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Details :
Category: Mass Murder
Location: Middle East and United States
Date: 1992 - present
Crime: He remains on the FBI's list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives for his role as the leader of the terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, best known for the attacks in US soil on September 11, 2001 and other massive casualty attacks against civilian targets around the world.
Biography: Born March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to a wealthy businessman with ten wives. His parents soon divorced after his birth and after his mother remarried, was raised with three half-brothers and a half-sister. Raised a devout Wahhabi Muslim, he attended a secular high school and went on to study economics and business administration at university. Accounts differ on whether bin Laden ever earned his degree from university, some claim he had an engineering degree or public administration, still others state he left after three years to become more involved in his religion. As of 2002, bin Laden had married four wives and fathered between 12 and 25 children. He has consistently espoused the need for violent jihad to right perceived wrongs against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and other non-Muslim states. His ideology is such that civilians, including women and children are considered to be legitimate targets and his anti-Semitic leanings are well reported. His first orchestrated bombing attack came on December 29, 1992 at a hotel in Yemen. Two people were killed in the blast. In 1998, bin Laden declared that it was 'individual duty for every Muslim' to kill North Americans and their allies. In early 2000, the United States foiled a massive al-Qaeda attack that included bombings in Jordan and an attack on a U.S. destroyer near Yemen, as well as undisclosed attacks on U.S. soil.
In 2004, bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks on September 11, 2001 in the United States which led to the destruction of the World Trade Center and the deaths of almost 3,000 people. He has been indicted on multiple charges for various attacks around the world since 1998, but his capture remains elusive. He is being harbored by the Taliban, somewhere around the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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