Name: Osama bin Laden (a.k.a. Usama bin Ladin)
Aliases: Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin, Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin, the Prince, the
Emir, Abu Abdallah, Mujahid Shaykh, Hajj, the Director, the Contractor
Description:
Date of Birth: 1957
Hair: Brown
Place of Birth: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Eyes: Brown
Height: 6' 4" to 6' 6"
Complexion: Olive
Weight: Approximately 160 pounds
Sex: Male
Build: Thin
Nationality: Saudi Arabian
Occupations: Unknown
Remarks: Leader of a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda "The Base".
He walks with a cane.
Scars and Marks: None
REWARD
The United States Government is offering a reward of up to $5 million for
information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Usama Bin
Laden.
Bin Ladin also described his global banking network, naming institutions in
Sudan, Malaysia, Britain, Hong Kong and Dubai.
Information on Osama bin Laden's Family
Al-Qa'ida training facilities exist in:
Philippines, Algeria, Sudan, Afghanistan and Eritrea
Osama bin Laden, the youngest of some twenty surviving sons of one of Saudi
Arabia's wealthiest and most prominent families, a family that ran the largest
construction companies in the Arab world, has 51 siblings and is the scion of
a large, wealthy family whose father was a favored contractor for the Saudi
royal family. Several of Osama's relatives have resided on and off in Boston
during the past decade.
During five years of exile in Sudan, from 1991 to 1996, bin Laden placed his
wealth -- a fortune now estimated at more than two hundred and fifty million
dollars, largely in foreign bank accounts -- at the disposal of militant Islamist
groups around the world. Whether he retains access to his family's fortune,
which is estimated to be worth some five billion dollars, is a matter of dispute.
Idealogically, he is part puritanical Wahhabi, the dominant school of Islam
in Saudi Arabia, yet at one time he may have led a very liberated social life.
He is part feudal Saudi, an aristocrat who, from time to time, would retreat
with his father to the desert and live in a tent. And he is of a Saudi generation
that came of age during the rise of OPEC, with the extraordinary wealth that
accompanied it: a generation whose religious fervor or political zeal, complemented
by government airline tickets, led thousands to fight a war in a distant Muslim
land.
Supports troops in: Afghanistan, Bosnia,
Chechnya, Somalia, Yemen, and now Kosovo as well as central Asian republics,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and even Iran.
al-Qa'ida (Bin Ladin's orgainsation),
Harakat ul-Ansar, Egyptian al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya, Hamas, Islamic Jihad
and Hizbullah have agreed to pool their resources to fight their common
enemies, being the United States and Israel. The organisation is called:
"International Islamic Front for Jihad
Against the Jews and Crusaders." It was formed in February 1998.
al-Qa'ida's mission statement: "unite all
Muslims and to establish a government which follows the rule of the Caliphs."
Bin Ladin has stated that the only way to establish the Caliphate is by
force. Al-Qa'ida's goal, therefore, is to overthrow nearly all Muslim
governments, which are viewed as corrupt, to drive Western influence from
those countries, and eventually to abolish state boundaries.
Most recently he was reportedly moving between four or five camps in
Afghanistan which are the bases for about
200 followers staying with him. He has financed and supported some
600 or 700 other people outside Afghanistan. Bin Laden is said to have
established cells of supporters in Yemen, and as of late 1996 it was reported
that an additional 2,000 "Afghans" were resident in Somalia
and the Ogaden region, with relatively few actually in Afghanistan.
Bin-Ladin was involved in operations against the American forces in Somalia
in 1993.
Osama Bin Laden is suspected by the US of being responsible for 1996 bomb
attacks on American service personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Bin Ladin publicly issued his "Declaration
of War" against the United States in August 1996.
(all above sources: FAS Intelligence Resource Program, al-Qa'ida press
releases, and U.S. State Department briefings).
One US intelligence officials says: "You break up a cell, and another
one grows. There is no longer one man. If Usama bin Ladin were to fall
off a cliff in Afghanistan, we would all cheer, but his organisation would
still be in place. From his perspective, he's got a 100-year program.
He's probably eight years into it and you can't expect to get too far
in the first 10 years. But he's consolidating Afghanistan. He's fighting
a war in Chechnya that has bled the Russians, and now they're making inroads
in the Philippines and Indonesia." (source: Jane's Report on Bin
Ladin's Activities)
Al-Fadl alleged that Bin Ladin and his associates once tried to buy uranium
from Sudanese black marketeers. US prosecutors also allege that at various
times since 1992, Bin Laden and a top associate have tried to purchase
components to build a nuclear weapon. While it is not clear that Bin Ladin
has the technical expertise or resources to fashion the ultimate terrorist
bomb, experts caution that he could fairly easily build a so-called 'dirty
bomb', a conventional weapon that would shower lethal radioactive material
over a wide area.
(source: Jane's Report on Bin Ladin's Activities)
Click here for a list of offenses the United States attributes to Osama bin Laden
No comments:
Post a Comment