TITLE: Profile of Osama bin Laden

AUTHOR: Anwar Iqbal

PUB: UPI

DATE: January 3, 2001

On the first encounter, Osama bin Laden appears quiet, emaciated and even a little shy. During interviews, he takes time to warm up and needs some probing to speak his mind. Those unaware of his background, may find it difficult to believe that this tall, shy man is accused of killing hundreds in terrorist attacks planned and orchestrated by him and his Al-Quaida group of Arab and Muslim militants. But few fail to notice a strong dislike for the West and Western influences, almost bordering on hatred, when bin Laden speaks. "Our war is not against American or Western people, it is against the corrupting influence of the West. What has the West given the world? A lust for power and a license to loot and plunder the poorer countries," he said in a recent interview to an Arab journalist while urging the Muslims to reject "Westernization of their culture and faith." He firmly believes that the U.S. soldiers based in Saudi Arabia were, "corrupting and polluting" the Muslim holy lands. While American intelligence officials blame bin Laden's anti-western feelings for the terrorist attacks he is accused of carrying out against U.S. targets, his sympathizers urge the West to "try and understand that not many in the Islamic world like the way the West is bullying the Muslims," says Kazi Hussain Ahmad, who heads Pakistan's Jamaat-i-Islami party. Bin Laden is among the 10 most wanted men in the United States for masterminding twin U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa in August 1998. He is also a prime suspect in organizing or at least inspiring the bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12, which killed 17 American sailors. But despite the charges, bin Laden remains a hero to many in the Islamic world. His pictures adorn walls in many places from North Africa to Central Asia. Last month thousands bought a fake Nike shirt that showed bin Laden brandishing a gun and declaring holy war against America. Both his admirers and enemies say that the Saudi millionaire will become even a greater hero if he is captured or killed in a U.S. attack. Trained by the U.S. war experts to fight the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s, bin Laden now trains and finances terrorist groups, an accusation he denies but refuses to surrender himself for a trial. His is particularly in Afghanistan, where he has lived since 1996. Despite severe economic sanctions, the Taliban rulers of this desperately poor country have refused to hand him over to the American authorities. Instead they have urged Washington to send evidence against bin Laden, promising to try him in Afghanistan. Washington has already rejected this demand. The Taliban officials they watch him closely and have prevented him from launching operations from Afghanistan, particularly against the U.S. targets. But American officials say that they have evidence to prove that he has been guiding operations against the U.S. targets from his hideout in Afghanistan. Bin Laden, 42, was born in Jeddah, the 12th child of construction magnate Mohammad bin Aaud Bin Laden whose assets were once valued at five billion dollars. His father served the Saudi royal family as a cabinet minister and was a close friend of the late King Faisal. During his early years bin Laden worked for his father's construction company as a laborer, before joining the U.S.-backed jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s. According to the Central Intelligence Agency which helped arm the anti-Soviet Mujahideen, bin Laden had between 12,000 and 20,000 supporters trained in arms, explosives and the use of U.S. Stinger missiles. When the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden went quiet for a while but he and his supporters were not allowed to return to Saudi Arabia as the rulers feared having trained and battle-tested men in the kingdom. When Iraq invaded Kuwait a year later, Saudi Arabia and the United States forged a strong alliance, with U.S. and other troops pouring into the kingdom. Bin Laden saw this as U.S. occupation and, shifting his base to Sudan, declared a jihad to evict the new invaders from Islam's holy lands. The Saudis was stripped him of his Saudi citizenship and forced Sudan to evict him. Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996 and was allowed to settle in the capital Kabul by the then president Burhanuddin Rabbani who now leads the opposition Northern Alliance against the Taliban. When Taliban captured Kabul, mutual benefits and Taliban's puritanical views brought bin Laden close to the Afghan militia. He shifted from his hideout near the eastern city of Jalalabad to the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in early 1997. Annoyed by the move, Saudi Arabia, which was one of only three countries to have recognized the Taliban regime, recalled its ambassador from Kabul but it had little impact on bin Laden's new found friendship with the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.Another veteran of the anti-Soviet jihad, Omar received arms, cash and men from bin Laden to fight the opposition. In March 1998, bin Laden issued a fatwa or a religious edict against the United States calling on his followers to "kill and plunder American citizens." Although now he denies issuing this edict, U.S. intelligence report show that he also tried to match the 'fatwa' with action and five months later two U.S. embassies in east Africa were simultaneously bombed. More than 220 people were killed in the two attacks, including 12 U.S. citizens.Washington blamed bin Laden and retaliated with missile strikes on his alleged bases in Afghanistan and Sudan. In November 1999, the United Nations imposed strict aviation and financial sanctions against the Taliban. From his base in Afghanistan bin Laden runs a group of Arab and Muslim militants called Al-Qaeda or "the base." U.S. intelligence reports describe Al-Quaida as an extensive Islamist network and blame it for orchestrating terrorist activities around the world. The bin Laden clan hails from a remote valley in Yemen, called Wadi Doan. Nestled between the Arabian Sea and Yemeni mountains, it is the legendry land of the Queen of Sheba, fabled for the gold and frankincense and myrrh that the Wise Men carried to the manger where Jesus was born. Bin Laden's native village, Al-Rubat or "the tent" is in Hadhramaut, a province in eastern Yemen. Muhammad bin Laden, Osama's father, migrated from Al-Rubat to Saudi Arabia in the 1950's. He soon formed close ties with the ruling Saud dynasty and accumulated a billion-dollar fortune building roads and palaces and trading real estate. Though the 43-year-old Osama bin Laden never lived in Wadi Doan, he absorbed his fundamentalist views on Islam from the strict Wahhabi form of Muslim beliefs that is prevalent in this region. Wadi Doan is part of Yemen's remote hinterland that has been a stronghold of Muslim militants for some time. Although he never lived there, the 6-foot-3-inch tall Osama bin Laden still wears traditional Hadhrami dress, with a curved dagger at his belt. He has also married a girl from a prominent Hadhramaut family. Though bin Laden grew up in the Saudi Arabian city of Jiddah, about 700 miles away across the Arabian peninsula, those who know him say he retains the characteristics of the people of this remote Yemeni region: extremely clannish, and intensely conservative in their adherence to strict forms of Islam. His father is also know in these areas as a man with deeply conservative religious and political views and for his profound distaste for non-Islamic influences that have penetrated some of the most remote corners of old Arabia. END top