rachaelg

Osama bin Laden is perhaps the world’s most notorious terrorist. Bin Laden was born in 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was born into a very wealthy family and he was seventeenth of over fifty children. Osama’s father was a self-created billionaire from building contracting. As a child, Osama went to school in Saudi port city, Jedda. With the wealth of his family, Osama was able to attend Al Thagher Model School which was of the most elite schools. In the mid-1970’s, bin Laden married his first cousin, which was normal among traditional Muslims. Osama attended King Abd Aziz University where he studied civil engineering, business administration, economics, and public administration. Later on he will come to be the most notorious terrorist that has destroyed many major cities. It only takes one person to change the future of the world. It takes a malicious mastermind to kill numerous innocent people just to satisfy their beliefs. One of Osama’s influences was the Al Thagher teachers. They were members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist political group that began in Egypt which promoted violence to achieve Islamic governance. Another influential person in Osama’s life was Abdullah Azzman. Azzman was a professor at King Abd Al Aziz University and he was also founded Hamas, the Palestinian militant group. After 1979 when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Azzman went to bin Laden to raise money and recruit Arabs to help the Muslims repel the Soviets. Azzam played an important role in the early development of al-Qaeda. [|Al-Qaeda], meaning “the base” in Arabic, is “ an Islamic terrorist organization started in 1988 by Osama bin Laden to resist Soviet forces in Afghanistan and which seeks to purge Muslim countries of Western influence and establish fundamentalist Islamic rule,” as described in Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English. Al-Qaeda is presumed to be responsible for many acts of terrorism in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. Osama’s initial goal for al-Qaeda was to overthrow all pro-Western governments in Islamic nations. He was able to enlist many members of the Islamic Alliance of Afghan Mujahideen. During the Persian Gulf War, Osama’s goals changed. He was outraged at the number of U.S. soldiers in Saudi Arabia, and he used the power of al-Qaeda to eliminate all U.S. influence in Islamic nations around the world. Osama was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991 and he quickly made headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan. Saudi Arabia put so much pressure on Sudan that, in 1994, Sudan expelled bin Laden and he moved al-Qaeda’s base to Afghanistan. It was here that bin Laden set up terrorist training camps under the protection of the Taliban. Several thousand of these Islamic militants were from Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.  In August of 1996, bin Laden declared a Holy War on the United States. Bin Laden issued a fatwa, a religious decree, in 1998 that said the duty of all Muslims was to conduct a jihad or holy war on the U.S. and its citizens and also the Jews. Even before bin Laden declared war on the United States, the U.S. military forces and citizens were the victims of many of the terrorist acts supposedly connected to al-Qaeda. The most notorious of al-Qaeda’s terrorist acts was the attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. on [|September 11, 2001]. This event has led to an all-out war on terrorism and the United States’ main target is bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Although Osama bin Laden is a very powerful and wealthy man, he cannot run this organization alone. Ayman al-Zawahiri is Osama’s top advisor and al-Qaeda’s theological leader and could very well be bin Laden’s successor. Al-Zawahiri is a surgeon from an upper class Egyptian family. He served three years in prison on charges dealing with the Anwar Sadat assassination. After al-Zawahiri’s was released, he went to Afghanistan where he met bin Laden and he became his personal physician and advisor. Al-Zawahiri had a crucial role in bin Laden’s political evolution. There are several other leaders that are in charge of this terrorist organization. Bin Laden and his advisors control finance committee, media committee, a military committee, and a religious/legal committee. Al-Qaeda is a worldwide network of terrorist groups that have similar goals. Al-Qaeda is known for its many attacks and bombings around the world. In 1993 al-Qaeda bombed the World Trade center and six people were killed. Al-Qaeda plotted another, larger attack on the World Trade Center in 1994. In August of 1998 al-Qaeda was involved in the bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa. Two hundred and twenty four people were killed in this event including twelve Americans. The most memorable event to all U.S. citizens is when al-Qaeda hijacked two planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and later led an attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda also planted bombs in three trains and a bus in London, England in July of 2005, killing fifty-two people. Many more attacks were associated with al-Qaeda and they all had devastating outcomes. Al-Qaeda has been categorized as vicious Middle Eastern terrorists. Al-Qaeda has planned and executed many attacks worldwide. Many lives have been lost by the attacks and bombings that al-Qaeda has been involved in. Osama bin Laden was born into a wealthy family and had a decent life. It only took the influence of others around him to persuade bin Laden into violent means to reach his goal of driving American influence out of all Muslim nations. This man is very powerful and he works hard to get what he wants. He is unstoppable and, with a powerful network of terrorists, he can get very far in his goal seeking. It was this one man who changed the lives of all American citizens forever by his one act on September 11, 2001. He has also made it difficult for us to find him and end this war. This evil mastermind must be stopped before he goes too far. Works Cited "Al Qaeda." __World History: The Modern Era__. 2008. ABC-CLIO. 7 May 2008 . Engel, Richard. "Inside Al-Qaeda: a window into the world of militant Islam and the Afghani alumni." __Security__. 28 Sep 2001. Jane's Information Group. 7 May 2008 . Hayes, Laura. "Al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden's Network of Terror." __infoplease__. 07 May 2008. Pearson Education, Inc.. 7 May 2008 . "TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS." __terrorismfiles.org__. 2002. Nabou.com, Inc.. 7 May 2008 . Zalman, Amy. "Profile: Osama bin Laden." __About.com: Terrorist Issues__. 2008. The New York Times Company. 7 May 2008 .