OSAMA BIN LADEN...?

OSAMA BIN LADEN

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (with numerous variations; Arabic:أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎, Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin ‘Awaḍ bin Lādin; born March 10, 1957) is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and the founding leader of the terrorist Islamist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian targets. Bin Laden is on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives due to several 1998 US embassy bombings.^[1][2]

Since 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization have been major targets of the United States' War on Terror. Bin Laden and fellow Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.^[5] In a 1998 interview, he gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.^[6] His father Muhammed Awad bin Laden was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family.^[7] Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas.^[8] Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born; Osama's mother then married Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.^[8]

Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.^[9] From 1968 to 1976 he attended the "élite" secular Al-Thager Model School.^[8] Bin Laden studied economics and business administration^[10] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest bin Laden earned a degree incivil engineering in 1979,^[11] or a degree in public administration in 1981.^[12] Other sources describe him as having left university during his third year,^[13] never completing a college degree, though "hard working."^[14] At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.^[15] He also writes poetry.^[16]

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia.^[17] According to CNN national security correspondent David Ensore, as of 2002 bin Laden had married four women and fathered roughly 25 or 26 children.^[18] Other sources report that he has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.^[19]