Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian terrorist who founded the al-Qaeda terrorist organization and led it from its establishment in 1988 until his death in 2011. Born on March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, bin Laden came from a wealthy family with close ties to the country's ruling elite.
After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, bin Laden left his comfortable life and traveled to Afghanistan to join the mujahideen, a group of Afghan rebels fighting against the Soviets. With the help of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other Western countries, the mujahideen received significant military and financial assistance, which helped them defeat the Soviet Union in 1989.
Bin Laden became disillusioned with the United States and its policies in the Muslim world after the Gulf War in 1990. He believed that the American presence in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries was a desecration of Islamic lands. In response, he founded al-Qaeda, a global militant Islamist organization dedicated to fighting against the influence and presence of the United States and other Western powers in Muslim countries.
Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda carried out several terrorist attacks, including the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These attacks brought bin Laden and al-Qaeda into the global spotlight and made them the primary targets of the United States' War on Terrorism.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the United States launched a military operation in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime that had harbored al-Qaeda and bin Laden. Bin Laden evaded capture for nearly a decade, hiding in mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Finally, on May 2, 2011, US Navy SEALs conducted a raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, resulting in bin Laden's death.
Osama bin Laden's death marked a significant milestone in the fight against terrorism, but al-Qaeda and other extremist groups continue to pose a threat to global security.