Growing Up bin Laden

by Jean Sasson

  1990: Osama and his first wife, Najwa, welcome their eighth child, a girl named Iman.

  1990: Osama and his fourth wife, Siham, welcome their third child, a girl named Miriam. (This child is born on the same day as Iman, Najwa’s daughter.)

  1990: Omar and his second wife, Khadijah, welcome their second child, a son named Amer.

  1990: The Saudi government warns Osama to cease his criticisms of the royal family and their decisions. Osama refuses, increasing his opposition. The ruling family limits Osama’s freedom, ordering that he confine himself to the kingdom.

  1991: A coalition, led by the United States, fights the Persian Gulf War. Afterwards, the United States establishes a permanent military presence in the kingdom. Osama and other intellectuals within the kingdom object to the infidel presence in the land of the two most holy places in Islam, Mecca and Medina. Opposition to the ruling family increases, resulting in the arrest and detention of a number of intellectuals.

  1991: Osama flees the kingdom after convincing one of the royals to approve a one-off trip to Pakistan in order to complete and close down his businesses there. Osama promises that he will return to Saudi Arabia.

  1991: Osama breaks his promise, and instead he arranges a move to Khartoum, in Sudan.

  1991 or 1992: In late 1991 or early 1992, Osama moves to Khartoum, Sudan. His wives, children, and approximately one hundred of his veteran fighters who were living in Saudi Arabia join him there.

  1992: With the approval of the Sudanese government, Osama sets up many businesses in Sudan.

  1992: Osama begins to bring more Afghan veterans living in Pakistan into Sudan to work in his businesses, as well as setting up his al-Qaeda organization for future missions.

  1992: Osama and his second wife, Khadijah, welcome their third and last child, a girl they name Aisha.

  1992: On December 29, 1992, there is a terrorist attack in Aden, Yemen, on a hotel where American troops generally stay. On that day, however, the American soldiers had checked out of the hotel on their way to Somalia where the United States was conducting a humanitarian mission. The people killed were two Austrian tourists. Terrorism experts believe that this was the first attack organized by Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization, although it has never been proven.

  1992: Osama and his fourth wife, Siham, welcome their fourth child, a daughter they name Sumaiya.

  1993: In October, the U.S. government humanitarian mission is ambushed in Mogadishu, Somalia, and eighteen U.S. soldiers are killed. After the attack, Osama bin Laden admits that some of his fighters were involved in the attack. Osama ridicules the United States for withdrawing from Somalia after the ambush.

  1993: Osama and Najwa welcome their ninth child, a son they name Ladin. Najwa is escorted to Saudi Arabia by her son Abdullah. After the birth, Najwa returns to Khartoum. Osama changes his mind and renames their son Bakr. From that time on the children and Najwa call their sibling Ladin, while Osama calls him Bakr, leading to much confusion.

  1993: Other militant groups began to congregate in Sudan with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, one of the few countries who would welcome them. The al-Jihad group, headed by Dr. Ayman Muhammad al-Zawahiri, was also there, as was the al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya group, led by Omar Abdel Rahman. (After he was arrested and imprisoned in the United States, his son became the local organizer.) All three militant groups came together for the purpose of restoring Islamic Jihad. Their goal was to have the world ruled by Islam.

  1993: Osama’s second wife, Khadijah, asks for a divorce. Osama agrees and allows her to leave Sudan with her three children. Khadijah moves back to Saudi Arabia.

  1993: The World Trade Center in New York is bombed. Six people are killed and one thousand injured. Authorities believe there is a link to al-Qaeda, but no charges are brought against Osama bin Laden or his organization for lack of evidence. However, Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind cleric and one of Osama’s associates, is recorded issuing a fatwa encouraging acts of violence against U.S. civilian targets. (Omar Abdel Rahman is arrested on June 24, 1993, tried and convicted of seditious conspiracy. In 1996 he was sentenced to life imprisonment.)

  1993 or early 1994: After his divorce from his second wife, Khadijah, Osama bin Laden marries for the fifth time while in Khartoum. However, the marriage is annulled before it can be consummated. The family does not want to say why the marriage was annulled, considering it a private matter.

