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Osama Bin Laden Essay

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During the 1990s, Osama bin Laden, a fundamentalist militant and leader of Al-Qaeda, issued several fatwas (legal edicts) opposed to the stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia. By middle of 1996, Al-Qaeda was barely functioning as a terrorist organization, and had only thirty members. Facing irrelevance and anxious that he was losing his leadership role over Islamist militants worldwide, bin Laden, announced a "blessed jihad" to oppose the United States and its Western allies on August 23, 1996 (Bruce, et al., 2005). As part of this jihad, bin Laden declared war on the United States, which he intended to recruit new members for Al- Qaeda. This effort failed.
In February 1998, Bin Laden then formed the “World Islamic Front for Jihad Against …show more content…

Along with Osama bin Laden, the following also signed the charter: Ayman al-Zawahri for Egyptian Islamic Jihad; Ahmed Taha, for Islamic Group's Rifai, and several leading jihadists from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The group threatened attacks against the United States. In the end, however, this effort did not generate significant Islamist support. Al-Qaeda, however, at this time was well funded, technologically sophisticated and had a fairly large following of loyal militants.
Before the U.S. Embassy attacks in 1998, Taha began distancing himself from coalition. Bin Laden threatened the United States stating that, “The coming days will guarantee . . . that America will face a black fate. Strikes will continue from everywhere, and Islamic groups will appear one after the other to fight American interests.” He further said, "we do not differentiate between those [Americans] dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They're all targets...You will leave when the bodies of Americans soldiers and civilians are sent in the wooden boxes and coffins" (Vick,

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