof of the strong presence of ISI in Afghanistan was given by the Pakistani official protest during the American bombardment of reprisals by cruise missiles against the camps directed by Bin Laden the August 12th 1998 which killed five officers of this service.

Shoulders by Pakistan, the United States negotiate with the talibans, who blow the heat and the cold. The Attentats of September 11th, 2001 stop this negotiation brutally.

Since 2001, the US government offers 25 million dollars for any information leading directly to its capture, and an additional premium of two million dollars is offered jointly by the “Air Line Pilots Association” and the “Air Association Transport”. With each aggression, Bin Laden is delighted by the attacks, but does not assert them. As from this moment, the United States wants officially Bin Laden “dead or sharp”.

In August 2001, prince Turki is dismissed by the Saoudi mode.

Usama Bin Laden is regarded by the Western countries as the person in charge of the Attentats of September 11th, 2001 against the World Trade Center and the Pentagone. He even never asserted the attacks against the to him World Trade Center of September 11th, 2001 although he was pleased with their behavior.

The chain Qatar IE Al-Jazira publishes the November 12th 2002 a sound message recognized by the authorities of the United States like coming from Usama Bin Laden. This one warns and threat several Western countries of new attacks if they continue to support “the gang of the butchers of the White House”.

After the Attacks of September 11th, 2001, the president of the United States George Walker Bush starts a Guerre in Afghanistan with an aim stated to destroy Al-Qaida. Bin Laden escapes her prosecutors always completely. The CIA thinks that it hides in the tribal areas in the North-West of the Pakistan. According to the IDIAP Research Institute of Martigny in Suisse at least one of the messages of Bin Laden authenticated by the CIA (that of the November 12th 2002) would be a forgery.

The October 30th 2004, a video diffused by the chain of information in Arabic Al-Jezira four days before the presidential elections in the United States would tend to show that Usama Bin Laden is always in life at the time of the recording in spite of the persistent rumors of death in the mountains at the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. This last returns back to back the two candidates and announces future attacks. He affirms that contrary to the thesis of American leaders, his goal is not to fight against freedom, in which case he would have attacked Scandinavian States. He estimates that the attacks against the World Trade Center are a retaliatory measure against the “slaughters” organized by the American soldiers.

The December 27th 2004, the television channel Al-Jezira diffused an audio recording, allotted to Usama Bin Laden, indicating Jordanian the Abou Moussab Al-Zarqaoui like its assistant in Iraq and calling with a Boycott elections envisaged the January 30th 2005.

The January 19th 2006, after one year of silence, Al-Jezira diffuses a new audio recording where Usama Bin Laden announces the preparation of new terrorist operations and proposes a “truce” in exchange of a withdrawal of the American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan: “We do not have an objection to offer to you a truce ( hudna ) of long life under right conditions which we will observe, because we are a nation to which God prohibits treachery and the lie”. A truce refused at once by the White House. The absence of images feeds from new speculations according to which Usama Bin Laden sick or would be wounded and perhaps even dead.

In another audio recording diffused the April 23rd, Usama Bin Laden evokes for the first time the situation with the Sudan by inviting its partisans “to prepare with a war of long life to the Darfur”.

Two new recordings audios allotted to Usama Bin Laden are diffused the May 23rd and the June 30th: the first clears Zacarias Moussaoui after its life sentence within the framework of the Attentats of September 11th, 2001 and the second pays homage to Abou Moussab Al-Zarqaoui killed in an American raid with Bakouba the June 7th 2006.

The September 7th 2007, the chain Al-Jazira diffuses, a few days before the sixth birthday of the attacks of the September 11th, 2001, of the extracts of a video of Usama Bin Laden, the first since nearly three years. The chief of Al-Qaida, whose voice was officially identified by the American intelligence services, addresses himself to the the United States and evokes the current location in Iraq. Bin Laden mentions there the names of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, elected in May 2007, as well as English the Prime Minister Gordon Brown which succeeded Tony Blair in June of the same year.

