Osama bin Laden [ a ] 10 March β 2 May was a Saudi Arabianβborn Islamist dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Bin Laden was born in Riyadh to the aristocratic bin Laden family. He studied at Saudi and foreign universities until , when he joined the mujahideen fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In , he co-founded Maktab al-Khidamat , which recruited foreign mujahideen into the war. Bin Laden was an influential ideologue who inspired several Islamist organizations.
To many Islamists, he was a war hero for helping defend Afghanistan, and a voice of opposition against Western imperialism. He founded al-Qaeda in for worldwide jihad. In the Gulf War , Bin Laden's offer for support against Iraq was rebuked by the Saudi royal family , which instead sought American aid. Bin Laden's views on pan-Islamism and anti-Americanism resulted in his expulsion from Saudi Arabia in He shifted his headquarters to Sudan until , when he established a new base in Afghanistan, where he was supported by the Taliban.
After the U. In October , the United Nations designated al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization. In the U. He organized the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3, people. This resulted in the U. Bin Laden became the subject of a nearly decade-long international manhunt led by the U. During this period, he hid in the mountains of Afghanistan and later escaped to neighboring Pakistan. On 2 May , Bin Laden was killed by U.
His corpse was buried in the Arabian Sea and he was succeeded by his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri on 16 June Bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". He was named Usama , meaning "lion", after Usama ibn Zayd , one of the companions of Muhammad. Mohammed bin Laden divorced Hamida soon after Osama bin Laden was born. Mohammed recommended Hamida to Mohammed al-Attas, an associate.
Al-Attas married Hamida in the late s or early s. Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in , [ 23 ] or a degree in public administration in At university, Bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad " and charitable work. He also read the writings of several Muslim Brotherhood leaders and was highly influenced by the Islamic revolutionary ideas advocated by Sayyid Qutb.
