Osama Bin Laden: Al Qaeda's Past And Present Leadership

Background

Osama bin Laden was born March 1957, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to Mohammed bin Laden, a Yemeni immigrant who owned the largest construction company in the Saudi kingdom. Osama bin Laden studied business administration at King Abdul Aziz University in Jiddah. While attending the university, Osama bin Laden also received religious studies from Muhammad Qutb, brother of the Islamic revivalist Sayyid Qutb, and Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Islamic militant leader, who soon became Osama’s teacher and mentor. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden felt it was an act of aggression against Islam. Osama bin Laden began to meet with resistance leaders and raise money to support Afghanistan. In 1984, Osama bin Laden began collaborating with Abdullah Azzam to recruit, organize and train Arab fighters from both Afghanistan (Mujahedeen) and Pakistan to fight against the Soviet Union. Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, formed an organization called the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), but not too long after the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden renamed the organization to Al Qaeda, which is Arabic for “the Base”. (History.com, 2009).

Al Qaeda’s initial leadership came to an abrupt end with the deaths of Abdullah Azzam in November of 1989 and Osama bin Laden in May of 2011. Al Qaeda’s new leadership is currently Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian eye surgeon who met Osama Bin Laden during the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan. Ayman al- has taken refuge in an unknown location within Pakistan, in order to hide from the U.S. Forces. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s ideology differs from that of Osama bin Laden in the sense that he specifically intends to expand Al Qaeda’s network and align other major terrorist groups in order to eliminate Islamic