CONTENTS
Series Foreword ix
Preface xi
Introduction xiii
Timeline: Events in the Life of Osama bin Laden xix
Chapter 1 Osama bin Laden the Man 1
Chapter 2 Osama bin Laden’s Worldview 17
Chapter 3 Afghanistan 35
Chapter 4 Al-Qaeda 51
Chapter 5 Fighting the Great Satan 69
Chapter 6 Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, Post-9/11 91
Conclusion 109
Appendix: Selected Documents 117
Annotated Bibliography 143
Index 149
Maps and photo essay follow page 90
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SERIES FOREWORD
In response to high school and public library needs, Greenwood developed
this distinguished series of full-length biographies specifi cally for
student use. Prepared by fi eld experts and professionals, these engaging
biographies are tailored for high school students who need challenging
yet accessible biographies. Ideal for secondary school assignments, the
length, format and subject areas are designed to meet educators’ requirements
and students’ interests.
Greenwood offers an extensive selection of biographies spanning all
curriculum related subject areas including social studies, the sciences,
literature and the arts, history and politics, as well as popular culture,
covering public fi gures and famous personalities from all time periods
and backgrounds, both historic and contemporary, who have made an
impact on American and/or world culture. Greenwood biographies were
chosen based on comprehensive feedback from librarians and educators.
Consideration was given to both curriculum relevance and inherent
interest. The result is an intriguing mix of the well known and the unexpected,
the saints and sinners from long-ago history and contemporary
pop culture. Readers will fi nd a wide array of subject choices from fascinating
crime fi gures like Al Capone to inspiring pioneers like Margaret
x SERIES FOREWORD
Mead, from the greatest minds of our time like Stephen Hawking to the
most amazing success stories of our day like J.K. Rowling.
While the emphasis is on fact, not glorifi cation, the books are meant
to be fun to read. Each volume provides in-depth information about the
subject’s life from birth through childhood, the teen years, and adulthood.
A thorough account relates family background and education,
traces personal and professional infl uences, and explores struggles, accomplishments,
and contributions. A timeline highlights the most signifi
cant life events against a historical perspective. Bibliographies
supplement the reference value of each volume.
PREFACE
People love villains almost as much as they love heroes. Nothing satisfi es
discontent so much as having a fi end to vilify, an embodiment of all that
is wrong with the world. Osama bin Laden is such a man. Since 9/11 he
has become the most infamous man in the Western world, the demon
upon whom commentators and ordinary people heap their anger like
Captain Ahab with Moby Dick. For the generation born and raised during
the Cold War, the man fi lls a gap created by the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Al-Qaeda terrorism and its notorious leader have replaced
the Communist bogie man.
As much as we may hate Osama bin Laden, however, we do not understand
him. Readers of this book will be surprised to learn how little is
really known outside his family in Saudi Arabia about this infamous
fi gure. His childhood is poorly documented, as are large segments of his
adult life. His family has remained understandably reticent about discussing
him. Friends and acquaintances have offered recollections and refl ections,
but these accounts are incomplete and colored by the intervening
years. Bin Laden’s own statements provide additional information, but
these statements were intended to create a well-groomed public persona.
What can be assembled from this fragmentary evidence is the shadowy
xii PREFACE
image of a life, the somewhat clearer image of an organization, and the
clear outlines of a broad ideological movement. In this political biography,
I have tried to bring all three dimensions together.
As with any work of this sort, I owe considerable thanks to many
people. DePaul University continues to support and encourage my work,
as do my colleagues in the counterterrorism program at the Center for
Civil-Military Relations at the Naval Postgraduate School. My family,
especially my wife of almost 30 years, remain my greatest source of
strength and energy for these projects.
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
Biography no longer enjoys the privileged place in historical writing it
once did. Thomas Carlyle’s “Great Man” theory has been debunked as
the history of “dead white males.” Social history has also moved the profession
away from the study of individuals. Celebrated by its supporters
as “history without wars or presidents” and parodied by its critics as
“pots and pans history,” social history focuses on broad trends rather
than pivotal events and on social movements instead of political leaders.
Nineteenth-century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy foreshadowed this intellectual
trend. In his epic novel War and Peace, Tolstoy soberly assessed
the limits of individual human agency in shaping events. In his description
of the battle of Borodino, he cast Napoleon as the self-deluded
commander who believed he could actually control the unfolding battle,
while the more realistic Russian General Kutuzov deployed his troops
and then put his feet up on a barrel and went to sleep, realizing his powerlessness
to control what would unfold in the coming hours. Borodino
was a microcosm of the historical process.
Like Tolstoy, social historians rightly remind us that even the most
powerful individuals have far less ability to shape events than previously
xiv INTRODUCTION
imagined. Modern states and societies have proven remarkably resistant
to change by individuals, no matter how authoritarian. Napoleon did not
fundamentally change France. Following 30 years of brutal tyranny under
Joseph Stalin, Russia remained more Russian than communist. Americans
awake the Wednesday after each presidential election to a world
unchanged by the “momentous” event of the night before. The presidentelect
enters the White House to discover that his ability to deliver on a
host of campaign promises is far more limited than he expected.
Then there is the long-standing question of whether individuals shape
events or whether events call forth individuals. Sir Isaac Newton and
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz invented calculus at virtually the same time
and independent of each other. William Wallace published his theory
of evolution shortly after Charles Darwin and completely independent
of him. These “coincidences” suggest that the times bring forth “great
individuals” at least as often as individuals shape the times in which
they live. Centuries of scientifi c discovery made the world ripe for an
Albert Einstein, the argument goes. If he had not put forth the theory
of relativity, someone else would have. Disillusionment with decades of
Democratic presidents made the election of a president like Ronald Reagan
very likely. If he had not emerged as the party choice in 1980, the
Republicans would have found someone very much like him. A similar
statement could be made about the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
These factors, combined with growing interest in humanity below the
level of the rich and powerful, led to the rise of social history, which looks
for the underlying social structures and broad trends that provide the
continuity beneath the rapid sweep of political events and examines how
these structures change over time.
