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Osama bin Laden

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People

       Osama Muhammed Awad bin Laden
   Born March 10, 1957 (age 49)
        Saudi Arabia Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

   Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن
   لادن‎; born March 10, 1957 ), most often mentioned as Osama bin Laden,
   is a Saudi Arabian militant Islamist and is often believed to be one of
   the founders of the organization called al-Qaeda. In conjunction with
   several other Islamic militants, bin Laden issued a fatwa (Islamic
   religious edict), that Muslims should kill civilians and military
   personnel from the United States and allied countries until they
   withdraw support for Israel and military forces from Islamic countries.

   He has been indicted in United States federal court for his alleged
   involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam,
   Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, and is on the U.S. Federal Bureau of
   Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. It has also been said
   that he is linked to the 2000 USS Cole bombing, the Bali nightclub
   bombings, the Madrid bombings, as well as bombings in the Jordanian
   capital of Amman and in Egypt's Sinai peninsula.

   Although bin Laden has not been indicted for the September 11, 2001
   attacks, he has taken responsibility for the attacks, which involved
   the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175,
   American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77, and the
   subsequent destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York City and
   caused severe damage to The Pentagon outside of Washington, DC.
   Altogether, 2,973 people were killed.

Family and childhood

   Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia . In a 1998 interview,
   later televised on Al Jazeera, he gave his birth date as March 10,
   1957. His father was the late Muhammed Awad bin Laden, a wealthy
   businessman involved in construction and with close ties to the Saudi
   royal family . Before World War I, Muhammed, poor and uneducated,
   emigrated from Hadhramaut, on the south coast of Yemen, to the Red Sea
   port of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he began to work as a porter.
   Starting his own business in 1930, Muhammed built his fortune as a
   building contractor for the Saudi royal family during the 1950s.

   In 1994 bin Laden's family publicly disowned him, shortly before the
   Saudi Arabian government revoked his citizenship for anti-government
   activity. He attended his son's wedding in January 2001, but since
   September 11 of that year he is believed only to have had contact with
   his mother on one occasion. .

   There is no definitive account of the number of children born to
   Muhammed bin Laden, but the number is generally put at 55. Various
   accounts place Osama as his seventeenth son. Muhammed bin Laden was
   married 22 times, although to no more than four women at a time per
   Sharia law. Osama was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth
   wife, Hamida al-Attas, nee Alia Ghanem, who was born in Syria.

Al-Attas' step family in Jeddah

   Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born, according to Khaled M.
   Batarfi, a senior editor at the Al Madina newspaper in Jeddah who knew
   Osama during the 1970s. Osama's mother then married a man named
   Muhammad al-Attas, who worked at the bin Laden company. The couple had
   four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three
   stepbrothers and one stepsister.

Education and politicization

   Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. But from 1968 to 1976,
   he attended the relatively secular Al-Thager Model School, the most
   prestigious high school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, called "the school of
   the élite." However, during the 1960s, King Faisal had welcomed exiled
   teachers from Syria, Egypt, and Jordan, so that around 1971 or 1972, at
   Saudi high schools and universities, it was common to find many of whom
   had become involved with dissident members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
   During that time, bin Laden was exposed to those educators' banned
   political teachings during after-school Islamic study groups.

   As a college student at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, bin Laden
   studied civil engineering and business administration. He earned a
   degree in civil engineering in 1979 and also one in economics and
   public administration, in 1981.

   Osama bin Laden is an expert in Islamic jurisprudence and completed a
   portion of his Islamic education under the guidance of Musa al-Qarni.

   At the university, bin Laden was influenced by several professors with
   strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Among them was Muhammad Qutb, an
   Egyptian, whose brother, the late Sayyid Qutb, had written one of the
   Brotherhood’s most important tracts about anti-Western jihad, Signposts
   on the Road. The university at Jeddah is also where bin Laden met Dr.
   Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Azzam was a teacher there while bin Laden was in
   attendance, and he would later play a crucial role working with bin
   Laden in the Afghanistan resistance against the Soviets.

Married life in Jeddah

   In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife, Najwa
   Ghanem, his mother's niece, and a first cousin, who was from Syria. The
   marriage ceremony took place in Najwa's native land, at Latakia, in
   northwestern Syria. After the birth of his first son, Abdallah, they
   moved from his mother's house to a building in the Al-Aziziyah district
   of Jeddah.

