(MS.Encarta) - Osama bin Laden inherited great wealth from his family. A follower of the religion of Islam, bin Laden used his fortune to wage war against countries he saw as enemies of the Islamic religion.EARLY LIFE
Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia, a country in the Middle East. His father owned a big construction company. Like most other Saudi Arabians, the bin Ladens were followers of Islam. People who follow Islam are called Muslims.
Young Osama embraced a special view of Islam. He accepted fundamentalist teachings. He believed that Muslims should live as they did when Islam began 14 centuries ago.
WHAT DID BIN LADEN WANT?
Bin Laden wanted to fight those who he saw as enemies of Muslims. In 1979, he got his chance. A communist country, the Soviet Union, invaded Afghanistan, a Muslim country. Bin Laden went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.
In 1988, while in Afghanistan, bin Laden founded a group called al-Qaeda. (Al-Qaeda is an Arabic phrase that means “the Base”.) Bin Laden wanted al-Qaeda to lead a jihad (holy war) against all nations that he considered to be against Islam.
In 1989, the Soviets left Afghanistan. Bin Laden returned to live in Saudi Arabia. Then in 1991, the United States led a war against the Muslim country of Iraq. During that war, the United States based troops in Saudi Arabia. Now bin Laden declared that the United States was the main enemy of Islam.
BIN LADEN AND TERRORISM
In 1992, bin Laden moved to Sudan, an African country ruled by Muslims. From there, he began to direct terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda. In a terrorist attack, individuals or small groups hurt or kill ordinary people. They do this to create fear among their enemies.
Bin Laden was accused of planning several big terrorist attacks over the next eight years. In 1993, a bomb damaged the World Trade Center in New York City. In 1996, terrorists blew up an apartment building in Saudi Arabia, where many Americans lived. In 1998, two U.S. embassies in Africa were bombed, killing hundreds of people. In 2000, an attack on the U.S. Navy ship Cole killed 17 sailors.
TERRORIST ATTACKS ON AMERICAN SOIL
Then came al-Qaeda’s biggest terrorist attack of all. On September 11, 2001, a group of men hijacked four airplanes. They flew two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Another airplane crashed into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. Another crashed in Pennsylvania. The attacks killed about 3,000 people.
The United States struck back by bombing Afghanistan. That’s where bin Laden was hiding as a guest of the country’s ruling group. The bombing forced this group, the Taliban, to flee. But bin Laden was not found.