THE ENDURING POWER OF BIOGRAPHY
As valuable as the social history movement has been, it does not quite
satisfy as a comprehensive theory of history. According to its inexorable
logic, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt did not
matter, a conclusion that defi es common sense and the experience of
those who lived through the Great Depression and the Second World
War. Social history has provided a necessary corrective to the distortions
of the Great Man approach, but it has not displaced study of political
INTRODUCTION xv
events and the individuals who shape them. Wars and presidents still
matter, even if they cannot be understood without an awareness of pots
and pans.
Biography still contributes to our understanding of history and continues
to enjoy a prominent place on bookstore shelves. Readers often
fi nd it easier to relate to the life of an individual than to a broad history of
an era. However, today historians write biographies differently than they
did a century ago. As much as they recreate an individual life, they also
use that life as a window into the times in which that individual lived. By
contextualizing the subject’s life, the historian strikes a balance between
event history and social history.
THE HISTORIAN’S CRAFT
History will never be a science in the manner of biology or chemistry.
Validity in those natural sciences consists in the ability to obtain from
observation and experimentation results that other researchers can replicate.
Historians can never exercise such control over the subjects of
their research. They do, however, try to follow the scientifi c method as
much as possible. Like any researchers, historians begin with a question.
They read what has already been written on their subject to focus that
question and eventually formulate a tentative response, a hypothesis.
Historian then conducts further research to test the hypothesis. They
then publish their conclusions in articles in professional journals or as
books. These published works become part of the body of literature on a
particular subject. Other scholars read these published works while doing
their own research. They rebut, qualify, or extend the original conclusion,
thus continuing the process of historical inquiry.
THE CHALLENGE OF SOURCES
In reconstructing the past, historians are at the mercy of the evidence
that has survived. The most interesting historical questions cannot be
answered without documents. Those documents were usually written
for practical purposes in their own time, not to inform future historians.
King Hammurabi’s Code from ancient Babylon has survived but not
court records from his reign, assuming such records were even kept. We
xvi INTRODUCTION
know the penalty the lawgiver laid down for various crimes, but we cannot
determine how often people committed these crimes or how frequently
and severely they were punished. The historical record is always
frustratingly fragmentary and incomplete. The farther back in time the
historian looks, the more this problem arises, but even for the recent past
it never completely disappears.
FINDING BIN LADEN
For a contemporary fi gure of such notoriety, Osama bin Laden is surprisingly
elusive. Not only does he elude capture, but he also defi es understanding.
The record of his life is very fragmentary. Few available documents
record his childhood. Even the exact month and day of his birth are not
part of the public record. His early life must be reconstructed from the eyewitness
accounts of those who knew him as he grew up in Saudi Arabia.
What he did on 9/11 may unavoidably color their recollections. Presumably
his family knows a great deal more about him than members are
willing to say. Since he became a terrorist, his relatives have maintained
a closely kept conspiracy of silence about bin Laden.
Once bin Laden publically took up the cause of jihad, the trail of documents
became richer. He made numerous pronouncements about the
ideology he espoused and about his goals and objectives. However, by
then he belonged to an organization and a movement. His role as the
leader or perhaps only the titular head of al-Qaeda make it diffi cult to
determine whether he was speaking for himself or his movement. Even
when his fame (or infamy) was at its height, from 1996 to the present, he
produced very few documents by his own hand. As the leader of a clandestine
organization, he granted few interviews and then did so only
under tightly controlled circumstances. Reconstructing his personal life
has been and will probably always remain a great challenge.
THE ISSUE OF PERSPECTIVE
Historical research and writing require a certain amount of empathy.
Biographers in particular try as far as possible to put themselves in the
shoes of the person they are studying in order to better understand that
individual. Empathy becomes very problematic, however, when the subINTRODUCTION
xvii
ject under study perpetrates mass murder.1 Osama bin Laden, of course,
is such a perpetrator. Besides struggling to empathize with their subjects,
historians like all human beings have their opinions, beliefs, and prejudices,
the components of a complex worldview that unavoidably affects
their points of view and colors their prose. The more an historian’s own
culture and society differ from his subject’s, the greater the challenge of
understanding will be. Recognizing these truths, however, can set one
free—to a degree. Complete objectivity is impossible, but all historians
strive to get as close to it as possible.
GOALS OF THIS BOOK
In writing this book I have a single purpose and a dual audience. I hope
to make the most infamous man in the Western world easier to understand.
This account is a political rather than a personal biography. Too
little information is available on Osama bin Laden’s personal life to fl esh
out more than a blurred image of him as a human being. It is, however,
both possible and desirable to situate him within the context of his world.
That task requires examining the history of Saudi Arabia in the twentieth
century, during which the kingdom underwent rapid and jarring
modernization, at least in the technological sense of the term. It also necessitates
looking at the religion of Islam in some detail, for only by doing
that can the reader learn how Islamist extremists have perverted that
religion to their own violent ends.
The biographical series to which this book belongs seeks to reach students
and the educated reading public. Because this book may be used
as teaching tool, I have taken more time to explain the historian’s craft
than I would normally do in an historical monograph. The ultimate goal
of any good history book or course should be to teach readers and students
to use the discipline of history to better understand their world.
With that in mind, I have annotated the bibliography, providing commentary
on the strengths and limitations of the sources used to write
this book. I have also included an appendix of primary sources, public
domain documents that the reader can examine to supplement the narrative
account presented in the book.
With Osama bin Laden still at large and the implications of his deeds
continuing to play themselves out, my conclusions can only be tentative.
xviii INTRODUCTION
Future historians will have more information and the advantage of hindsight.
At this point in time, I can only make the best use of the evidence,
however fragmentary. Fortunately, I learned from the publication of my
fi rst book, almost 20 years ago, that there is no such thing as a defi nitive
historical work. We all contribute to an ongoing discussion among ourselves
and our readers. Good research and writing provide some answers
to historical questions, but, more important, they encourage further
research and writing.
NOTE
1 . See, for example, Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives
of Interpretation , 4th ed. (London: Arnold/ New York: Oxford University
Press, 2000).
TIMELINE: EVENTS IN THE
LIFE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
1932 Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud unifi es most of the Arabian Peninsula,
creating the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
1948 After declaring independence, Israel defeats fi ve Arab armies
in the fi rst Arab-Israeli War.
