• Web Hosting
• Guestbooks
• Hit Counter
• Forums
• Blogs
• Mailing List
• Free Web Hosting

Osama bin Laden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Jump to: navigation, search

Osama bin Laden in a photo from the 1990sUsamah bin Muhammad bin `Awad bin Ladin (born March 10, 1957; Arabic: ????? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ????), commonly known as Osama bin Laden, or Usama bin Laden, (Arabic: ????? ?? ????), is the founder of the militant organization al-Qaeda. He and his organization have been accused of staging various terrorist acts worldwide, most particularly the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., which killed at least 2,752 people. In addition to terrorist attacks, Al Qaeda has also been connected to various armed Islamist revivalist movements in Muslim-majority countries.

One of bin Laden's main grievances was the presence of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, where the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located. The U.S. withdrew from these bases in 2003, stating that they were no longer necessary for their campaign in Iraq - raising concerns that they had capitulated to bin Laden's demands in an effort to stem attacks against US targets.

The United States Department of State is offering a reward of US$25 million for information leading to bin Laden's capture. An additional reward of US$2 million is being offered by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association. While bin Laden's current whereabouts are unknown, the most popular assumption is that he is hiding in Pakistan's tribal region of Waziristan bordering Afghanistan, or, more specifically, near the small Pakistani market town of Chitral [1], [2]. If bin Laden is in Pakistan, it is likely that he continues to benefit from significant local support from the fiercely independent Waziri tribe. Together with the inhospitable mountainous terrain and uncertainty about the true cooperation of Pakistani intelligence, the United States faces many difficulties in pursuing his capture despite a wide array of sophisticated eavesdropping sensors deployed in the region [3].

Twice newspapers have reported his death. The first report in December 2001 was quickly disproven when bin Laden issued a videotape. The second report that bin Laden died in June, 2005 was published in a Pakistani new