Osama bin Laden is the leader of the terrorist group al-Qaeda. A terrorist is a person who tries to control people through violence and fear. Bin Laden and others founded al-Qaeda in the late 1980s. Their goal was to protect the religion of Islam and Muslim people.

Early Life

Bin Laden was born in 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He grew up in a large and very rich family. He attended King Abdul Aziz University and became an engineer.

Organizing al-Qaeda

In 1979 troops from the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, a Muslim country. Bin Laden went to Afghanistan to help fight the invaders. It was during this period that he helped found al-Qaeda. He returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero.

Soon after he returned the Persian Gulf War broke out. The Saudi government allowed troops from the United States to establish a military base there. Bin Laden was angry with his government for letting the U.S. troops into the country. He was also angry with the U.S. government because he believed that it was interfering in the Muslim world.

In 1994 Saudi Arabia accused bin Laden of trying to overthrow the government. Bin Laden escaped to Sudan. There he ran training camps for terrorists. Sudan threw out bin Laden in 1996, so he set up his headquarters in Afghanistan.

Attacks

Al-Qaeda carried out attacks worldwide throughout the 1990s. On September 11, 2001, members of al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes. They crashed three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth airplane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. About 3,000 people died in these attacks. Afterward U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan to try to capture or to kill bin Laden.