1956 Britain, France, and Israel collaborate in the second Arab-
Israeli War. Britain regains control of the Suez Canal, and Israel
seizes the Sinai Peninsula. International pressure led by
the United States forces both countries to relinquish their
gains. The following year, the UN deploys the fi rst peacekeeping
mission to the Sinai.
1958 Osama bin Laden is born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
1966 Sayid Qutb is executed in Egypt by President Gamal Abdul
Nasser, becoming a martyr for the Islamist cause.
1967 Mohammed bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s father, dies when
his private airplane crashes near one of his worksites in Saudi
Arabia. Bin Laden returns from boarding school in Beirut,
Lebanon, and completes his education in Saudi Arabia. Israel
defeats the forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in the Six-
Day War. Israel gains control of the Golan Heights, Gaza,
the Sinai Peninsula, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,
which contains the Dome of the Rock, Islam’s third
holiest site.
1973 Israel defeats Egypt and Syria in the Yom Kippur War.
U.S. aid is crucial to the Israeli victory.
1979 Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution triumphs in Iran.
Islamist extremists seize the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
Soviet forces occupy Afghanistan to support its communist
government.
1979–89 Afghan insurgents supported by covert U.S. and Saudi aid
fi ght a successful insurgency to expel the Soviets. Osama bin
Laden joins foreign mujahedeen aiding the Afghan insurgents.
1984 Along with Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden sets up the Afghan
Service Offi ce in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Services Offi
ce supports foreign mujahedeen traveling to Afghanistan
to fi ght the Soviets.
1986 Osama bin Laden forms his own group of Arab Afghan
fi ghters and builds them a based called “the Lion’s den” near
the Afghan border with Pakistan.
1987 Osama bin Laden leads a disastrous raid on the Afghan town
of Khost.
1988 Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and others create al-
Qaeda (the base).
1989 East Germans open the Berlin Wall, ending the Cold War.
1990 Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and threatens
Saudi Arabia.
Osama bin Laden offers to form an Arab mujahedeen army
to expel the invaders.
1991 A U.S.-led coalition of 500,000 troops expels the Iraqis
from Kuwait. U.S. troops remain in Saudi Arabia after the
war, angering Osama bin Laden. The Soviet Union collapses.
1992 After briefl y visiting Pakistan, Osama bin Laden goes into
voluntary exile in Sudan.
1993 Ramsey Yousef and the “blind Sheikh” Abdul Rahman detonate
a truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center,
in New York City, killing 6 people and wounding 1,042.
xx TIMELINE
U.S. Army Rangers die in Mogadishu during a failed effort
to capture Somali warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid. Al-
Qaeda takes no part in the fi ghting, but bin Laden later praises
the Somalis and foreign mujahedeen who assisted them.
1994 Saudi Arabia revokes Osama bin Laden’s citizenship.
1996 The United States and other states pressure Sudan to expel
bin Laden. He relocates to Afghanistan and issues a fatwa
against Zionists and Crusaders. Hezbollah bombs the Khobar
Towers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. and 1
Saudi servicemen and wounding 372 others.
1998 Osama bin Laden issues a fatwa on behalf of the World Islamic
Front calling on devout Muslims to kill Americans
wherever and whenever possible. In August, al-Qaeda operatives
bomb the U.S. embassies in Darussalam, Tanzania,
and Nairobi, Kenya. The United States launches cruise missiles
at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical
plant in Khartoum, Sudan. The plant is mistakenly
presumed to be producing chemical weapons.
2000 Al-Qaeda suicide bombers attack the destroyer USS Cole
in Aden harbor, killing 19 U.S. sailors and severely damaging
the vessel. U.S. government agencies foil terrorist plots
timed to coincide with millennium eve celebrations (December
31, 1999), including a plan to bomb Los Angeles
International Airport.
2001 On September 11, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists operating in four
teams hijack four U.S. airlines. They crash two planes into
the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and
a third into the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia. Passengers
struggle to recapture the fourth plane as it heads for Washington,
forcing the terrorists to crash it into a fi eld in Pennsylvania.
The attacks kill 2,998 people along with the 19
hijackers, the worst terrorist incident in U.S. history. President
George W. Bush declares a global war on terror. U.S.
Special Operations and CIA teams backed by U.S. air power
help the Northern Alliance overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan.
A coalition of NATO forces occupies the country
to support its new government, led by Hamid Karzai.
TIMELINE xxi
2002 In March, Osama bin Laden escapes an effort to capture
him during Operation Anaconda by fl eeing across the border
with Pakistan. In November, Jemaah Islamiya, an Indonesian
terrorist organization affi liated with al-Qaeda, bombs
a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 people and wounding
more than 100 others.
2003 A U.S.- led coalition invades Iraq in March under the pretext
that its dictator, Saddam Hussein, is acquiring weapons
of mass destruction and cooperating with terrorist organizations.
U.S. forces reach Baghdad in a few weeks. The end
of conventional operations is followed by a growing insurgency
against the coalition and its Iraqi supporters. On
November 21, al-Qaeda affi liated terrorists bomb two synagogues
in Istanbul, Turkey. Five days later, they bomb the
HSBC bank and the British Consulate. The attacks kill
57 people and wound more than 700.
2004 On March 11, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, an al-Qaeda
affi liate, bombs commuter trains and a train station in Madrid,
Spain, killing 191 people and wounding more than 600
others. The insurgency in Iraq escalates and is exacerbated
by confl ict between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims.
2005 On July 7, four terrorists detonate backpack bombs in the
London transit system. Three of the terrorists bomb Underground
trains, and a fourth detonates his bomb on a bus.
The attacks kill 52 people and wound more than 770 others.
On July 21, four more terrorists attempt to bomb the
London Underground. The attack fails because the bomb
detonators fail to set off the main charges. British security
forces apprehend the terrorists and their support cell.
2006 British authorities foil an al-Qaeda plot to blow up airplanes
over the Atlantic, apprehending 26 suspected terrorists.
U.S. casualties in Iraq exceed 3,000, more than the
total number who died on 9/11. The security situation in
Afghanistan deteriorates as a revitalized Taliban and al-
Qaeda carry out widespread attacks from safe havens in
Pakistan. A bipartisan report on the Iraq War is scathingly
critical of the U.S. campaign. The White House announces
xxii TIMELINE
its “surge” strategy, promising to increase U.S. troop strength
by 30,000 and appointing General David Petraeus to command
U.S. forces in Iraq. The Anbar Awakening enlists the
support of local Iraqi leaders in an effort to defeat foreign terrorists
operating in the country and to quell the insurgency.