   Although bin Laden reportedly married four other women, he divorced
   one, Umm Ali bin Laden (i.e., the mother of Ali), a University lecturer
   who studied in Saudi Arabia, and spent holidays in Khartoum, Sudan,
   where Osama later settled during his exile in the years 1991 to 1996.
   According to Wisal al Turabi, the wife of Sudan's ruler Hassan Turabi,
   Umm Ali taught Islam to some families in Riyadh, an upscale
   neighbourhood in Khartoum. The three latter wives of Osama bin Laden
   were all university lecturers, highly educated, and from distinguished
   families. According to Wisal al Turabi, he married the other three
   because they were "spinsters," who "were going to go without marrying
   in this world. So he married them for the Word of God." According to
   Abu Jandal, bin Laden's former chief bodyguard, Osama's wife Umm Ali
   asked Osama for a divorce when they still lived in Sudan, because she
   said that she "could not continue to live in an austere way and in
   hardship."

Children

   Bin Laden has fathered anywhere between 12 to 24 children. His wife,
   Najwa, reportedly had 11 children by bin Laden, including Abdallah
   (born c. 1976), Omar, Saad and Muhammad. Muhammad bin Laden (born c.
   1983) married the daughter of the late alleged al-Qaeda military chief
   Mohammed Atef in January 2001, at Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Appearance and manner

   Bin Laden is often described as lanky; the FBI describes him as tall
   and thin, being 6' 4" (193 cm) to 6' 5" (195 cm) tall and weighing
   about 165 pounds (75 kg). He has an olive complexion, is left-handed,
   and usually walks with a cane. He wears a plain white turban and no
   longer dons the traditional Saudi male headdress, generally white.

   In terms of personality, bin Laden is described as a soft-spoken, mild
   mannered man, ; and despite his rhetoric, he is said to be charming,
   polite, and respectful. According to CNN's In The Footsteps of bin
   Laden television program, he is near-fluent in the English language.

Usage variations of Osama's name

   Because there is no universally accepted standard in the West for
   transliterating Arabic words and names into English, Osama's name is
   transliterated in many ways. The version often used by most
   English-language mass media is Osama bin Laden. Most American
   government agencies, including the FBI and CIA, use either Usama bin
   Laden or Usama bin Ladin, both of which are often abbreviated to UBL.
   Less common renderings include Ussamah Bin Ladin and Oussama Ben Laden
   (French-language mass media). The latter part of the name can also be
   found as Binladen or Binladin. Strictly speaking, under Arabic
   linguistic conventions, it is incorrect to use "bin Laden" in a similar
   manner as a Western surname. His full name means "Osama, son of
   Mohammed, son of 'Awad, son of Laden". However, the bin Laden family
   (or "Binladin," as they prefer to be known) generally use the name as a
   surname in the Western style. Although Arabic conventions dictate that
   he be referred to as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", using "bin Laden" is
   in accordance with the family's own usage of the name and is the
   near-universal convention in Western references to him.

   Bin Laden also has several commonly used aliases and nicknames,
   including the Prince, the Sheikh, Al-Amir, Abu Abdallah, Sheikh
   Al-Mujahid, the Director, and Samaritan..

Military and militant activity

Jihad in Afghanistan

   Group photo of Ayman Al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden & Abu
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   Group photo of Ayman Al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden & Abu Hafs.
   Prosecution exhibit from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.
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   Bin Laden's wealth and connections assisted his interest in supporting
   the mujahideen, Muslim guerrillas fighting the Soviet Union in
   Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. His
   old teacher from the university in Jeddah, Abdullah Azzam, had
   relocated to Peshawar, a major border city of a million people in the
   North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. From there, Azzam was able to
   organize resistance directly on the Afghan frontier. Peshawar is only
   15 km east of the historic Khyber Pass, through the Safed Koh
   mountains, connected to the southeastern edge of the Hindu Kush range.
   This route became the major avenue of inserting foreign fighters and
   material support into eastern Afghanistan for the resistance against
   the Soviets, and also in later years.

