Al-Qaeda is a militant Salafist Islamist multi-national organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers during the Soviet–Afghan War.
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, also rendered Usama bin Ladin, was a founder of the pan-Islamic militant organization al-Qaeda. He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family.
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri is an Egyptian terrorist known for being the leader of terrorist group al-Qaeda since June 2011, succeeding Osama bin Laden following his death, and is a current or former member and senior official of Islamist organizations which have orchestrated and carried out attacks in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and also some in North America and Europe. In 2012, he called on Muslims to kidnap Western tourists in Muslim countries.
Operation Infinite Reach was the codename for American cruise missile strikes on al-Qaeda bases in Khost, Afghanistan, and the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, on August 20, 1998. The attacks, launched by the U.S. Navy, were ordered by President Bill Clinton in retaliation for al-Qaeda's August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured over 4,000 others. Operation Infinite Reach was the first time the United States acknowledged a preemptive strike against a violent non-state actor.
The 055 Brigade was an elite guerrilla organization sponsored and trained by Al Qaeda that was integrated into the Taliban army between 1995 and 2001.
On September 11, 2001, 19 Arab-Muslim hijackers took control of four commercial aircraft and used them as suicide weapons in a series of four coordinated acts of terrorism to strike the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and an additional target in Washington, D.C. Two aircraft hit the World Trade Center while the third hit the Pentagon. A fourth plane never arrived at its target, crashing in a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt. The intended target is believed to have been either the United States Capitol or the White House. As a result, 2,977 victims were killed, making it the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil; also the deadliest foreign attack on U.S. soil, exceeding Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, which killed 2,403 victims. It was carefully planned by al-Qaeda, who sent 19 terrorists to take over Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 aircraft, operated by American Airlines and United Airlines.
The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism is a 1998 book by Simon Reeve.
Peter Bergen is an American journalist, author, and producer who serves as CNN's national security analyst, New America's vice president, and as a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He produced the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997. The interview, which aired on CNN, marked the first time that bin Laden declared war against the United States to a Western audience.
The term Afghan Arabs refers mostly to Arab and other Muslim Islamist mujahideen who came to Afghanistan during and following the Soviet–Afghan War to help fellow Muslims fight Soviets and pro-Soviet Afghans.
The Battle of Jaji occurred in April 1987, during the first stage of withdrawal of Soviet forces from their war in Afghanistan. Remaining Soviet troops supported the Soviet-backed government's operations in Paktia Province against the Mujahideen, hoping to relieve a besieged garrison at Ali Sher, and cut off supply lines to the Mujahideen from Pakistan.
The Bin Laden Issue Station (1996–2005) was a unit of the Central Intelligence Agency dedicated to tracking Osama bin Laden and his associates.
Peter Bergen's The Osama bin Laden I Know (ISBN 978-0-7432-7891-1) is a book published in 2006. It is a comprehensive collection of personal accounts by people who have met Osama bin Laden or worked with him at various stages of his terrorist career.
It is alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ties with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda and its "Afghan Arab" fighters when it armed Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War.
Osama bin Laden, a militant Islamist and reported founder al-Qaeda, in conjunction with several other Islamic militant leaders, issued two fatawa — in 1996 and then again in 1998—that military personnel from the United States and allied countries until they withdraw support for Israel and withdraw military forces from Islamic countries. He was 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 was on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list until his death.
Osama bin Laden took ideological guidance from individuals named Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, and Sayyid Qutb. Bin Laden also belonged to the Wahhabi sect and was hence a follower of Ibn Abdul Wahhab Najdi. He subscribed to the Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology.
The September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States were a terrorist act carried out by 19 hijackers of the Salafist organization al-Qaeda. Motives for the attacks were stated before and after the attacks in several sources, Osama bin Laden's declaration of a holy war against the United States, and a fatwā signed by bin Laden and others for the killing of Americans in 1998, are seen by investigators as evidence of his motivation.
United Nations Security Council resolution 1390, adopted unanimously on 16 January 2002, after recalling resolutions 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), 1363 (2001), 1368 (2001), 1373 (2001) 1378 (2001) and 1383 (2001) concerning the situation in Afghanistan and terrorism, the Council imposed further sanctions on Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and others associated with them.
Mohammed Atef was the military chief of al-Qaeda, and was considered one of Osama bin Laden's two deputies, the other being Ayman Al Zawahiri, although Atef's role in the organization was not well known by intelligence agencies for years. He was killed in a US airstrike in November 2001.
The 1992 Yemen hotel bombings were a series of terrorist bomb attacks carried out by the group Al-Qaeda on December 29, 1992, that were intended to kill United States Marines in Aden, Yemen. It is considered to be the first attack on the United States by Al-Qaeda, though the objective was unsuccessful.