A U.S. bombing raid kills Abu Musab al-Zarchawi, leader of
al-Qaeda in Iraq.
2007 Al-Qaeda uses medical doctors in an abortive plot to bomb
London nightclubs. Crudely made car bombs fail to detonate.
One terrorist attempts to drive through the barricade
protecting a terminal at Glasgow Airport with a car bomb.
He is badly burned in the attempt, but no one else is injured.
2008 In November, Laskar’i’taiba, a Pakistani-based terrorist organization
trained by al-Qaeda, attacks hotels and restaurants
in Mumbai, India. Senator Barack Obama is elected
president of the United States, promising to withdraw U.S.
troops from Iraq and to refocus efforts on defeating a resurgent
Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
2009 President Obama announces a timetable for withdrawing
combat troops from Iraq, agreeing to leave support troops in
place for some time afterward. He announces that reinforcements
will be sent to Afghanistan. In June, Pakistani forces
begin an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley. In
July, 4,000 U.S. Marines in cooperation with Afghan government
forces conduct an offensive to clear Helmond Province
of the Taliban.
TIMELINE xxiii
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Chapter 1
OSAMA BIN LADEN THE MAN
Osama bin Laden is an elusive man. Not only has he evaded capture by
the most powerful nation on earth for over a decade; he has also (albeit
unintentionally) confounded efforts by biographers to reconstruct signifi -
cant segments of his life. Despite his infamy, we know relatively little about
Osama as a man, especially during the formative years from birth to age 21.
This dearth of information about the al-Qaeda leader’s childhood and
youth stems from the nature of his homeland. Saudi Arabia in the 1960s
and 1970s was a country in rapid transition. Oil profi ts had made the royal
family and those around them enormously wealthy while leaving many
Saudis largely unaffected by the prosperity. Illiteracy rates remained high
and the country’s infrastructure underdeveloped. The process of state formation,
which had unfolded across several centuries in Western Europe,
had yet to be completed. The institutions of central government did not
function as fully as those of modern states. The disinclination of Saudi
Arabia’s predominant Wahhabi sect of Islam to celebrate birthdays or encourage
photographs also made the record of Osama’s life thinner than
it might otherwise have been.
For these reasons, there is a dearth of the documents historians rely upon
for research. Osama has no birth certifi cate, for example. In the absence
2 OSAMA BIN LADEN
of such offi cial records, biographers often rely on interviews. Bin Laden
has granted a handful of these, all of them after he had founded al-Qaeda.
While these interviews provide useful information on his worldview and
intentions, they shed little light on the early years of his life. Bin Laden
has said little about those years, and, when he did comment on them, he
interpreted events through a theological lens. Like most ideologues, he
also reads his own history backwards, insisting that he consistently held
views that evidence shows took years to evolve. Family members, friends,
and acquaintances have provided some information on bin Laden, but
their testimony must be viewed with a healthy skepticism, especially
since most of it was garnered after 9/11. The bin Ladens have good reason
to distance themselves from the family black sheep, while friends and
acquaintances might be tempted to embellish. The memories of all who
knew him over the years are prone to editing and omission. Given bin
Laden’s legendary shyness, many who knew him can offer little more than
impressions.
Because of the shortage of documents and the limitations of interviews
and recollections, biographers must speculate about key aspects of bin
Laden’s childhood and youth. They rely heavily on knowledge of the society
in which he grew up to frame their narrative. From this context and
what concrete information exists, they conjecture about the formative
events in his life. The deeper one delves into the man’s psychological development,
however, the more speculative such conjecture inevitably
becomes.
SAUDI ARABIA
The country in which bin Laden was born and raised is an ancient land
but a very new state. In 1905, the Arabian Peninsula consisted of numerous
principalities and Bedouin tribes. Two power centers dominated the
lands that would become modern Saudi Arabia. In the west, the Hashemite
family ruled a coastal strip encompassing the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina and the city of Jeddah. In the northeast, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud
controlled the region around Riyadh. During the First World War, the
British supported the Hashemite rebellion against the Ottoman Turks, but
after the war they changed sides. At the 1920 Cairo Conference, led by
Secretary for War and Air Winston Churchill, the British decided to back
OSAMA BIN LADEN THE MAN 3
Ibn Saud. Saud swiftly expanded his rule, conquering the Jebel Shammar
in 1921, Mecca in 1924, and Medina in 1925. In 1932, he renamed his new
kingdom Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud had risen to power by harnessing the religious
zeal of warrior Wahhabi Bedouins known as the Ikwhan. Once
he consolidated power, however, Saud had to repress these zealots in order
to modernize the country.
Since most of the kingdom was barren desert, the European colonial
powers cared little who ruled it. The situation changed dramatically with
the discovery of oil in the 1930s. Beneath the kingdom lay the largest reserves
of the 20th century’s most valuable strategic resource. In every other
respect, however, Saudi Arabia was a backward country, which had to rely
on foreign engineers, businessmen, and other experts to extract petroleum
and to manage its refi nement and sale. Unfortunately, Abdul Aziz
and his successors spent more of the oil revenue building palaces and living
the high life than they did building infrastructure or improving the
lives of ordinary Saudis. This situation did not change signifi cantly until
the 1960s, the years of Osama bin Laden’s boyhood. 1
Modernization was occurring throughout the Arab world, but its rapid,
although uneven, pace in Saudi Arabia unsettled its conservative society.
With the Western technical expertise, which the Saudis desperately
needed, came Western infl uence and culture, which they did not want
and deeply resented. Oil wealth catapulted a largely medieval kingdom
into the 20th century with wrenching force. The transition produced deep
tensions between a desire to preserve the kingdom’s conservative way
of life and its need to modernize. This tension would produce a conservative
religious movement known as Islamism. An extreme form of Islamism
would inspire Osama bin Laden’s terrorist campaign against the
government of his native land and against the United States, which supported
it.