   After bin Laden graduated from the university in Jeddah, he went to
   fight the Soviet Invasion in 1979 . He lived for a time in Peshawar.
   According to Rahimullah Yusufzai, executive editor of the
   English-language daily The News International in 2001 "Azam prevailed
   on him to come and use his money" for training recruits, reported
   Yusufzai. In the early 1980s, bin Laden lived at several addresses in
   and around Arbab Road, a narrow street in the University Town
   neighborhood in western Peshawar, Yusufzai said. Nearby in Gulshan
   Iqbal Road is the Arab mosque that Abdullah Azzam used as the jihad
   centre, according to a Reuters inquiry in the neighbourhood. Years
   later, in 1989, Azzam was blown up in a massive car bombing outside the
   mosque. Bin Laden is thought by some to be a suspect in that
   assassination, because of a rift in the direction of the jihad at that
   time. Others doubt this claim; Ahmad Zaidan, for instance, author of
   the Arabic-language book Bin Laden Unmasked, told Peter L. Bergen in an
   interview, "I rule out totally that bin Laden would indulge himself in
   such things, after all, Osama bin Laden, he's not type of person to
   kill Abdullah Azzam. Otherwise, if he be exposed, he would be finished,
   totally." Bergen also cites Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who
   speculates that there were more likely candidates than bin Laden: "It
   could be Hekmatyar, it could be KHAD, it could be the Mossad, the
   Egyptians [around Ayman al Zawahiri].... I met with Hekmatyar, an
   arrogant, self-centered person. I think Hekmatyar had a secret
   organization to eliminate his enemies."

   By 1984, with Azzam, bin Laden had established an organization named
   Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK, Office of Order in English), which funneled
   money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the world into the Afghan
   war. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for
   air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani
   authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. In
   running al-Khadamat, bin Laden set up a network of couriers traveling
   between Afghanistan and Peshawar, which continued to remain active
   after 2001, according to Yusufzai.

   Robin Cook, former leader of the British House of Commons and Foreign
   Secretary from 1997-2001, wrote in The Guardian on Friday, July 8,
   2005,


   Osama bin Laden

     Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by
    western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA
    and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation
   of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the
     computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and
           trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.


   Osama bin Laden

   However, Peter Bergen, a CNN journalist and adjunct professor who is
   known for conducting the first television interview with Osama bin
   Laden in 1997, refuted Cook's notion, stating on August 15, 2006, the
   following:


   Osama bin Laden

   The story about bin Laden and the CIA -- that the CIA funded bin Laden
    or trained bin Laden -- is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of
       this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman
   al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they
   didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed
      to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was
                    operating secretly and independently.

   The real story here is the CIA didn't really have a clue about who this
     guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking
                                    him.


   Osama bin Laden

   It is more likely that the CIA was concerned and watching Osama bin
   Laden at least by early 1995 due to the discovery of the Oplan Bojinka
   plot which in part involved a suicide airplane attack on CIA
   Headquarters.

   For a while Osama worked at the Services Office working with Abdullah
   Azzam on Jihad Magazine, a magazine that gave information about the war
   with the soviets and interviewed mujahideen. As time passed, Aymen Al
   Zawahiri encouraged Osama to split away from Abdullah Azzam. Osama
   formed his own army of mujahideen and fought the Soviets. One of his
   most significant battles was the battle of Jaji, which was not a major
   fight, but it earned him a reputation as a fighter.

Formation of al-Qaeda

   By 1988, bin Laden had split from the MAK because of strategic
   differences. While Azzam and his MAK organization acted as support for
   the Afghan fighters and provided relief to refugees and injured, bin
   Laden wanted a more military role in which the Arab fighters would not
   only be trained and equipped by the organization but also be commanded
   on the battlefield by Arabic. One of the main leading point to the
   split and the creation of al-Qaeda was the insistence of Azzam that
   Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of
   forming their separate fighting force.

   After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, bin Laden offered to help defend
   Saudi Arabia (with 12,000 armed men) but was rebuffed by the Saudi
   government. Bin Laden publicly denounced his government's dependence on
   the U.S. military and demanded an end to the presence of foreign
   military bases in the country. According to reports (by the BBC and
   others), the 1990/91 deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia in
   connection with the Gulf War upset Muslims because the Saudi government
   claims legitimacy based on their role as guardians of the sacred Muslim
   cities of Mecca and Medina. After the Gulf War cease-fire agreement
   left Saddam Hussein remaining in power in Iraq, the ongoing presence of
   long-term bases for non-Muslim U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia continued to
   undermine the Saudi rulers' perceived legitimacy and inflamed
   anti-government Islamist militants, including bin Laden.

   Bin Laden's increasingly strident criticisms of the Saudi monarchy led
   the government to attempt to silence him. According to the 9/11
   Commission Report, "with help from a dissident member of the royal
   family, he managed to get out of the country under the pretext of
   attending an Islamic gathering in Pakistan in April 1991." Hassan
   al-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Front, had invited bin Laden
   to "transplant his whole organization to Sudan" in 1989. Bin Laden's
   agents had begun purchasing property in Sudan in 1990. When the Saudi
   government began putting pressure on him in 1991, bin Laden moved to
   Sudan. The Saudi government revoked his citizenship in 1994.

