Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden was born in 1957 into one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. He left the country in 1979 to help resistance fighters repel Soviet troops from Afghanistan. He used his substantial inheritance to provide assistance to the Afghan mujahedeen and started the al Qaeda network to train and support an array of Islamic fighters. Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia but was expelled for his anti-government activities. He set up base in Sudan for a few years but was again forced to flee. In 1996, he moved to Afghanistan, where he aligned himself with the Taliban, a group of hard-line Islamic clerics that control most of the country. The United States has named bin Laden the prime suspect in the September 11 terrorism attacks on the United States. He was also indicted on charges of masterminding the twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. previous | next