October 2006
Pakistan FATA
According to a profile in the Asia Times Haqqani was a respected leader during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.[1] They report that
Haqqani was the first resistance leader to capture a city, Khost, in 1991, from the Soviet occupiers. They report that Haqqani is still widely admired for his record during the fight against the Soviets, and that, unlike many military leaders, he has never been accused of warlordism.The New York Daily News reports that Haqqani once had strong ties to the CIA, and that he continues to receive more generous support from prosperous Arab countries than the rest of the Taliban.[2]
The
Asia Times reports that Haqqani was not a member of the Taliban prior to the Taliban's occupation of Kabul and assumption of de facto power over Afghanistan, but that he then decided to join with them, even though he was not originally a Taliban.American intelligence officials describe
Haqqani as the Taliban's Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs.[3]Four Guantanamo detainees Abib Sarajuddin, Khan Zaman, Gul Zaman and Mohammad Gul, were captured, and held, because American intelligence officials received a report that one of them had briefly hosted Haqqani shortly after the fall of the Taliban.[4][3] [5][6]
The Asia Times reports that in an attempt to split the moderate wing from the Taliban, Haqqani has been repeatedly offered positions of authority within President Hamid Karzai's government, including the offer of the post of Prime Minister.[1]
Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, are presently said to be the commanders of the Taliban mujahideen forces in the Pakistan agency of Waziristan.[7] The success of the mujahideen fighters against the Pakistan Army pressured the government to agree to the Waziristan Accord, a cease-fire agreement that allows the Taliban to operate with impunity in Waziristan as long as Pakistani law is followed and the Taliban do not launch raids into neighboring Afghanistan. The local Taliban, identified by some as the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan[8], look to be strengthened by the terms of the agreement which call for the release of up to 2,500 fighters held by the Pakistan government, as well as the return of all weapons captured by government forces during the two-year Waziristan War.
a b c Through the eyes of the Taliban, Asia Times, May 5, 2004
Ex-CIA allies leading Afghan fight vs. G.I.s, New York Daily News, December 2, 2005
a b Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Mohammad Gul's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - - mirror - pages 1-12
Villagers Add to Reports of Raids Gone Astray, New York Times, February 2, 2002
Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Abib Sarajuddin's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - pages 36-41
Summarized transcripts (.pdf), from Gul Zaman's Combatant Status Review Tribunal - mirror - pages 39-53
Khan, Ismail. "Forces, militants heading for truce", Dawn, 2006-06-22. Retrieved on 2006-09-29.
Moreau, Ron; Zahid Hussain (2006). Border Backlash. Newsweek international edition. MSNBC.com. Retrieved on 2006-09-20.
Federally Administered Tribal Areas
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
are areas of Pakistan outside the four provinces, comprising a region of some 27,220 km² (10,507 mi²).The
FATA are bordered by: Afghanistan to the west with the border marked by the Durand Line, the North-West Frontier Province and the Punjab to the east, and Balochistan to the south.The total population of the FATA was estimated in
2000 to be about 3,341,070 people, or roughly 2% of Pakistan's population. Only 3.1% of the population reside in established townships. [1] It is thus the most backward administrative unit in Pakistan.The Tribal Areas comprise seven Agencies namely
Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, and North and South Waziristan and five F.Rs (Frontior Regions) namely F.R Peshawar, F.R Kohat, F.R Tank, F.R Banuu and F.R D.I. Khan. The main towns include Miran Shah, Razmak, Bajaur, Darra Bazzar and Wana.The head of each tribal Agency is the political agent who wields extensive powers. Each Agency depending on its size has about 2 to 3 Assistant political Agents, about 3 to 4 Tehsildars and 4 to 9 Naib Tehsildars with the requisite supporting staff. Each F.R is headed by the DC/DCO(like for F.R. Peshawar DC/DCO Peshawar and so on) and under his supervision there are one Assistant political Agent and about 1 or 2 Tehsildars and Naib Tehsildars and requisite supporting staff. The Tehislder and staff assist the P.A. in performance of his functions. Each Agency has roughly 2 to 3 thousand Khasadars and levies and 5 to 9 Wings of F.C for maintenance of law and order in the Agency and borders security.
The region is only nominally controlled by the central government of Pakistan. The mainly Pashtun tribes that inhabit the areas are fiercely independent, but until friction following the fall of the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan the tribes had mostly had friendly relations with Pakistan's central government. These Tribes are governed by the Frontier Crimes Regulation introduced under the British Raj. They are represented in both Pakistan's lower house and upper house. Previously, tribal candidates had no party affiliations and could contest as independents, because the Political Parties Act had not extended to the tribal areas. However, tribesmen were given right to vote in 1997 general elections despite the absence of Political Parties Act.
