Osama Bin Laden Influence

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“All of a sudden there were people screaming. I saw people jumping out of the building. Their arms were flailing. I stopped taking pictures and started crying.”- Michael Walters (Babington, 2001) Michael Walters, a freelance photojournalist in Manhattan and a witness to the collapsing of the Twin Towers, will forever have these images engraved in his memory. (Babington, 2001) September 11, 2001 has had a horrid effect on so many individuals, and their families, not only in the United States of America but also across the globe. The nation finds out an Al-Qaeda leader by the name of Osama bin Laden played a huge roll in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Osama bin Laden, who once was a United States ally, now turned, because of …show more content…

(Osama bin Laden, 2009) Al-Qaeda was composed of Muslims that he met while he was battling in Afghanistan. (Osama bin Laden biography, n.d.) The preeminent focus of Al-Qaeda was symbolic acts of terrorism rather than just constructing a standardized military. (Osama bin Laden, 2009) His new group had intentions of stomping out western influences in the Arab world, in particular, the United States government. (Hutchinson, 2011) Osama lived in Saudi Arabia prior to living in Afghanistan and he made the decision to retreat back to his home country to fundraise for his difficult mission. (Osama bin Laden, 2009) A decade or so after being an ally to the United States of America, Osama bin Laden became an official enemy of the states. In 1993, bin Laden was involved in killing six people in the truck bombing at the World Trade Center. As time went on, his aggression got bloodier… In 1996, bin Laden killed nineteen Americans in the bombing of a United States military housing in Saudi Arabia. Subsequently, Osama bin Laden killed 224 people in the 1998 truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Bin Laden was indicted of 224 counts of murder in Kenya and Tanzania alone. The incursion just before the World Trade Center was on the Navy Destroyer Cole that killed seventeen sailors in 2000. (Hutchinson, 2011) Bin Laden was ruthless. On June 7, 1999 bin Laden appeared on the FBI’s most wanted fugitive list. (Osama bin Laden Fast Facts - CNN.com.,