Series Foreword ix
Preface xi
Introduction xiii
Timeline: Events in the Life of Osama bin Laden xix
Chapter 1 Osama bin Laden the Man 1
Chapter 2 Osama bin Laden’s Worldview 17
Chapter 3 Afghanistan 35
Chapter 4 Al-Qaeda 51
Chapter 5 Fighting the Great Satan 69
Chapter 6 Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, Post-9/11 91
Conclusion 109
Appendix: Selected Documents 117
Annotated Bibliography 143
Index 149
Maps and photo essay follow page 90
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SERIES FOREWORD
In response to high school and public library needs, Greenwood developed
this distinguished series of full-length biographies specifi cally for
student use. Prepared by fi eld experts and professionals, these engaging
biographies are tailored for high school students who need challenging
yet accessible biographies. Ideal for secondary school assignments, the
length, format and subject areas are designed to meet educators’ requirements
and students’ interests.
Greenwood offers an extensive selection of biographies spanning all
curriculum related subject areas including social studies, the sciences,
literature and the arts, history and politics, as well as popular culture,
covering public fi gures and famous personalities from all time periods
and backgrounds, both historic and contemporary, who have made an
impact on American and/or world culture. Greenwood biographies were
chosen based on comprehensive feedback from librarians and educators.
Consideration was given to both curriculum relevance and inherent
interest. The result is an intriguing mix of the well known and the unexpected,
the saints and sinners from long-ago history and contemporary
pop culture. Readers will fi nd a wide array of subject choices from fascinating
crime fi gures like Al Capone to inspiring pioneers like Margaret
x SERIES FOREWORD
Mead, from the greatest minds of our time like Stephen Hawking to the
most amazing success stories of our day like J.K. Rowling.
While the emphasis is on fact, not glorifi cation, the books are meant
to be fun to read. Each volume provides in-depth information about the
subject’s life from birth through childhood, the teen years, and adulthood.
A thorough account relates family background and education,
traces personal and professional infl uences, and explores struggles, accomplishments,
and contributions. A timeline highlights the most signifi
cant life events against a historical perspective. Bibliographies
supplement the reference value of each volume.
PREFACE
People love villains almost as much as they love heroes. Nothing satisfi es
discontent so much as having a fi end to vilify, an embodiment of all that
is wrong with the world. Osama bin Laden is such a man. Since 9/11 he
has become the most infamous man in the Western world, the demon
upon whom commentators and ordinary people heap their anger like
Captain Ahab with Moby Dick. For the generation born and raised during
the Cold War, the man fi lls a gap created by the collapse of the Soviet
Union. Al-Qaeda terrorism and its notorious leader have replaced
the Communist bogie man.
As much as we may hate Osama bin Laden, however, we do not understand
him. Readers of this book will be surprised to learn how little is
really known outside his family in Saudi Arabia about this infamous
fi gure. His childhood is poorly documented, as are large segments of his
adult life. His family has remained understandably reticent about discussing
him. Friends and acquaintances have offered recollections and refl ections,
but these accounts are incomplete and colored by the intervening
years. Bin Laden’s own statements provide additional information, but
these statements were intended to create a well-groomed public persona.
What can be assembled from this fragmentary evidence is the shadowy
xii PREFACE
image of a life, the somewhat clearer image of an organization, and the
clear outlines of a broad ideological movement. In this political biography,
I have tried to bring all three dimensions together.
As with any work of this sort, I owe considerable thanks to many
people. DePaul University continues to support and encourage my work,
as do my colleagues in the counterterrorism program at the Center for
Civil-Military Relations at the Naval Postgraduate School. My family,
especially my wife of almost 30 years, remain my greatest source of
strength and energy for these projects.
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY AND THE INDIVIDUAL
Biography no longer enjoys the privileged place in historical writing it
once did. Thomas Carlyle’s “Great Man” theory has been debunked as
the history of “dead white males.” Social history has also moved the profession
away from the study of individuals. Celebrated by its supporters
as “history without wars or presidents” and parodied by its critics as
“pots and pans history,” social history focuses on broad trends rather
than pivotal events and on social movements instead of political leaders.
Nineteenth-century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy foreshadowed this intellectual
trend. In his epic novel War and Peace, Tolstoy soberly assessed
the limits of individual human agency in shaping events. In his description
of the battle of Borodino, he cast Napoleon as the self-deluded
commander who believed he could actually control the unfolding battle,
while the more realistic Russian General Kutuzov deployed his troops
and then put his feet up on a barrel and went to sleep, realizing his powerlessness
to control what would unfold in the coming hours. Borodino
was a microcosm of the historical process.
Like Tolstoy, social historians rightly remind us that even the most
powerful individuals have far less ability to shape events than previously
xiv INTRODUCTION
imagined. Modern states and societies have proven remarkably resistant
to change by individuals, no matter how authoritarian. Napoleon did not
fundamentally change France. Following 30 years of brutal tyranny under
Joseph Stalin, Russia remained more Russian than communist. Americans
awake the Wednesday after each presidential election to a world
unchanged by the “momentous” event of the night before. The presidentelect
enters the White House to discover that his ability to deliver on a
host of campaign promises is far more limited than he expected.
Then there is the long-standing question of whether individuals shape
events or whether events call forth individuals. Sir Isaac Newton and
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz invented calculus at virtually the same time
and independent of each other. William Wallace published his theory
of evolution shortly after Charles Darwin and completely independent
of him. These “coincidences” suggest that the times bring forth “great
individuals” at least as often as individuals shape the times in which
they live. Centuries of scientifi c discovery made the world ripe for an
Albert Einstein, the argument goes. If he had not put forth the theory
of relativity, someone else would have. Disillusionment with decades of
Democratic presidents made the election of a president like Ronald Reagan
very likely. If he had not emerged as the party choice in 1980, the
Republicans would have found someone very much like him. A similar
statement could be made about the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
These factors, combined with growing interest in humanity below the
level of the rich and powerful, led to the rise of social history, which looks
for the underlying social structures and broad trends that provide the
continuity beneath the rapid sweep of political events and examines how
these structures change over time.
