An elusive enemy

The U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia fuels Osama bin Laden's jihad

Posted January 2001

(CNN) -- In winning the Persian Gulf War, the United States also made itself a resourceful and elusive enemy in the form of accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

The son of a Saudi Arabian businessman, bin Laden has called for a Muslim jihad, or holy war, against the United States. He has encouraged Muslims to kill all the Americans -- civilian or military -- they can.

His rage stems from the decision by Saudi Arabia to allow the United States to use the country as a staging area for attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and Iraq. After the victory, the U.S. military presence became permanent.

To fundamentalists like bin Laden, the U.S. presence is anathema because Saudi Arabia is home to "the two most holy places" in Islam -- Mecca and Medina. Mecca is the birthplace of Mohammed and the location of the Great Mosque of Mecca, considered by Muslims to be the most sacred spot on Earth.

Mecca also is the destination of the hajj, the pilgrimage that is one of five tenets of Islam. All Muslims who are physically and financially able are expected to perform the hajj at least once.

One of the rituals of the hajj is to circle the Kaaba, a black-draped, oblong stone building located inside the mosque. The Koran says the Kaaba is the oldest house of worship in the world and during the hajj pilgrims circle it seven times. It is toward the Kaaba -- believed to rest on the spot where, in the Bible, Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac before God stayed his hand and substituted a ram -- that Muslims face to pray.

In an interview bin Laden gave to CNN in 1997, he said the ongoing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia is an "occupation of the land of the holy places."

In February 1998, bin Laden issued a "fatwa," a religious ruling, calling for Muslims to kill Americans and their allies. Three other groups, including the Islamic Jihad in Egypt, endorse the ruling.

"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim," the statement, issued under the "World Islamic Front" name, read. It was published three months later in the London newspaper "Al-Quds al-'Arabi."

Son of a wealthy Saudi businessman

Osama bin Laden is one of 52 children sired by Muhammad bin Laden and born to one of his 10 wives. The elder bin Laden emigrated from a remote area of neighboring Yemen to Saudi Arabia as a young man and built the largest construction company in the Saudi kingdom.

The bin Laden family was recognized for its commitment to Islam and the young bin Laden met and studied with various Muslim scholars as he grew up. His writings reflect his Islamic training blended with a harsh political perspective.

In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a 22-year-old bin Laden traveled there to fight the Soviets alongside the Afghan resistance fighters known as the mujahedeen.

He used his family's connections and wealth to raise money for the Afghan resistance and provide the mujahedeen with logistical and humanitarian aid, and participated in several battles in the Afghan war. He inherited $250 million from his family's estimated $5 billion fortune.

As the war with the Soviets drew to a close, bin Laden formed al Qaeda (Arabic for "the base"), an organization of ex-mujahedeen and other supporters channeling fighters and funds to the Afghan resistance.

Once the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia to work for the family construction firm, the Bin Laden Group. He became involved in Saudi groups opposed to the reigning Saudi monarchy, the Fahd family.

Opposition views cause him to flee Saudi Arabia

He opposed the Saudi decision to allow the U.S. military into the country after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and fled Saudi Arabia in 1991 after he was confined to the port city of Jeddah for his opposition to the Saudi-U.S. alliance.

Since then, bin Laden has lived in Afghanistan and the Sudan, where a Muslim government gained control in 1989 after a coup. Its new government adopted a policy allowing any Muslim into the country without a visa, in a display of Islamic solidarity.

From 1992 on, the U.S. alleges that bin Laden and other al Qaeda members decided that the group should set aside its differences with other Shiite Muslim terrorist organizations in order to cooperate against the perceived common enemy, the United States and its allies. U.S. authorities say the targets of these attacks included U.S. military forces in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen and U.S. forces stationed in the Horn of Africa, including Somalia.

In October 1993, as part of the U.S. humanitarian relief effort in Somalia, 18 U.S. servicemen were killed during an operation in Mogadishu. Their bodies were dragged through the streets. In a 1997 interview with CNN, bin Laden said his followers, together with local Muslims, killed those troops.

U.S. law enforcement also alleges that bin Laden has ties to failed attacks on two hotels in Yemen where U.S. troops stayed en route to Somalia.