  1994: The government of Saudi Arabia revokes Osama bin Laden’s Saudi citizenship. His bin Laden brothers renounce him. Osama’s bank accounts in the kingdom are frozen.

  1994: The Sudanese government gives Osama bin Laden and his family Sudanese citizenship and passports.

  1995: On June 26 the two Islamic groups associated with bin Laden’s al-Qaeda allegedly try to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak when he was in Ethiopia for a meeting of the Organization of African Unity. The assassination attempt fails but brings pressure from the Egyptians, Saudis, and Americans for the Sudanese government to expel Osama and the other Islamic groups from the country.

  1995: Osama bin Laden writes an open letter to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In the letter he calls for a campaign of insurgent attacks in the kingdom against the United States forces still stationed there.

  1995: In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, there is a truck bombing of a U.S.–operated Saudi National Guard training center. Five Americans and two Indians are killed. Although Osama denies responsibility, he praises the attackers.

  1996: In May of 1996, the Sudanese government bends to international pressure and expels Osama bin Laden and his associates.

  1996: In May of 1996, Osama bin Laden, his top commanders, and his son Omar fly out of Khartoum, to Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Regardless of other media reports, Omar bin Laden says he is the only son that accompanied his father. He also reports that their plane crossed Saudi Arabia, and that their only stop was for the purpose of refueling the plane in Iran.

  1996: Four Saudi men are arrested for the truck bombing in Riyadh that killed the Americans and Indians. They confess that they were motivated by Osama bin Laden’s militant activities. They are beheaded in Riyadh’s Deira Square, more commonly known as “Chop-Chop Square.”

  1996: President Bill Clinton signs a top secret order authorizing the CIA to use any and all means to destroy Osama bin Laden’s organization.

  1996: A second truck bomb destroys Khobar Towers in Dhahran, killing nineteen U.S. soldiers. There is never any evidence that Osama and al-Qaeda were responsible, although the U.S. government believe he inspired the attack.

  1996: Osama bin Laden signs and issues his “Declaration of Jihad,” which outlines the goals of his network. He calls for the removal of the Saudi government from power; for the liberation of Muslim holy sites from all foreigners; for the support of all Islamic revolutionary groups; and for the U.S. government to be driven out of the Arabian Peninsula.

  1996: In September 1996, Osama bin Laden brings his wives, children, and Afghan veterans and their wives and children from Sudan to Jalalabad, Afghanistan. (Important note: Najwa and Omar were unclear as to the exact dates that the family lived in the various locations in Afghanistan, or to the exact timing of Rukhaiya’s birth. Arabs do not celebrate birthdays in the same manner as in the West. They do know that the personal events listed below occurred around late 1996 to mid-1997.)

  1996: Osama bin Laden moves his wives and children to Tora Bora Mountain, in Afghanistan.

  1997: Osama’s family temporarily moves to Jalalabad. While there, Osama and Najwa have their tenth child, a girl they name Rukhaiya. The child is born in a hospital in Jalalabad.

  1997: Osama moves his family to the airport compound in Kandahar, where they live until October 2001. (The family did live for very short periods in other areas in Afghanistan, including Kabul and Jalalabad, during this same period, but their main residence was the airport compound at Kandahar.)

  1998: Although Osama bin Laden is not a cleric, he issues a fatwa calling fo
r attacks on Americans. His signed statement calls for the killing of Americans, saying it is the “individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”

  1998: On June 8, a U.S. grand jury investigation of Osama bin Laden, which was opened in 1996, finally issues a sealed indictment, charging Osama bin Laden with “conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States.” The United States prosecutors charge that Osama bin Laden is head of a terrorist organization named al-Qaeda, and is also a major financier of Islamic organizations around the world.

  1998: A group calling themselves the Egyptian Jihad sends the Americans a warning, saying that they will soon deliver an important message to the Americans, “which we hope they read with care, because we will write it with God’s help, in a language they will understand.”