THE ENDURING POWER OF BIOGRAPHY
As valuable as the social history movement has been, it does not quite
satisfy as a comprehensive theory of history. According to its inexorable
logic, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt did not
matter, a conclusion that defi es common sense and the experience of
those who lived through the Great Depression and the Second World
War. Social history has provided a necessary corrective to the distortions
of the Great Man approach, but it has not displaced study of political
INTRODUCTION xv
events and the individuals who shape them. Wars and presidents still
matter, even if they cannot be understood without an awareness of pots
and pans.
Biography still contributes to our understanding of history and continues
to enjoy a prominent place on bookstore shelves. Readers often
fi nd it easier to relate to the life of an individual than to a broad history of
an era. However, today historians write biographies differently than they
did a century ago. As much as they recreate an individual life, they also
use that life as a window into the times in which that individual lived. By
contextualizing the subject’s life, the historian strikes a balance between
event history and social history.
THE HISTORIAN’S CRAFT
History will never be a science in the manner of biology or chemistry.
Validity in those natural sciences consists in the ability to obtain from
observation and experimentation results that other researchers can replicate.
Historians can never exercise such control over the subjects of
their research. They do, however, try to follow the scientifi c method as
much as possible. Like any researchers, historians begin with a question.
They read what has already been written on their subject to focus that
question and eventually formulate a tentative response, a hypothesis.
Historian then conducts further research to test the hypothesis. They
then publish their conclusions in articles in professional journals or as
books. These published works become part of the body of literature on a
particular subject. Other scholars read these published works while doing
their own research. They rebut, qualify, or extend the original conclusion,
thus continuing the process of historical inquiry.
THE CHALLENGE OF SOURCES
In reconstructing the past, historians are at the mercy of the evidence
that has survived. The most interesting historical questions cannot be
answered without documents. Those documents were usually written
for practical purposes in their own time, not to inform future historians.
King Hammurabi’s Code from ancient Babylon has survived but not
court records from his reign, assuming such records were even kept. We
xvi INTRODUCTION
know the penalty the lawgiver laid down for various crimes, but we cannot
determine how often people committed these crimes or how frequently
and severely they were punished. The historical record is always
frustratingly fragmentary and incomplete. The farther back in time the
historian looks, the more this problem arises, but even for the recent past
it never completely disappears.
FINDING BIN LADEN
For a contemporary fi gure of such notoriety, Osama bin Laden is surprisingly
elusive. Not only does he elude capture, but he also defi es understanding.
The record of his life is very fragmentary. Few available documents
record his childhood. Even the exact month and day of his birth are not
part of the public record. His early life must be reconstructed from the eyewitness
accounts of those who knew him as he grew up in Saudi Arabia.
What he did on 9/11 may unavoidably color their recollections. Presumably
his family knows a great deal more about him than members are
willing to say. Since he became a terrorist, his relatives have maintained
a closely kept conspiracy of silence about bin Laden.
Once bin Laden publically took up the cause of jihad, the trail of documents
became richer. He made numerous pronouncements about the
ideology he espoused and about his goals and objectives. However, by
then he belonged to an organization and a movement. His role as the
leader or perhaps only the titular head of al-Qaeda make it diffi cult to
determine whether he was speaking for himself or his movement. Even
when his fame (or infamy) was at its height, from 1996 to the present, he
produced very few documents by his own hand. As the leader of a clandestine
organization, he granted few interviews and then did so only
under tightly controlled circumstances. Reconstructing his personal life
has been and will probably always remain a great challenge.
THE ISSUE OF PERSPECTIVE
Historical research and writing require a certain amount of empathy.
Biographers in particular try as far as possible to put themselves in the
shoes of the person they are studying in order to better understand that
individual. Empathy becomes very problematic, however, when the subINTRODUCTION
xvii
ject under study perpetrates mass murder.1 Osama bin Laden, of course,
is such a perpetrator. Besides struggling to empathize with their subjects,
historians like all human beings have their opinions, beliefs, and prejudices,
the components of a complex worldview that unavoidably affects
their points of view and colors their prose. The more an historian’s own
culture and society differ from his subject’s, the greater the challenge of
understanding will be. Recognizing these truths, however, can set one
free—to a degree. Complete objectivity is impossible, but all historians
strive to get as close to it as possible.
GOALS OF THIS BOOK
In writing this book I have a single purpose and a dual audience. I hope
to make the most infamous man in the Western world easier to understand.
This account is a political rather than a personal biography. Too
little information is available on Osama bin Laden’s personal life to fl esh
out more than a blurred image of him as a human being. It is, however,
both possible and desirable to situate him within the context of his world.
That task requires examining the history of Saudi Arabia in the twentieth
century, during which the kingdom underwent rapid and jarring
modernization, at least in the technological sense of the term. It also necessitates
looking at the religion of Islam in some detail, for only by doing
that can the reader learn how Islamist extremists have perverted that
religion to their own violent ends.
The biographical series to which this book belongs seeks to reach students
and the educated reading public. Because this book may be used
as teaching tool, I have taken more time to explain the historian’s craft
than I would normally do in an historical monograph. The ultimate goal
of any good history book or course should be to teach readers and students
to use the discipline of history to better understand their world.
With that in mind, I have annotated the bibliography, providing commentary
on the strengths and limitations of the sources used to write
this book. I have also included an appendix of primary sources, public
domain documents that the reader can examine to supplement the narrative
account presented in the book.
With Osama bin Laden still at large and the implications of his deeds
continuing to play themselves out, my conclusions can only be tentative.
xviii INTRODUCTION
Future historians will have more information and the advantage of hindsight.
At this point in time, I can only make the best use of the evidence,
however fragmentary. Fortunately, I learned from the publication of my
fi rst book, almost 20 years ago, that there is no such thing as a defi nitive
historical work. We all contribute to an ongoing discussion among ourselves
and our readers. Good research and writing provide some answers
to historical questions, but, more important, they encourage further
research and writing.
NOTE
1 . See, for example, Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives
of Interpretation , 4th ed. (London: Arnold/ New York: Oxford University
Press, 2000).
TIMELINE: EVENTS IN THE
LIFE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
1932 Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud unifi es most of the Arabian Peninsula,
creating the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
1948 After declaring independence, Israel defeats fi ve Arab armies
in the fi rst Arab-Israeli War.