Organization

Usama Bin Laden needs to recruit people ready to sacrifice. It uses for that the religious spring.

The particularly spectacular choice of targets, within the framework of its terrorist operations, shows a direction of the tactical preparation as well as use of the Média S.

Concerning the conceptualization of the Terrorism and the ideological shutter “” of Al-Qaida, the " cerveau" is Ayman al-Zawahiri. Bin Laden would have been satisfied to finance the Attentats of September 11th, and the operation would have been proposed and orchestrated by Khalid Sheik Mohammed, according to the consents of this last and the conclusions of the Final report of the National Commission on the terrorist attacks against the United States. A video diffused by Al-Jazira the September 7th 2006 would however show Bin Laden and her lieutenants, of which Mohammed Atef (death in Afghanistan in November 2001), preparing the Attentats of September 11th.

Al-Qaida functions like a Franchise from the islamist Terrorisme. Groups like that of Abou Moussab Zarqaoui in Iraq or those responsible for the Attack of Bali, Attacks of May 16th, 2003 in Casablanca, Attacks of March 11th, 2004 in Madrid, Istanbul, Attacks of July 7th, 2005 in London or Attacks of July 23rd, 2005 at Charm el-Cheikh, assert Al-Qaida but have an autonomous existence. There is no pyramidal hierarchy, one speaks rather about a Nébuleuse. The organization of Usama Bin Laden would have thus financed many islamist terrorist groups without implying itself in their operation.

The transmission of the media message is a fundamental method for Usama Bin Laden. The recorded and diffused cassettes, often by the chain Al Jazira of exclusiveness, pursue several goals:

to maintain the Psychosis terrorism in the Western democracies, sometimes while involving itself in the political game as at the time of the American elections in 2004.
to recall its existence to the public opinions of the Moslem countries by approaching topics which touch them, to facilitate the recruitment of Al-Qaida.
to reactualize the objectives of the Djihad of Al-Qaida.

One supposes that the cassettes of Bin Laden are conveyed since her hiding-place in Pakistan or elsewhere, after a long and complicated way, and are diffused only several days or weeks after the recording. Paradoxically, this insulation does not prevent the exploitation of the resources of the universalization of the communications.

Motivations

Bin Laden condemns the evolution of the Islamic Civilization since the suppression of the Califat (the last caliph was the Othoman sultan until 1924). This objective passes by an inversion of the Arab governments “Laïc S” and “Impie S” protected by the United States. The majority of the terrorist activities asserted or probably exerted by Al-Qaida aim at destabilizing these modes.

Among the political positions of Usama Bin Laden the fight against those is found which he regards as the “cross Westerners”, initially Americans. It was one of the primary reasons of its rejection by the royal family of Saudi Arabia. During its interview by the journalist Robert Fisk in 1996, it had in particular declared:

For Usama Bin Laden, military bases present in Saudi Arabia are not acceptable. It wishes that the American presence with the the Middle East disappear, so, according to its Rhétorique, to recover the “Liberté” Moslem people. So in 1991 Usama Bin Laden rises against the Saoudi royal capacity which accepts the installation of the American soldiers, it is because the Saoudi territory is regarded as crowned (with the holy places Médine and Mecque) and that the presence of inaccurate troops “” on its native ground is thus a Sacrilège for all islamist radical fundamentalist. In the beginning these American bases were to be provisional, time to gain the war against Saddam Hussein. At the time of the last war in Iraq, the American staff did not make leave the American offensive Saudi Arabia, Riyadh having refused to avoid demonstrations of hostility on behalf of local islamist mobilities and with since fact of withdrawing its forces of this country.

Asserted origins of September 11th

The Palestine and the Lebanon

Usama Bin Laden uses in its propaganda the reference to the Israeli occupation of the southern Lebanon at the time of the “Opération Peace as a Galileo” in 1982. He affirms to have been affected by the Israeli bombardments against the Palestinian Réfugiés during the Guerre of Lebanon.

