Osama bin Laden was one of the most notorious terrorists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the founder and leader of the extremist Islamist group al-Qaeda, who planned and participated in numerous terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies.
The most serious of these was the "911 Incident" that occurred on September 11, 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people, injured tens of thousands, and cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars.
Unexpectedly, bin Laden hid for nearly ten years, but in the end he was exposed because of a clothesline. So, what's the story? Let's talk about it today.
Why bin Laden hated the United States
Osama bin Laden was born in 1957 as a member of one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest families, and his father was a well-known local builder who built many projects for the Saudi royal family, and had close ties with the Saudi royal family.
In such a wealthy environment, many people will become the second ancestor who eats and waits for death, but bin Laden's father has many sons, and he happens to be in the middle (ranking), and those who have multiple children in the family know that such people are not favored by their fathers.
Bin Laden received a rigorous Islamic education from an early age and had a deep understanding and strong belief in the teachings of the religion. What is the teachings of Islam? Simply put, the modern world is influenced by secularization and Westernization, and does not conform to the teachings of its faith.
Osama bin Laden briefly studied Xi at the University of California, Berkeley, but because he had been a Muslim since he was a child, he was not interested in Western culture and values, but instead saw the West as an enemy and threat to the Islamic world.
The turning point in bin Laden's life came in 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to prop up a pro-Soviet regime and suppress the Afghan rebels, prompting outrage and protests from Islamists around the world.
They saw the Soviet Union as an invasion and desecration of Islam, and some Muslims, including bin Laden, rushed to Afghanistan to join the "jihad" against the Soviet army.
During the decade-long war in Afghanistan, bin Laden showed bravery and wisdom, not only personally participating in the battle, but also organizing and leading many battles, earning the respect and trust of Afghans and other mujahideen.
At this time, bin Laden and the United States were still allies, after all, the enemy of the enemy is a friend. At the same time, he also made many like-minded partners in this war, and Azam, the founder of the idea of "jihad", was one of them.
This man had a profound influence on bin Laden's thinking, and even taught bin Laden to defend the faith of Islam against foreign aggression and oppression, and to expand the scope of "jihad" to the whole world, and it was in this context that al-Qaeda developed.
When the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 and bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, you thought it was the end of it, but it was just the beginning.
Bin Laden vs USA
As mentioned above, Azam's ideas had a great influence on bin Laden, which can be summed up in one sentence: the Soviet Union, Europe and the United States and other countries are all enemies of Islam, and they are all interfering with and undermining the development and unity of Islam.
The most direct way to deal with the enemy was to retaliate with a tooth for tat, and soon bin Laden united the mujahideen of all countries involved in the war in Afghanistan to fight for the interests of Islam, which was the earliest al-Qaeda.
Returning to Saudi Arabia, bin Laden saw that the political and social conditions at home were contrary to his ideals and beliefs, and he was disgusted by the extravagant corruption of the Saudi royal family, especially the pro-Western and pro-American policies.
He has repeatedly publicly criticized the Saudi government and called for political and religious reforms and a return to authentic Sharia law, but neither has been heeded.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and threatened Saudi security, bin Laden wanted to lead the base to defend his country, but Saudi Arabia rejected his suggestion and instead accepted U.S. help to allow them to station troops in Saudi Arabia.
Osama bin Laden himself hated the Western world, and now he is watching the United States station troops in Saudi Arabia and forming a Western-dominated multinational coalition to launch Operation "Desert Storm" against Iraq.
Just like his own affairs but outsiders intervene, bin Laden, his own family was not taken seriously, and in anger, he wrote a letter angrily denouncing the Saudi royal family, and as a result, he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship and went into exile.
While bin Laden is looking for refuge in Sudan and Afghanistan, he is also doing two things: he continues to lead and expand al-Qaeda and establish contacts and cooperation with other radical Islamist groups, and he sees the United States as his number one enemy and seeks to warn it.
In bin Laden's eyes, the United States is the greatest threat to Islam and a troublemaker in the Middle East, and he called on Muslims around the world to rise up against it.
According to the situation at that time, the influence of the United States in the Middle East at the end of the 20th century was indeed very large, after all, the dollar was pegged to oil at that time, and the Middle East was the world's largest oil producing region, and if it could not gain control of the region, the dollar would inevitably be affected.
In any case, bin Laden hated the actions of the United States and launched a number of terrorist attacks against the United States, the most famous of which was the "911 incident" in 2001.
At the beginning of the incident, bin Laden denied that al-Qaeda had anything to do with the attack, but after a US investigation and various video recordings, bin Laden was behind the incident and began a global "war on terror" to hunt down bin Laden and al-Qaeda members.
The U.S. hunt for bin Laden lasted nearly a decade, during which bin Laden remained in a state of concealment and communications blackout, making only occasional video or audio speeches, and continued to encourage and direct the terrorist activities of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups until 2011.
Exposed by a clothesline
For more than a decade, the United States has sought out bin Laden's location, even launching air and ground attacks on Afghanistan in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
But none of these operations captured bin Laden and core members of al-Qaeda, who managed to escape to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where searching for a needle in a haystack was like searching for someone in these inaccessible places.
In August 2010, the CIA received a clue that bin Laden had a messenger named Abu Ahmed Kuwait, who then spied on his phone and eventually discovered that he lived in a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Soon the United States spied on the house and found a tall, cautious man in the courtyard, who never went out or communicated with the outside world, as if he were isolated, very similar to bin Laden.
But the United States did not take direct action, after all, bin Laden has many "doppelgangers", and it will be difficult to find clues if he is caught by surprise.
Later, the U.S. Intelligence Agency noticed that there was also a clothesline in the compound with clothes of different colors and sizes hanging from it, indicating that people of different ages and genders lived in the compound.
Analysis of bin Laden's family members and relatives found that this information matched the number of bin Laden's wives and children, and it was determined that the person living in the compound was bin Laden himself.
On May 2, 2011, Obama ordered Operation Poseidon Spear, sending U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 to raid the compound and successfully kill Osama bin Laden, a nearly decade-long counterterrorism campaign that finally came to an end.
Who would have thought that a small clothesline could be investigated for so much information, perhaps even bin Laden himself did not expect that otherwise he would not have dried clothes in the yard if he was killed.
What do you think differently about this?