   Assisted by donations funneled through business and charitable fronts
   such as Benevolence International, established by his brother-in-law,
   Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden established a new base for mujahideen
   operations in Khartoum, Sudan to disseminate Islamist philosophy and
   recruit operatives in Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United
   States. Bin Laden also invested in business ventures, such as
   al-Hajira, a construction company that built roads throughout Sudan,
   and Wadi al-Aqiq, an agricultural corporation that farmed hundreds of
   thousands of acres of sorghum, gum Arabic, sesame and sunflowers in
   Sudan's central Gezira province. Bin Laden's operations in Sudan were
   protected by the powerful Sudanese NIF government figure Hassan al
   Turabi. While in Sudan, bin Laden married one of Turabi's nieces.

Refuge in Afghanistan

   Sudanese officials, whose government was under international sanctions,
   offered to expel Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1990s
   provided that the Saudis pardon him. The Saudis refused because they
   had already revoked his citizenship and would not accept him in their
   country. Consequently, in May 1996, under increasing pressure from
   Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States, Sudan asked bin Laden to
   leave and he returned to Afghanistan. He chartered a plane and flew to
   Kabul before settling in Jalalabad after being invited by Abdul Rasul
   Sayyaf, leader of the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan,
   a member of the Afghan Northern Alliance. After spending a few months
   in the border region hosted by local leaders, bin Laden forged a close
   relationship with some of the leaders of Afghanistan's new Taliban
   government, notably Mullah Mohammed Omar. Bin Laden supported the
   Taliban regime with financial and paramilitary assistance and, in 1997,
   he moved to Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold.

   Bin Laden is suspected of funding the November 1997 Luxor massacre in
   Egypt conducted by Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the largest Egyptian
   militant Islamist group. The Egyptian government convicted bin Laden's
   colleague, one of the leaders of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, Dr. Ayman
   al-Zawahiri, and sentenced him to death in absentia for the massacre.

Attacks on United States targets

   It is believed that bin Laden was involved with the December 29, 1992,
   bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden, Yemen, which killed a Yemeni
   hotel employee and an Austrian national and seriously injured the
   Austrian's wife.

   In 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, (a leader of Egyptian
   Islamic Jihad), co-signed a fatwa (religious edict) in the name of the
   World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, declaring:


   Osama bin Laden

      [t]he ruling to kill the Americans and their allies civilians and
   military - is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any
     country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the
   al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Makka) from their
     grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of
        Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in
   accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, 'and fight the pagans all
    together as they fight you all together,' and 'fight them until there
   is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in
                                   Allah'.


   Osama bin Laden

   In response to the 1998 United States embassy bombings following the
   fatwa, President Bill Clinton ordered a freeze on assets that could be
   linked to bin Laden. Clinton also signed an executive order,
   authorizing bin Laden's arrest or assassination. In August 1998, the
   U.S. launched an attack using cruise missiles. The attack failed to
   harm bin Laden but killed 19 other people.

   On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand
   Jury, and the United States Department of State offered a US $5 million
   reward for information leading to bin Laden's apprehension or
   conviction.

   In an interview with journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai published in TIME
   Magazine, January 11, 1999, Osama Bin Laden is quoted as saying:


   Osama bin Laden

   "The International Islamic Front for Jihad against the U.S. and Israel
   has issued a crystal-clear fatwa calling on the Islamic nation to carry
     on jihad aimed at liberating holy sites. The nation of Muhammad has
   responded to this appeal. If the instigation for jihad against the Jews
     and the Americans in order to liberate Al-Aksa Mosque and the Holy
    Ka'aba Islamic shrines in the Middle East is considered a crime, then
               let history be a witness that I am a criminal."


   Osama bin Laden

September 11, 2001 attacks

   Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States,
   U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization
   as the prime suspects. After the 9/11 attacks, the reward offered by
   the U.S. government increased to $25 million. The Airline Pilots
   Association and the Air Transport Association are offering an
   additional $2 million reward.

   The FBI stated that evidence linking Al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the
   attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable. The Government of the
   United Kingdom reached the same conclusion, regarding Al Qaeda and
   Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11, 2001 attacks.