After negotiating with tribal maliks, regular Pakistani army troops entered the tribal areas for the first time in Pakistani history - as of 2004, there are about 70,000 troops there. With foreign financial assistance, Pakistan has been involved in improving local infrastructure including the building of roads in the tribal areas. It is believed by some that Osama bin Laden is hiding with some sympathetic tribes in the FATA, but the validity of these claims remains unknown. Due to the capture of various Taliban leaders, many believe that various officials have sought refuge in the FATA and that possibly al-Qaeda fighters have also established a presence in the region following the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistani troops and U.S. forces have carried out "coordinated operations" in the border region[1] that has further antagonized some local tribes. In 2004, Army attacks on local militant groups resulted in civilian casualties, fuelling an insurgency by some Waziri tribal groups[2]. However, some local tribal leaders in the Waziristan area have rejected attempts to politically exploit the casualties[3].
Due to the FATA's tribal organization, the economy is chiefly pastoral, with some agriculture practiced in the region's few fertile valleys. Historically, the region has been a major center for opium production and trafficking. Although attempts have been made to significantly suppress drug-related activity by the Pakistani government, opium smuggling from Afghanistan continues to be a problem.
Its literacy rate is 17%, well below the 45% in Pakistan as a whole. Only three percent of females receive any education. There is one hospital bed for every 2,327 people in the FATA, compared to one in 1,450 in Pakistan as a whole. Further there is only one doctor for every 8,189 people. Its total irrigated land is roughly 1,000 square kilometres. Only 43% of its people have access to clean drinking water. 30% of FATA is inaccessible both politically and administratively. (Source FATA website)
List of capitals of subnational entities
Mainstreaming Tribal People
[2]Federally Administered Tribal Areas
Capital Coordinates Peshawar
• 34.00°
N 71.32° E
Population (2003) Density 3,341,070
• 115.3/km² Area
27,220 km²
Time zone PST (UTC +5) Main language(s) Pashto Status Tribal Areas • Districts • 7 Agencies • Towns • • Union Councils • Established
Governor/Commissioner
• Chief Minister
• Legislature (seats) 1st July 1970
• Khalil-ur-Rehman
• None
• None (N.A.) Website FATA
Born March 10, 1957
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad bin Laden born March 10, 1957 [1]), most commonly known as
Osama bin Laden is a militant Islamist and one of the founders of al-Qaeda. Bin Laden issued a 1998 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.[2].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. He has also been 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 allegedly funded and directed them. These attacks 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 Center in New York City as well as causing severe damage to The Pentagon outside of Washington, DC. Altogether, 2,988 people were killed.
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia [3]. 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 [4]. 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. [5].
There is no definitive account of the number of children born to Muhammed bin Laden, but the number is generally put at 55. In addition, 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[6], who was born in Syria. [7]
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. [8]
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." [9] 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.
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.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. [10] 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 neighborhood 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." [10]
Bin Laden has fathered at least 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.
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. [11]
In terms of personality, bin Laden is described as a soft-spoken, mild mannered man, [12]; 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.
Osama's name is transliterated in many ways. Osama bin Laden is used by most English-language mass media. US Government agencies including the FBI and CIA use Usama bin Laden, which is 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.[13].
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 [14]. 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. [15] 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 center, according to a Reuters inquiry in the neighborhood. 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.[16] 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 Leden: "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."[17]
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.
(See: the History of Afghanistan).
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,
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.[18]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:
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.[19]
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.
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. [20]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."[2] 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. [21]
Sudanese officials, whose government was under international sanctions, offered to expel 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.[22] 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.[23] Bin Laden supported the Taliban government with financial and paramilitary assistance and, in 1997, he moved to Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold. [24]
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.[25][26]
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.[27]
In 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, (a leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad), co-signed a fatwa (binding religious edict) in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, declaring:
[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'.[28][29]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.[30]
On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury and the U.S. offered a US $25 million reward for information leading to bin Laden's apprehension or conviction.[13] The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association are offering an additional $2 million reward.[31]
In an interview with journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai published in TIME Magazine, January 11, 1999, Osama Bin Laden is quoted as saying:
"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." [32]Wanted: Usama Bin Laden. Interpol. Retrieved on 2006-05-15.
Online NewsHour: Al Qaeda's 1998 Fatwa. PBS. Retrieved on 2006-08-21.
frontline: hunting bin laden: who is bin laden?: chronology. PBS. Retrieved on 2006-08-21.
Osama bin Laden infoplease. Infoplease. Retrieved on 2006-08-21.
Who is Osama Bin Laden?. BBC News. Retrieved on 2006-05-15.
Letter From Jedda, Young Osama, How he learned radicalism, and may have seen America, by Steve Coll, The New Yorker Fact, Issue of 2005-12-12, Posted 2005-12-05
Salon.com News - The making of Osama bin Laden. Salon.com. Retrieved on 2006-08-21.
