Osama bin Laden
Saudi-born founder of al-Qaeda who planned the September 11 attacks. He was killed by US forces in Pakistan in 2011.
Biography
Osama bin Laden was a Saudi-born militant who founded the jihadist network al-Qaeda. Son of a wealthy construction family, he joined the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.
He formed al-Qaeda in 1988 and declared war on the United States in the 1990s. From Sudan and then Afghanistan under the Taliban, he directed attacks including the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the September 11 attacks in 2001.
After the US invasion of Afghanistan he went into hiding. He was killed by US special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011.
Affiliations
Education
Timeline
1958
1963
1968
1973
1978
1983
1988
1993
1998
2003
2008
2013
2018
