Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was the founder and first general emir of the al-Qaeda militant organization. A pan-Islamist and Islamic extremist, bin Laden organized and funded numerous jihadist or anti-Western militants and terrorist attacks worldwide. Al-Qaeda's September 11, 2001 attacks (9 11 was mainly planned by bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and they may have been aided by Saudi Arabia. After the attacks, as bin Laden lived in Afghanistan, an international manhunt for him began. The U.S. invaded the country and deposed its Taliban government, forcing him to move to Pakistan. In 2011, U.S. troops killed bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and Ayman al-Zawahiri succeeded him as al-Qaeda's emir. Many Islamists consider bin Laden heroic for supporting rebellions and terrorist attacks in the name of Islam, while elsewhere, he is seen as a symbol of terrorism and mass murder.