  1998: On August 7, there are simultaneous bombings of the United States embassy in Kenya and the United States embassy in Tanzania. A total of 213 people are killed in Kenya, including twelve Americans. More than 4,500 people are injured. Eleven people are killed in Tanzania, and eighty-five injured. (No Americans are killed in Tanzania.)

  1998: U.S. intelligence agencies say that they have intercepted the telephone calls of two of Osama bin Laden’s commanders implicating al-Qaeda in the August 7 embassy attacks.

  1998: Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, the group in charge of Afghanistan, turns down a Saudi request to extradite Osama bin Laden.

  1998: On August 20, the United States retaliates against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, sending cruise missiles into al-Qaeda training camps. Two hours prior to the attacks, Osama, his sons, and commanders left one of the training camps near Khost to travel to a safe house in Kabul. Sources say that only six fighters were killed. Omar bin Laden reports that thirty fighters were killed.

  1998: The United States issues a new indictment against Osama bin Laden, Mohammed Atef—listed as bin Laden’s chief military commander—and others. Osama and his commanders are charged with the bombing of the two United States embassies and conspiracy to commit other acts of terror against Americans living abroad. Rewards of $5 million each are offered for Osama bin Laden and for Mohammed Atef.

  1999: Omar bin Laden, Osama’s fourth son with his first wife, Najwa, is warned of an attack by Abu al-Haadi, one of Osama’s trusted fighters. Haadi believes the attack is going to be so big that the United States will retaliate with the intention of killing everyone associated with Osama bin Laden. After many heated discussions with his father, Omar takes his pregnant mother, brother Abdul Rahman, and baby sister Rukhaiya out of Afghanistan to Syria.

  Late 1999: Osama and Najwa have their eleventh and last child, who is born in Syria. The baby is a girl whom Osama names Nour in honor of Osama’s half-sister, who had died a few years before.

  Early 2000: Najwa returns to Kandahar with her two small daughters and son Abdul Rahman. Omar remains in Syria, seeking the restoration of his Saudi citizenship, which is forthcoming in four months.

  2000: On October 12, there is a terrorist attack on the U.S. warship Cole at the Aden, Yemen, seaport. The explosion kills seventeen American sailors. President Bill Clinton does not retaliate, saying there is no concrete evidence that al-Qaeda was behind the attack, although that is believed to be the case.

  2000 (late) or early 2001: Osama bin Laden marries for the sixth time to Yemeni Amal al-Sadah. It is said that his bride is only seventeen years old. The marriage was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan. At the time of writing it is thought that Osama and Amal have one daughter, named Safia.

  2001: In early 2001, a worried Omar returns to Kandahar, Afghanistan, after his grandmother in Saudi Arabia tells him that his father is angry and has ordered him to return to Afghanistan.

  2001: Late April 2001, after a brief stay, and a repeated warning of a huge attack in the making, Omar tries to convince his mother to take her children and leave Afghanistan. Najwa remains in Kandahar while Omar leaves his father and Afghanistan for the final time.

  2001: Between September 7 and 9, Najwa leaves Afghanistan for the final time. Osama forbids her from taking her other children. A distraught Najwa travels to Syria to live in her mother’s home. Najwa’s other children, their wives, and grandchildren remain in Afghanistan with their father.

  2001: On September 11, approximately three thousand people lose their lives when nineteen al-Qaeda suspects hijack four American passenger planes and fly them into American targets. Two fly into the World Trade Center, killing thousands and destroying the buildings. One flies into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The final plane is stopped from its mission by the brave passengers who fight their hijackers. That plane crashes into a field in Pennsylvania.

  2001: On October 7, six weeks after the attacks on American soil, the United States military begins a fierce air assault upon Afghanistan. The bomb attacks are so devastating that they cause a complete disruption of al-Qaeda and the training camps located in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden, his commanders, and fighters hide in the mountains of Tora Bora before fleeing to Pakistan. It is believed that many hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters perished, including Mohammed Atef (Abu Hafs), who is killed at his home in Kabul. Osama bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri escape into Pakistan. (Nothing is known of the fate of Najwa’s children, or Osama bin Laden’s other wives and children.) During this same assault, the notorious Mullah Omar and his Taliban government collapse, with Mullah Omar and his followers fleeing to Pakistan.

