2.3 Osama bin Laden

WHO? Osama bin Laden, seventeenth son of a wealthy Saudi businessman.

WHAT? Committed to expelling US forces deployed to Saudi Arabia.

WHEN? Declared war against the US in 1996.

WHERE? Conceived the “Planes Operation” from his safe haven in Afghanistan.

WHY? Because he felt US forces in Saudi Arabia were an affront to Islam.

Osama bin Laden directed the 9/11 attacks against the US. They were the culmination of his war against the United States. The seventeenth child of a Saudi construction magnate, in 1980 bin Laden left university to fight the Soviets who invaded Afghanistan the previous December. Arriving in Pakistan, bin Laden used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen fight against the Soviet Army. By 1984, bin Laden and his partner had established an organization to funnel money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. After nine years, heavy losses, and no victory, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in April 1988. In 1990 bin Laden returned home to Saudi Arabia. In August that year, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Concerned that Iraqi forces might continue south into Saudi Arabia, the Saudi monarchy accepted a US offer to deploy troops in defense of the Kingdom. On August 7, 1990, the 82nd Airborne landed in Dhahran and took up border defensive positions. Osama bin Laden was outraged by this apparent infidel incursion onto holy Muslim territory. Saudi Arabia is home to the two holiest sites in Islam: Mecca and Medina. Bin Laden’s denouncements resulted in government censure, and caused him to flee to Sudan. Bin Laden was welcomed to Sudan by the head of the National Islamic Front. He used his family fortune and construction company to assist with building a road from Khartoum to Port Sudan. Bin Laden also used his contacts to acquire weapons and explosives for terrorist purposes. During this time, al Qaeda was suspected of supporting attacks against US forces in Yemen, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia, and attempting to assassinate the President of Egypt. Under pressure from the US, bin Laden was expelled from Sudan. Because his Saudi Passport was rescinded, he made his way back to Afghanistan where he lent his support to the ruling Taliban. In 1991, coalition forces led by the US overran Iraq’s army and forced them out of Kuwait. US forces remained in Saudi Arabia to protect the Kingdom from any further aggression by Saddam Hussein. After arriving in Afghanistan in 1996, bin Laden issued a religious edict declaring war on the US. In August 1998, al Qaeda detonated two truck bombs outside US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 people and injuring 4500 more. In October 2000, al Qaeda rammed a speed boat loaded with explosives into the destroyer USS Cole while at port in Yemen, killing 17 sailors. Although bin Laden and al Qaeda had come to the attention of the White House, and ways had been considered to kidnap or kill him, both the CIA and Pentagon thought the risks disproportionate. Meanwhile, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of bin Laden’s commanders, came to him with a plan. KSM proposed several options for directly attacking the US. One plan called for hijacking ten aircraft and crashing them into the Twin Towers, Pentagon, White House, CIA and FBI headquarters, several nuclear power plants, and the tallest buildings is California and Washington state. Bin Laden was noncommittal. At the time he was busy with other plans. But about April 1999, bin Laden summoned KSM and told him al Qaeda would support his plan, but he had to scale it back. KSM agreed to four targets: the Twin Towers, Pentagon, White House, and US Capitol. It was called the “Planes Operation”. While Congress and the White House worried about WMD in the hands of non-state actors, few considered the potential catastrophe bound in the infrastructure upon which our lives depended.