Usama Bin Laden exploits a feeling of rancour at most of the Musulman S of Palestine and the Middle East vis-a-vis what is felt like an Israeli aggression supported by the the United States. It qualifies itself the Israeli operations of “tyranny” and “oppression”.

The first War of Iraq, and the Embargo

Bin Laden presented the economic embargo against the Iraq and the regular bombardments of this country between the two wars, like a proof that the United States, via their president George H.W. Bush, was assassins of children .

The embargo against Iraq would have made 500.000 died among the Iraqi children, according to the United Nations (UNO).

September 11th

The September 11th is an answer so that it presents like a general and continuous aggression of the United States against the Moslems . This “aggression” is initially for Usama Bin Laden a religious question: military presence in Saudi Arabia (profanation of a Holy Land) and support for Israel which occupies Jerusalem (holy place). The Rhetoric on the suffering of the Palestinians or the Iraqis is used to sensitize the opinion of the Arab world to its combat but is not in the center of the concerns of Al-Qaida.

These terrorist activities, having resulted in the death of innocent, are condemned by the majority of the Moslems. Indeed, certain passages of Coran condemn the death of innocent.

Moreover, the American indirect presence, incarnated by the unconditional support at the Israeli State, justifies for Usama Bin Laden, of the attacks everywhere in the world of the American interests.

Introduction of the speech of Bin Laden, November 2004, video diffused on Al-Jazeerah

American handling according to Bin Laden

Usama Bin Laden estimates that George Bush mask the reasons of September 11th, and this, in order to mislead the American people.

He considers the new war of Iraq of 2003, like an attempt at George W. Bush of to remove an old agent Saddam Hussein, and to replace it by a new puppet, which will allow the plundering of the Pétrole of Iraq and other insults. Usama Bin Laden does not have any bond proven with Saddam Hussein although this one proposed the to him asylum in 1999. On the contrary, it would seem that Bin Laden regarded Saddam Hussein as a “socialist ” inaccurate.

Vidéos of Bin Laden

Since the Attacks of September 11th, 2001, Usama Bin Laden was expressed mainly by the means of sound recordings. One counts only four vidéos diffused:

the first dated from the November 9th and diffused the December 13rd 2001 in which Bin Laden ensures that the destruction of 11-September exceeded its waitings.
diffused on September 10th, 2003: The chief of Al-Qaida appears walking with Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
diffused on October 29th, 2004: A few days before presidential American, Al-Jazira diffuses a cassette in which Bin Laden threatens the United States of new attacks.
diffused on September 7th, 2007: announces the defeat American in Iraq and critical all the political clouts: “to explain the failure of the democrats to be put an end to the war, I say: in fact the same reasons prevented president Kennedy from stopping the war of Vietnam. Those which have truly the capacity are those which have the most important capital. And since the democratic system makes it possible the large companies to support the candidates with the presidency, one cannot be astonished - and one is not astonished - failure by the democrats to stop the war (...) You sacrifice your soldiers to the large companies. ” To put an end to the war, it encourages the Americans to be Islamized: “the only means of obtaining peace is to convert you with Islam”. Very serious doubts were emitted as for the origin of this recording, of many observers having noticed that the image of Bin Laden is fixed during the major part of the video. One sees a Bin Laden with the different physical aspect in addition there.

Topicality and rumors

Bin Laden would have a fortune of 300 million dollars. This myth was dismantled by the in April 2004 publication of the Final report of the National Commission on the terrorist attacks against the United States, which showed that the attacks required very little money. This figure had been quoted in 1996 by in charge of research of the State Department, which initially divided the total credits of the Groupe Bin Laden, that it evaluated to 5 billion dollars, by the number of wire of the family, that it estimated at twenty. It led thus to 250 million dollars, round-offs then to 300 million. One of the sources of misinformation concerning the financing of Al-Qaida and Bin Laden was the journalist Jack Kelley, of USA Today , which resigned in March 2004 following the incalculable discovery of a number of bidonnés articles

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