  2004: In October, Osama bin Laden releases a recording taking credit for the September 11, 2001, attacks.

  2008: Osama bin Laden releases an audiotape condemning the publication of drawings that he said insulted the Prophet Mohammed, and warned Europeans of a severe reaction to come.

  2009: In January, Osama bin Laden releases an audiotape urging Muslims to launch a Jihad against Israel. The head of al-Qaeda vows to open new fronts against the United States and its allies. The twenty-two-minute audiotape includes an appeal for donations to support the fight he is waging.

  * Omar bin Laden reports that his father told his family that their real family name was al-Qatani, but that his father, Mohammed bin Laden, had never registered the name. This is not documented by any other sources.

  Appendix C

  Al-Qaeda Chronology: 1988–2008

  With the end of the war with Russia in sight, Osama and the men around him began to dream of a global Jihad to spread the message of God and to bring the world under Islamic rule.

  Osama’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam, a leading Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian, was the first to recognize the necessity of an organized foundation from which believers could launch their struggle for a perfect Islamic world. But while the orator Azzam talked, the military man acted. Osama called for the first planning meeting of what would be named al-Qaeda to be held at his family home in Peshawar, Pakistan. Al-Qaeda was formed in August 1988.

  Osama’s al-Qaeda organization has both an Islamic arm and a military arm, with the military arm growing in prominence. As new Muslim fighters arrived in Pakistan, they were sent to training camps inside Afghanistan, then dispersed to the various fighting fronts.

  As the war with Russia slowed, Osama had more time to devote to the Islamic goals of al-Qaeda. The plan to make Islam the religion of the world gained momentum after he moved from Saudi Arabia to Sudan, and finally to Afghanistan. The organization slowly became a threat to innocent people around the world.

  The following attacks are believed to have been conducted by, or inspired by, al-Qaeda:

  December 29, 1992: Aden, Yemen: In an attack targeting American servicemen on their way to Somalia, bombs explode at two hotels in Aden. No soldiers are killed, but two Austrian tourists are.

  October 3–4, 1993: Somalia: Somali militia shoot down two American Black Hawk helicopters, killing eighteen U.S. servicemen.

  June 25, 1996: Dhahran, Saudi Arabia: The Khobar Towers building, a U.S. military housing complex, is bombed, killing ninete
en U.S. servicemen.

  August 7, 1998: Kenya and Tanzania: The U.S. embassies of both African nations are car-bombed. More than 222 people are killed, most of them Africans.

  October 12, 2000: Aden, Yemen: Two suicide bombers ram a small boat into the USS Cole while it is docked. Seventeen American sailors are killed.

  September 11, 2001: Nineteen al-Qaeda suspects hijack four domestic American planes. Two planes are flown into the World Trade Center buildings in New York City. One plane is flown into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashes into an open field in Pennsylvania when the passengers resist their hijackers. There are various reports of the number of innocent people murdered, but the most accepted figure seems to be 2,986 victims.

  February 1, 2002: Karachi, Pakistan: American journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped and beheaded.

  April 11, 2002: Djerba, Tunisia: The Ghriba synagogue is bombed by a natural gas truck. The attack kills fifteen tourists (fourteen Germans and one Frenchman) and six Tunisians. Thirty others are wounded.

  October 12, 2002: Bali, Indonesia: Suicide bombers and car bombs detonate in or near the busy nightclub area, killing over 200 people; 164 tourists and 38 Indonesians. Over 200 others are seriously wounded.

  November 28, 2002: Mombassa, Kenya: A car bomb crashes into the lobby of the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel and kills sixteen people. During the same time, two surface-to-air missiles are fired at an Israeli charter plane. The missiles miss the plane, saving many lives.

  May 12, 2003: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Thirty-four people are killed in a series of bomb attacks targeting housing for foreign nationals and a U.S. office.

  May 16, 2003: Casablanca, Morocco: A series of suicide bombings strike a Spanish restaurant, a hotel, a Jewish center, and the Belgian consulate, killing thirty-three people.