Ricky Sekhon | |
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Born | |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 2004–present |
Ricky S. Sekhon (born 15 March 1983) is an English actor.
Sekhon was born in Southall, London, the son of Punjabi jat parents. [1] He has two older sisters. He graduated from the Royal Holloway, University of London in 2004 with a Bachelor of Arts in Drama and Theatre Studies.
Sekhon started as an acting member of the National Youth Theatre from 2001 to 2005. He played Osama bin Laden in the 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty . [2]
Sekhon appeared as Hazeem in the 2010 comedy film The Infidel . He has been a part of the National Youth Theatre's outreach programme for many years, taking drama to urban youth centres, directing short films, and shooting a film entitled The Induction with inmates at Feltham Young Offenders Institute. He has worked on directors' courses and short films at the London Film School in Covent Garden, and had his work displayed at the National Gallery.
His most recent role is in the second series of the BBC acclaimed drama The Missing .
Apart from English, Sekhon speaks French, Spanish, and Punjabi.[ citation needed ]
Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian-born Islamist dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, he participated in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars. After issuing his declaration of war against the Americans in 1996, Bin Laden began advocating attacks targeting U.S. assets in several countries, and supervised al-Qaeda's execution of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001.
There were many video and audio recordings released by Osama bin Laden between 2000 and his death in 2011.
Kathryn Ann Bigelow is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. She has received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2010.
Mark Strong is a British actor best known for his film roles such as Prince Septimus in Stardust (2007), Archibald in RocknRolla (2008), Lord Henry Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes (2009), Frank D'Amico in Kick-Ass (2010), Jim Prideaux in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Sinestro in Green Lantern (2011), George in Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Major General Stewart Menzies in The Imitation Game (2014), Merlin in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), Dr. Thaddeus Sivana in Shazam! (2019) and Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), and John in Cruella (2021).
Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard United Airlines Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers. He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate. He was later captured in Afghanistan in the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.
Fares Fares is a Swedish actor, producer, and director. He is known for his collaborations with Swedish director Tarik Saleh in The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) and Boy from Heaven (2022). He has received various accolades, including a Guldbagge Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and two Robert Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Osama bin Laden, the founder and former leader of al-Qaeda, went into hiding following the start of the War in Afghanistan in order to avoid capture by the United States for his role in the September 11 attacks, and having been on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since 1999. After evading capture at the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, his whereabouts became unclear, and various rumours about his health, continued role in al-Qaeda, and location were circulated. Bin Laden also released several video and audio recordings during this time.
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was shot and killed at his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad by United States Navy SEALs of SEAL Team Six. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a CIA-led mission, with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating the Special Mission Units involved in the raid. In addition to SEAL Team Six, participating units under JSOC included the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), also known as the "Night Stalkers", and the CIA's Special Activities Division, which heavily recruits from former JSOC Special Mission Units. The success of the operation ended a nearly decade-long manhunt for bin Laden, who was accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Osama bin Laden took ideological guidance from prominent militant Islamist scholars and ideologues from the classical to contemporary eras, such as Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Sayyid Qutb, Nizamuddin Shamzai and Abdullah Azzam. During his middle and high school years, bin Laden was educated in Al-Thager Model School, a public school in Jeddah run by Islamist exiles of the Muslim Brotherhood; during which he was immensely influenced by pan-Islamist ideals and displayed strict religious commitment. As a teenager, bin Laden attended and led Muslim Brotherhood-run "Awakening" camps held on desert outskirts that intended to raise the youth in religious values, instil martial spirit and sought spiritual seclusion from "the corruptions" of modernity and rapidly urbanising society of the 1970s in Saudi Arabia.
Omar bin Osama bin Mohammed bin 'Awad bin Laden, better known as Omar bin Laden, is a Saudi artist, author, cultural ambassador, and businessman, and fourth-eldest son of Osama bin Laden, with his first cousin and first wife Najwa Ghanhem. He lived in Normandy, France, until October 2023, when the French authorities canceled his residence permit. Reportedly, he has since been living in Qatar. In October 2024 Bin Laden was barred from returning to the country by the French interior minister Bruno Retailleau for advocating terrorism on social media, a post from the now-deleted account @omarbinladin1.
Osama bin Laden has been depicted or parodied in a variety of media. Notable examples include:
Martin Delaney is an English actor and filmmaker. He has appeared in films such as Zero Dark Thirty, Judas Ghost, and Amar Akbar & Tony.
Mark Boal is an American journalist, screenwriter, and film producer. Boal initially worked as a journalist, writing for outlets like Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Salon, and Playboy. Boal's 2004 article "Death and Dishonor" was adapted for the film In the Valley of Elah, which Boal also co-wrote.
The Infidel is a 2010 British comedy film directed by Josh Appignanesi and written by David Baddiel. It stars Omid Djalili, Richard Schiff, Yigal Naor, and Matt Lucas. The film revolves around a British Muslim man who goes through an identity crisis when he discovers that he was adopted as a baby and born to a Jewish family.
Tere Bin Laden is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language satire comedy film produced by Walkwater Media and written and directed by Abhishek Sharma. In the film, an ambitious young Pakistani reporter, in his desperation to migrate to the United States, makes a fake Osama bin Laden video using a lookalike, and sells it to TV channels. Osama bin Laden was played by Pradhuman Singh. The film is a spoof on Osama Bin Laden as well as a comic satire on America's war against terror and the realities of the post-9/11 world. The film was released worldwide, except in the United States and Pakistan, on 16 July 2010.
Osama bin Laden's compound, known locally as the Waziristan Haveli, was a large, upper-class house within a walled compound used as a safe house for Saudi militant Islamist Osama bin Laden, who was shot and killed there by U.S. forces on 2 May 2011. The compound was located at the end of a dirt road 1,300 metres southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy in Bilal Town, Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, a suburb housing many retired military officers. Bin Laden was reported to have evaded capture by living in a section of the house for at least five years, having no Internet or phone connection, and hiding away from the public, who were unaware of his presence.
Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American political action thriller film directed and produced by Kathryn Bigelow, and written and produced by Mark Boal. The film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden, leader of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda, after the September 11 attacks. This search leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the U.S. military raid where bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011.
SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden is a 2012 American war action television film directed by John Stockwell chronicling the Abbottabad compound raid and killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011 by U.S. Navy SEALs. It first aired on the National Geographic Channel on Sunday, November 4, 2012. The facts in the film were not confirmed or denied by White House officials. William Fichtner, Cam Gigandet, Kenneth Miller, Kathleen Robertson, and Xzibit are among the actors who appear in the film. The part of the film showcasing the Pakistan locales were shot at Khopoli near Mumbai, India as the filmmakers were unable to secure permission to shoot in Pakistan. It holds a mixed critic rating on score aggregator Metacritic.
Jennifer Lynne Matthews was an American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. She was killed in the Camp Chapman attack in Khost, Afghanistan, a suicide bombing that targeted CIA personnel. Matthews was known for her work in counterterrorism.
Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden is a 2013 documentary film directed by Greg Barker that explores the Central Intelligence Agency's investigation of Osama bin Laden, starting from 1995 until his death in 2011. It premiered on HBO on May 1, 2013, two years after the mission that killed bin Laden. The documentary features narratives by many of the CIA analysts and operatives who worked over a decade to understand and track bin Laden, and includes archival film footage from across Washington, D.C., Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East. It also features extensive and rarely seen footage of Al-Qaeda training and propaganda videos, including video suicide notes from various terrorists who later worked as suicide bombers.