   Bin Laden initially denied, but later admitted involvement in the
   September 11, 2001 attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden denied any
   involvement with the attacks by reading a statement which was broadcast
   by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel: "I stress that I have not
   carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by
   individuals with their own motivation." This denial was broadcast on
   U.S. news networks and worldwide.

   In November 2001, U.S. forces recovered a videotape from a destroyed
   house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in which Osama bin Laden is talking to
   Khaled al-Harbi. In the tape bin Laden admits foreknowledge of the
   attacks. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December
   13, 2001.

   On December 27, 2001, a second bin Laden video was released. In the
   video he stated "Terrorism against America deserves to be praised
   because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to
   stop its support for Israel, which kills our people," but he stopped
   short of admitting responsibility for the attacks.

   Shortly before the U.S. presidential election in 2004 in a taped
   statement, bin Laden publicly acknowledged al-Qaeda's involvement in
   the attacks on the U.S, and admitted his direct link to the attacks. He
   said that the attacks were carried out because, "We are free and do not
   accept injustice. We want to restore freedom to our nation." In this
   video, aired on Al Jazeera on October 30, 2004, bin Laden also stated
   that had personally directed the 19 hijackers.

   Another video obtained by Al Jazeera in September 2006 shows Osama bin
   Laden with Ramzi Binalshibh, as well as two hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi
   and Wail al-Shehri, as they make preparations for the attacks.

Criminal charges and attempted extradition

   As a result of international pressure, Sudan asked bin Laden to leave
   the country in 1996. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, "Saudi
   officials apparently wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan," but would
   not accept offers to extradite him to Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden chartered
   a plane and moved to Afghanistan that year. There are conflicting
   claims as to whether Sudan offered to extradite bin Laden to the United
   States in 1996. President Clinton, his administration officials, and
   the 9-11 commission deny such an offer was made; businessman Mansoor
   Ijaz, former Sudanese officials, and former U.S. ambassador to Sudan
   Tim Carney claim that extradition offers were made "through unofficial
   channels" by Sudan.

   On June 8, 1998 a United States grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on
   charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the 13 November
   1995 truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training
   centre in Riyadh. Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack
   defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged
   that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al
   Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic terrorists
   worldwide. Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack.

   On November 4, 1998 Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand
   Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of
   New York, on charges of Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United
   States, Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States,
   and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged
   role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

   The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former
   Al Qaeda members and satellite phone records.

   Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden
   from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure. In 1999, U.S.
   President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions
   against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite
   him. The U.S. Department of State currently offers a $25 million reward
   for information leading directly to his apprehension or conviction.

Current whereabouts

   Claims as to the location of Osama bin Laden have been made since
   December 2001, although none have been definitively proven and some
   have placed Osama in different locations during overlapping time
   periods.

   A December 11, 2005 letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab
   al-Zarqawi indicates that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were
   based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter,
   translated by the military's Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point,
   "Atiyah" instructs Zarqawi to "send messengers from your end to
   Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership...I am
   now on a visit to them and I am writing you this letter as I am with
   them..." Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are
   "weak" and "have many of their own problems." The letter has been
   deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according
   to the Washington Post.

Alleged deaths

   Reports alleging Osama bin Laden's death have appeared from time to
   time.

April 2005

   The Sydney Morning Herald stated "Dr Clive Williams, director of
   terrorism studies at the Australian National University, says documents
   provided by an Indian colleague suggested bin Laden died of massive
   organ failure in April last year...'It's hard to prove or disprove
   these things because there hasn't really been anything that allows you
   to make a judgment one way or the other', Dr. Williams said."

August 2006

   On September 23, 2006 the French newspaper L'Est Républicain quoted a
   report from the French secret service ( DGSE) stating that Osama bin
   Laden had died in Pakistan on August 23, 2006 after contracting a case
   of typhoid fever that paralyzed his lower limbs. According to the
   newspaper, Saudi security services first heard of bin Laden's alleged
   death on September 4, 2006. The alleged death was reported by the Saudi
   Arabian secret service to its government, which reported it to the
   French secret service. The French defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie
   expressed her regret that the report had been published while French
   President Jacques Chirac declared that bin Laden's death had not been
   confirmed. American authorities also cannot confirm reports of bin
   Laden's death, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying only,
   "No comment, and no knowledge." Later, CNN's Nic Robertson said that he
   had received confirmation from an anonymous Saudi source that the Saudi
   intelligence community has known for a while that bin Laden has a
   water-borne illness, but that he had heard no reports that it was
   specifically typhoid or that he had died.

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