Letter From Jedda, Young Osama, How he learned radicalism, and may have seen America, by Steve Coll, The New Yorker Fact, Issue of 2005-12-12, Posted 2005-12-05
[quote from Saleha Abedin, a longtime Jeddah educator, now a vice-dean of Jeddah's Dar Al-Hekma College, a private women’s college], The New Yorker Fact, Issue of 2005-12-12
a b The Real bin Laden, an Oral History, pg. 2 of 9, VanityFair.com
Most Wanted Terrorist - Usama Bin Laden. FBI. Retrieved on 2006-06-08.
'I met Osama Bin Laden'. BBC News. Retrieved on 2006-05-15.
a b Most Wanted Terrorist - Usama Bin Laden. FBI. Retrieved on 2006-08-26.
Who is Osama Bin Laden?. BBC News. Retrieved on 2006-05-15.
Rahimullah Yusufzai, executive editor of the English-language daily The News International, in a statement to Reuters in Peshawar on December 29, 2001. Yusufzai met bin Laden twice in Afghanistan in 1998.
See, for example, Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda (NY: Berkley Books, 2003) 31.
Peter L. Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know (New York: Free Press, 2006) 97.
Cook, Robin. The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means. Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on 2005-07-08.
Bergen, Peter. Bergen: Bin Laden, CIA links hogwash. CNN. Retrieved on 2006-08-15.
The Osama bin Laden I Know
Bin Laden uses Iraq to plot new attacks, Asia Times Online, By Syed Saleem Shahzad, February 23, 2002
THE FOUNDATION OF THE NEW TERRORISM. The 9/11 Commission Report. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004-07-22). Retrieved on 2006-09-24.
Profile: Mullah Mohammed Omar. The 9/11 Commission Report. BBC (2004-07-22). Retrieved on 2006-09-28.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE NEW TERRORISM. The 9/11 Commission Report. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004-07-22). Retrieved on 2006-09-24.
Plett, Barbara. "Bin Laden 'behind Luxor massacre'", BBC online network, 1999-05-13. Retrieved on 2006-09-24.
"Profile: Ayman al-Zawahiri", BBC online network, 2004-09-27. Retrieved on 2006-09-24.
who is bin laden?: chronology PBS. Retrieved on 2006-09-06.
Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin; Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, Fazlur Rahman (1998-02-23). World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders: Initial "Fatwa" Statement (Arabic). al-Quds al-Arabi. Retrieved on 2006-09-10.
Shaykh Usamah Bin-Muhammad Bin-Ladin; Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu-Yasir Rifa'i Ahmad Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah, Fazlur Rahman (1998-02-23). Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. World Islamic Front Statement (English). al-Quds al-Arabi. Retrieved on 2006-09-24. English language version of the fatwa translated by the Federation of American Scientists of the original Arabic document published in the newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi (London, U.K.) on 23 February, 1998, p. 3
"Taliban bargained over bin Laden, documents show", CNN.com, 2005-08-19. Retrieved on 2006-09-06.
Yusufzai, Rahimullah. "Conversation With Terror", TIME Magazine, 1999-01-11. Retrieved on 2006-09-28.
a b Frontline; The New York Times and Rain Media ([2001?]). "Osama bin Laden: A Chronology of His Political Life". Hunting bin Laden: Who Is bin Laden?. WGBH Educational Foundation. Retrieved on 2006-07-25.
Karen DeYoung. "Letter Gives Glimpse of Al-Qaeda's Leadership", Washington Post, October 2, 2006.
"Letter Exposes New Leader in Al-Qa`ida High Command (PDF)", Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 25 September 2006.
"Report - Bin Laden Already Dead", Fox News, Wednesday, December 26, 2001
"Bin Laden 'voice' lists hijackers", September 10, 2002, by the BBC
"THREATS AND RESPONSES: QAEDA BROADCAST; Experts Conclude That Voice On Tape Belongs to bin Laden", by James Risen, New York Times, November 19, 2002
"Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake" by Brian Whitaker, in the Guardian, November 30, 2002.
"Swiss scientists 95% sure that Bin Laden recording was fake" by Brian Whitaker, in the Guardian, November 30, 2002.
"Swiss won’t verify "bin Laden" tape" by Jonas Hughes, Swiss Radio International, February 12, 2003
"Expert says bin Laden could be dead", by Australian Associated Press, January 16, 2006, in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"French paper says bin Laden died in Pakistan", Reuters, 2006-09-23.
Sammari, Laïd. "Oussama Ben Laden serait mort", L'Est Républicain, 2006-09-23. Retrieved on 2006-09-23. (in French)
"Chirac says no evidence bin Laden has died", MSNBC.com/AP, 2006-09-23. Retrieved on 2006-09-23.
"Information sur la mort de ben Laden: Washington ne confirme pas", Le Monde/AFP, 2006-09-23. (in French)
Anna Willard and David Morgan. "France, US, unable to confirm report bin Laden dead", Reuters, 2006-09-23. (in English)
The Age (2006). Doubts over bin Laden death. Retrieved September 24, 2006.
"Conflicting reports: Bin Laden could be dead or ill", CNN, 2006-09-23. (in English)
Pakistan FATA
October 4, 2006