Osama bin Laden is the name used in English to refer to Usamah bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Ladin, a member of a prominent family in Saudi Arabia and founder of the jihadist organization Al-Qaeda. He is the prime suspect in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, and is on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. It was also reported that he has orally claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
Osama was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on March 10, 1957. He was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim and attended the Al-Thager Model School from 1968 to 1976. In 1974, Osama married his first wife Najwa Ghanem. As of 2002, it is said that he has married four women and fathered around 12 to 26 children.
Osama became involved in the fight against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1988. In 1988, he founded the Al-Qaeda to advance Islamic revolutions throughout the Muslim world and repel foreign intervention in the Middle East.
After the first Gulf War, Al-Qaeda fought the growing U.S. presence in the Middle East, especially in Saudi Arabia, by waging a campaign of terrorism. As a result of Osama’s actions, the Saudi regime deported him in 1992 and revoked his citizenship in 1994.