Bin Laden, Osama (1957–)

Early Years

Bin Laden was born on March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was the 17th son of 51 children born to Mohammad bin Laden, a business mogul in Saudi Arabia. Mohammad bin Laden moved to Saudi Arabia from neighboring Yemen in 1931 and founded a construction company, the Bin Laden Group. In time, the company grew and began to do contract work for the Saudi regime, building highways and infrastructure, in addition to famous mosques in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. When Mohammad bin Laden was killed in a helicopter crash in 1968, his inheritance, worth billions of dollars, was divided among his children.

Osama bin Laden grew up a devout Muslim. He received most of his formal schooling first in Mecca, then in Jedda. He reportedly showed a solemn respect for Muslim practices and learned much from religious visitors to the bin Laden home during the hajj (pilgrimage) season each year. As a young man of 17, he married his first of four wives, and went to study public management at King Abd al-Aziz University in Jeddah between 1974 and 1978. While at the university, bin Laden was heavily influenced by one of his professors, Sheik Abdullah Azzam, a prominent radical Muslim. He was also said to have been influenced by Mohammed Qutb, a renowned fundamentalist thinker, and brother of the late Sayyid Qutb, [Page 72]arguably the most influential radical Islamic thinker in history.

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on December 26, 1979, 22-year-old bin Laden left his wealthy existence in Saudi Arabia and joined the thousands of Muslims who answered the call for jihad, commonly translated as “holy war,” to defend Afghanistan. With his inheritance, bin Laden began organizing and financing mujahideen activities for the fight against the Soviets. He purchased weapons, built training camps, dug trenches, paved roads, and developed other infrastructure. His money also provided food and medicines to fellow fighters. Reports also indicate that bin Laden fought in several battles, where he demonstrated bravery to fellow mujahideen.

More important perhaps is the fact that bin Laden, in cooperation with a Palestinian member of the Muslim Brotherhood named Abdallah Azzam, founded Maktab al-Khidamat (the Services Office) in 1984. The Services Office recruited thousands of jihad fighters from all over the world to join the war, placed them in more than a dozen “guest houses” around neighboring Pakistan, and trained them in special camps that bin Laden paid for.

When the Soviets retreated on February 15, 1989, the mujahideen, and their CIA financiers, declared victory. Indeed, many of the mujahideen of Afghanistan were bankrolled and trained by the CIA. It is unlikely, however, that bin Laden was among them. In fact, he insists he had no contact with U.S. intelligence, and numerous U.S. sources corroborate this assertion.

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