1956 Britain, France, and Israel collaborate in the second Arab-
Israeli War. Britain regains control of the Suez Canal, and Israel
seizes the Sinai Peninsula. International pressure led by
the United States forces both countries to relinquish their
gains. The following year, the UN deploys the fi rst peacekeeping
mission to the Sinai.
1958 Osama bin Laden is born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
1966 Sayid Qutb is executed in Egypt by President Gamal Abdul
Nasser, becoming a martyr for the Islamist cause.
1967 Mohammed bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s father, dies when
his private airplane crashes near one of his worksites in Saudi
Arabia. Bin Laden returns from boarding school in Beirut,
Lebanon, and completes his education in Saudi Arabia. Israel
defeats the forces of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq in the Six-
Day War. Israel gains control of the Golan Heights, Gaza,
the Sinai Peninsula, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,
which contains the Dome of the Rock, Islam’s third
holiest site.
1973 Israel defeats Egypt and Syria in the Yom Kippur War.
U.S. aid is crucial to the Israeli victory.
1979 Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution triumphs in Iran.
Islamist extremists seize the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
Soviet forces occupy Afghanistan to support its communist
government.
1979–89 Afghan insurgents supported by covert U.S. and Saudi aid
fi ght a successful insurgency to expel the Soviets. Osama bin
Laden joins foreign mujahedeen aiding the Afghan insurgents.
1984 Along with Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden sets up the Afghan
Service Offi ce in Peshawar, Pakistan. The Services Offi
ce supports foreign mujahedeen traveling to Afghanistan
to fi ght the Soviets.
1986 Osama bin Laden forms his own group of Arab Afghan
fi ghters and builds them a based called “the Lion’s den” near
the Afghan border with Pakistan.
1987 Osama bin Laden leads a disastrous raid on the Afghan town
of Khost.
1988 Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and others create al-
Qaeda (the base).
1989 East Germans open the Berlin Wall, ending the Cold War.
1990 Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and threatens
Saudi Arabia.
Osama bin Laden offers to form an Arab mujahedeen army
to expel the invaders.
1991 A U.S.-led coalition of 500,000 troops expels the Iraqis
from Kuwait. U.S. troops remain in Saudi Arabia after the
war, angering Osama bin Laden. The Soviet Union collapses.
1992 After briefl y visiting Pakistan, Osama bin Laden goes into
voluntary exile in Sudan.
1993 Ramsey Yousef and the “blind Sheikh” Abdul Rahman detonate
a truck bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center,
in New York City, killing 6 people and wounding 1,042.
xx TIMELINE
U.S. Army Rangers die in Mogadishu during a failed effort
to capture Somali warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid. Al-
Qaeda takes no part in the fi ghting, but bin Laden later praises
the Somalis and foreign mujahedeen who assisted them.
1994 Saudi Arabia revokes Osama bin Laden’s citizenship.
1996 The United States and other states pressure Sudan to expel
bin Laden. He relocates to Afghanistan and issues a fatwa
against Zionists and Crusaders. Hezbollah bombs the Khobar
Towers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. and 1
Saudi servicemen and wounding 372 others.
1998 Osama bin Laden issues a fatwa on behalf of the World Islamic
Front calling on devout Muslims to kill Americans
wherever and whenever possible. In August, al-Qaeda operatives
bomb the U.S. embassies in Darussalam, Tanzania,
and Nairobi, Kenya. The United States launches cruise missiles
at al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical
plant in Khartoum, Sudan. The plant is mistakenly
presumed to be producing chemical weapons.
2000 Al-Qaeda suicide bombers attack the destroyer USS Cole
in Aden harbor, killing 19 U.S. sailors and severely damaging
the vessel. U.S. government agencies foil terrorist plots
timed to coincide with millennium eve celebrations (December
31, 1999), including a plan to bomb Los Angeles
International Airport.
2001 On September 11, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists operating in four
teams hijack four U.S. airlines. They crash two planes into
the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and
a third into the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia. Passengers
struggle to recapture the fourth plane as it heads for Washington,
forcing the terrorists to crash it into a fi eld in Pennsylvania.
The attacks kill 2,998 people along with the 19
hijackers, the worst terrorist incident in U.S. history. President
George W. Bush declares a global war on terror. U.S.
Special Operations and CIA teams backed by U.S. air power
help the Northern Alliance overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan.
A coalition of NATO forces occupies the country
to support its new government, led by Hamid Karzai.
TIMELINE xxi
2002 In March, Osama bin Laden escapes an effort to capture
him during Operation Anaconda by fl eeing across the border
with Pakistan. In November, Jemaah Islamiya, an Indonesian
terrorist organization affi liated with al-Qaeda, bombs
a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, killing 202 people and wounding
more than 100 others.
2003 A U.S.- led coalition invades Iraq in March under the pretext
that its dictator, Saddam Hussein, is acquiring weapons
of mass destruction and cooperating with terrorist organizations.
U.S. forces reach Baghdad in a few weeks. The end
of conventional operations is followed by a growing insurgency
against the coalition and its Iraqi supporters. On
November 21, al-Qaeda affi liated terrorists bomb two synagogues
in Istanbul, Turkey. Five days later, they bomb the
HSBC bank and the British Consulate. The attacks kill
57 people and wound more than 700.
2004 On March 11, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, an al-Qaeda
affi liate, bombs commuter trains and a train station in Madrid,
Spain, killing 191 people and wounding more than 600
others. The insurgency in Iraq escalates and is exacerbated
by confl ict between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims.
2005 On July 7, four terrorists detonate backpack bombs in the
London transit system. Three of the terrorists bomb Underground
trains, and a fourth detonates his bomb on a bus.
The attacks kill 52 people and wound more than 770 others.
On July 21, four more terrorists attempt to bomb the
London Underground. The attack fails because the bomb
detonators fail to set off the main charges. British security
forces apprehend the terrorists and their support cell.
2006 British authorities foil an al-Qaeda plot to blow up airplanes
over the Atlantic, apprehending 26 suspected terrorists.
