Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

BIN LADEN, OSAMA • 77The U.S.-led deployment of forces against Iraq in 1990–1991 deeplyoffended bin Laden, as he saw the United States as the supporter ofIsrael. He also viewed the policy of the Saudi regime of permittingAmerican troops to be stationed in Arabia itself as an affront to Islambecause the government of Arabia was also the “Protector of the TwoHoly Places,” that is, the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina,which are forbidden to non-Muslims to enter but which bin Laden nowviewed as being under virtual U.S. military control. At this point, binLaden came to view not only the United States as the leading enemy ofIslam but also the Saudi family as traitors to Islam. He moved to Sudanin April 1991, ostensibly to undertake his construction business thereto help develop a destitute Muslim nation, but by 1994 the governmentsof Egypt, Algeria, and Yemen were accusing him of financingand training the Islamic fundamentalist groups seeking to overthrowtheir regimes. The Saudi government revoked his passport and Saudicitizenship and his family has reportedly disowned him.It is believed that bin Laden helped supply the Somali militiasthat shot down two U.S. MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and killed19 U.S. soldiers during operations in Mogadishu during the secondUnited Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II) on 3–4 October1993. Although bin Laden initially had amicable relations with theNational Islamic Front ruling Sudan, by 1996 he was asked to leavethe country, very likely due to pressure from Egypt, whose president,Hosni Mubarak, survived an assassination attempt during his 26 June1995 visit to Ethiopia. The would-be assassins were known to havecome from Sudan and bin Laden was suspected to have been theinstigator of this attack, which sunk Sudanese-Egyptian relations tosuch a low point that Egypt was threatening war against Sudan.Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, although his exact movementsand whereabouts from 1996 onward remain a mystery. His baseoutside Jalalabad, Afghanistan, held about 600 of his followers, whowere estimated to number around 5,000 or more in over 25 countriesworldwide, including Chechnya, Algeria, Kashmir, the Philippines,Egypt, and Eritrea.U.S. counterterrorism experts began to link bin Laden to anti-U.S. terrorism during their investigations of the 1993 World TradeCenter bombing after finding his name along with addresses of hisbusinesses and front organizations among the documents and materialsseized from the suspects. His name also came up in the arrest