In 1994, the Saudi government revoked bin Laden's citizenship and froze his assets in Saudi Arabia because of his support for Muslim fundamentalist movements.

In 1996, bin Laden issued a "declaration of jihad," writing that his goal is to drive the U.S. military out of Saudi Arabia and overthrow the Saudi government.

The Most Wanted List

The U.S. government has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to bin Laden's arrest, while it also works through diplomatic channels to pressure the Taliban government in Afghanistan to hand over the fugitive millionaire.

In 1999, the U.S. won approval from the U.N. Security Council for limited economic sanctions against the Taliban and in late 2000 stepped up the pressure when the U.S. and Russia pushed through an arms embargo against Afghanistan.

The U.S. had alleged that bin Laden was linked with a number of terrorist incidents aimed at the U.S., including the World Trade Center bombing.

On June 8, 1998, bin Laden was indicted in New York City on one count of conspiracy to attack U.S. defense installations. The indictment alleges that bin Laden's al Qaeda organization trained and assisted the Somali tribesmen who killed U.S. soldiers in October 1993.

But bin Laden is most wanted for his alleged involvement in the African embassy bombings, which happened two months after his initial indictment by U.S. authorities.

On August 7, 1998, the eighth anniversary of both the approval of U.N. sanctions against Iraq and the order made by President George Bush to send U.S. troops to the Gulf, two truck bombs were detonated at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Nairobi explosion killed 213 people and injured more than 4,500 while 11 people were killed and 85 injured in the Dar es Salaam bombing.

Most of the victims were Africans, including some who were Muslim. But bin Laden said, in an interview he gave to TIME magazine in late 1998 that was published in January 1999, that he understood the "motives of the brothers who act against the enemies of the nation.

"When it becomes apparent that it would be impossible to repel these Americans without assaulting them, even if this involved the killing of Muslims, this is permissible under Islam," he said.

'Our job is to instigate'

He was careful not to take responsibility for the African embassy bombings in the TIME interview, saying only that "our job is to instigate and, by the grace of God, we did that -- and certain people responded to this instigation."

The United States responded differently as it believes bin Laden was the mastermind behind the embassy bombings. Fourteen days later, on August 20, 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks against suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan.

"Our target was terror," Clinton said in a speech to the nation announcing the strike. "Our mission was clear: to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with and funded by Osama bin Laden, perhaps the preeminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today."

But one of the targets provoked much controversy. U.S. intelligence officials claimed that the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant was helping bin Laden produce chemical weapons, which was angrily denied by the Sudanese government. The attack wounded seven civilians, one of whom later died.

In September 1998, U.S. officials admitted to The New York Times that the U.S. had no evidence that directly linked bin Laden to the Khartoum plant. But intelligence officials said there were financial transactions between bin Laden and Military Industrial Corp., run by the Sudanese government. In addition, the U.S. said a soil sample taken near the plant included a chemical that is a precursor to the deadly nerve gas VX.

Trial underway of four accused

The indictment against bin Laden charges him with engaging in a conspiracy to murder American citizens and with concealing the activities of his co-conspirators by, among other things, establishing "front" companies, providing false identity and travel documents, engaging in coded correspondence and providing false information to authorities in various countries.

And while bin Laden remains at-large in Afghanistan, protected by the Taliban who control the country, others have been arrested for the embassy bombings. Of the 22 people indicted in connection with the bombings, four men are on trial in a federal court in New York City. Jury selection began on January 3 in the conspiracy trial of Wadih el Hage (alleged to be bin Laden's personal secretary), Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Mohamed Rashed Daoud al 'Owhali and Mohammed Sadeek Odeh.

On October 20, 2000, Ali Mohamed, a U.S. citizen and another man named in the indictment, pleaded guilty to the five broad conspiracy charges against him. Mohamed, a bin Laden confidante, admitted staking out several possible U.S. targets, including the Nairobi embassy. He has been cooperating with the government and is expected to be called as a key witness.

Another defendant is in U.S. custody and three others are in the United Kingdom awaiting extradition. Thirteen others, including bin Laden and the top leadership of his al Qaeda organization, remain fugitives.

CNN Executive Producer Nancy Peckenham and CNN Terrorism Analyst Peter Bergen contributed to this report, written by CNN.com writer/editor Douglas S. Wood.