U.S. casualties in Iraq exceed 3,000, more than the
total number who died on 9/11. The security situation in
Afghanistan deteriorates as a revitalized Taliban and al-
Qaeda carry out widespread attacks from safe havens in
Pakistan. A bipartisan report on the Iraq War is scathingly
critical of the U.S. campaign. The White House announces
xxii TIMELINE
its “surge” strategy, promising to increase U.S. troop strength
by 30,000 and appointing General David Petraeus to command
U.S. forces in Iraq. The Anbar Awakening enlists the
support of local Iraqi leaders in an effort to defeat foreign terrorists
operating in the country and to quell the insurgency.
A U.S. bombing raid kills Abu Musab al-Zarchawi, leader of
al-Qaeda in Iraq.
2007 Al-Qaeda uses medical doctors in an abortive plot to bomb
London nightclubs. Crudely made car bombs fail to detonate.
One terrorist attempts to drive through the barricade
protecting a terminal at Glasgow Airport with a car bomb.
He is badly burned in the attempt, but no one else is injured.
2008 In November, Laskar’i’taiba, a Pakistani-based terrorist organization
trained by al-Qaeda, attacks hotels and restaurants
in Mumbai, India. Senator Barack Obama is elected
president of the United States, promising to withdraw U.S.
troops from Iraq and to refocus efforts on defeating a resurgent
Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
2009 President Obama announces a timetable for withdrawing
combat troops from Iraq, agreeing to leave support troops in
place for some time afterward. He announces that reinforcements
will be sent to Afghanistan. In June, Pakistani forces
begin an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley. In
July, 4,000 U.S. Marines in cooperation with Afghan government
forces conduct an offensive to clear Helmond Province
of the Taliban.
TIMELINE xxiii
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Chapter 1
OSAMA BIN LADEN THE MAN
Osama bin Laden is an elusive man. Not only has he evaded capture by
the most powerful nation on earth for over a decade; he has also (albeit
unintentionally) confounded efforts by biographers to reconstruct signifi -
cant segments of his life. Despite his infamy, we know relatively little about
Osama as a man, especially during the formative years from birth to age 21.
This dearth of information about the al-Qaeda leader’s childhood and
youth stems from the nature of his homeland. Saudi Arabia in the 1960s
and 1970s was a country in rapid transition. Oil profi ts had made the royal
family and those around them enormously wealthy while leaving many
Saudis largely unaffected by the prosperity. Illiteracy rates remained high
and the country’s infrastructure underdeveloped. The process of state formation,
which had unfolded across several centuries in Western Europe,
had yet to be completed. The institutions of central government did not
function as fully as those of modern states. The disinclination of Saudi
Arabia’s predominant Wahhabi sect of Islam to celebrate birthdays or encourage
photographs also made the record of Osama’s life thinner than
it might otherwise have been.
For these reasons, there is a dearth of the documents historians rely upon
for research. Osama has no birth certifi cate, for example. In the absence
2 OSAMA BIN LADEN
of such offi cial records, biographers often rely on interviews. Bin Laden
has granted a handful of these, all of them after he had founded al-Qaeda.
While these interviews provide useful information on his worldview and
intentions, they shed little light on the early years of his life. Bin Laden
has said little about those years, and, when he did comment on them, he
interpreted events through a theological lens. Like most ideologues, he
also reads his own history backwards, insisting that he consistently held
views that evidence shows took years to evolve. Family members, friends,
and acquaintances have provided some information on bin Laden, but
their testimony must be viewed with a healthy skepticism, especially
since most of it was garnered after 9/11. The bin Ladens have good reason
to distance themselves from the family black sheep, while friends and
acquaintances might be tempted to embellish. The memories of all who
knew him over the years are prone to editing and omission. Given bin
Laden’s legendary shyness, many who knew him can offer little more than
impressions.
Because of the shortage of documents and the limitations of interviews
and recollections, biographers must speculate about key aspects of bin
Laden’s childhood and youth. They rely heavily on knowledge of the society
in which he grew up to frame their narrative. From this context and
what concrete information exists, they conjecture about the formative
events in his life. The deeper one delves into the man’s psychological development,
however, the more speculative such conjecture inevitably
becomes.
SAUDI ARABIA
The country in which bin Laden was born and raised is an ancient land
but a very new state. In 1905, the Arabian Peninsula consisted of numerous
principalities and Bedouin tribes. Two power centers dominated the
lands that would become modern Saudi Arabia. In the west, the Hashemite
family ruled a coastal strip encompassing the holy cities of Mecca and
Medina and the city of Jeddah. In the northeast, Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud
controlled the region around Riyadh. During the First World War, the
British supported the Hashemite rebellion against the Ottoman Turks, but
after the war they changed sides. At the 1920 Cairo Conference, led by
Secretary for War and Air Winston Churchill, the British decided to back
OSAMA BIN LADEN THE MAN 3
Ibn Saud. Saud swiftly expanded his rule, conquering the Jebel Shammar
in 1921, Mecca in 1924, and Medina in 1925. In 1932, he renamed his new
kingdom Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud had risen to power by harnessing the religious
zeal of warrior Wahhabi Bedouins known as the Ikwhan. Once
he consolidated power, however, Saud had to repress these zealots in order
to modernize the country.
Since most of the kingdom was barren desert, the European colonial
powers cared little who ruled it. The situation changed dramatically with
the discovery of oil in the 1930s. Beneath the kingdom lay the largest reserves
of the 20th century’s most valuable strategic resource. In every other
respect, however, Saudi Arabia was a backward country, which had to rely
on foreign engineers, businessmen, and other experts to extract petroleum
and to manage its refi nement and sale. Unfortunately, Abdul Aziz
and his successors spent more of the oil revenue building palaces and living
the high life than they did building infrastructure or improving the
lives of ordinary Saudis. This situation did not change signifi cantly until
the 1960s, the years of Osama bin Laden’s boyhood. 1
Modernization was occurring throughout the Arab world, but its rapid,
although uneven, pace in Saudi Arabia unsettled its conservative society.
With the Western technical expertise, which the Saudis desperately
needed, came Western infl uence and culture, which they did not want
and deeply resented. Oil wealth catapulted a largely medieval kingdom
into the 20th century with wrenching force. The transition produced deep
tensions between a desire to preserve the kingdom’s conservative way
of life and its need to modernize. This tension would produce a conservative
religious movement known as Islamism. An extreme form of Islamism
would inspire Osama bin Laden’s terrorist campaign against the
government of his native land and against the United States, which supported
it.
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