 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6yLQRF-cEU
 4 min
Casey Young
POL 650
Dr. Shawn Williams
July 19, 2012
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvj6zdWLUuk
 5 min
 AKA: Al-Qaeda:“The Base”
 Founder: Osama Bin Laden
 Ideological and current
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Leader: Ayman al-Zawahiri
Major Base: Afghanistan
Founded: Late 1980’s
Zawahiri joined Bin Laden in
1998
Took responsibility for 9/11
attacks which lead American
into a war with Afghanistan
 “Al
Qaeda is the first
truly global terrorist
organization in
history” (Riedel, pg. ix)
 Had a new idea:
multiple opeartions in
different locales
carried out at the same
time (Riedel, 60).
 Born: June 19, 1951 in
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Cairo, Egypt
Defining moment:
Sadat’s assassination
(Riedel, 19)
Head of Islamic Jihad (or
Al-Jihad)
Not very charismatic
Became leader of Al
Qaeda after bin Laden
death and still on the
run.
 Not a hatred for Western culture or values, rather his
ideology focuses on what he believes the West has
don’t to the Islamic world, to the ummah. It is about
policy, not values (Riedel, 22-23)
 Sees the plot against Islam on every front, fomented by
the United States and Europe in the west, Israel
nearby, and India in the east (Riedel, 29).
 Key element to his plan is jihad; every Muslim is dutybound to fight against the enemies of Islam, including
the unbeliever and the corrupt followers who ally
themselves with the enemy.
Usama Bin Laden
Born January 22, 1958 in Riyadh, SA
– 17th son. Osama means “the Lion”.
Moved to Medina @ age of 6 months.
By July 1958, M. Bin Laden had
fathered 41 children – 21 sons & at
least 20 daughters.
Mother: Alia Ghanem, 14 year old
from Syria. Citrus farming family.
10th wife.
Was a possible maid or concubine.
Same Islamic Year – M. Bin Laden
fathered 5 sons and 2 daughters
under two different wives.
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Bin Laden Affiliated Companies:
 Binladen Kaiser – engineering &
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construction
Binladen Emco – pre-cast
concrete
Al-Midhar Telecommunications
Company – consulting
Bin Laden Telecom Company
Binladen Brothers for
Contracting & Industry
Saudi Binladin Group –
registered in 1990 with over
36,000 employees in 30
countries
Grand mosque in mecca
Prophet’s mosque in
medina
Al-Aqsa Mosque
Dome of the Holy Rock
22 wives
54 Children
September 3, 1967
M. Bin Laden’s plane crashes
along the Saudi – Yemen border.
Pilot – Jim Harrington, former
US Air Force fighter pilot. Two
other passengers onboard.
Previously flew a 7 passenger
Twin Beech propeller. Switched
to a Hawker Siddeley twinengine jet.
 Mohammed Bin Laden Organization
 No known record on the size of the estate.
 Estimated - $150 million
 Kingdom outstanding debts to M. Bin Laden estimated
to be $100 million in payments.
 Saudi Government sets up trust fund for children.
Inheritance
Sharia Law – sons to receive twice as
much as the daughters.
4 current wives at the time of death
to split 1/8 of the shares. Former
wives to receive no inheritance,
however their children would.
Sons, to include Osama, to receive
2.27% of the company’s shares.
Roughly $20 million each.
Daughters to receive roughly 1%
Total inheritance breakdown –
Sons – 50%
Daughters – 30%
Current Widows – Rest of the
shares.
 “One can ask, at this point, whether 9/11 or some similar
tragedy might have happened without bin Laden to steer
it. The answer is certainly not” (Wright, pg. 332).
 “He saw it (America) as the vanguard of a global crusade
on the part of Christians and Jews to crush the Islamic
resurgence” (Wright, 208).
 “This battle is not between al-Qaeda and the U.S.,” bin
Laden would later explain. “This is a battle of Muslims
against the global Crusaders” (Wright, 209).
 But the “greatest disaster to befall the Muslims” is the
“occupation of Saudi Arabi, which is the cornerstone of
the Islamic world, the place of revelation…was sold out to
the Israelis and Americans (Riedel, 57).
 “The main root of the conflict between our
civilization and your civilization is the
Palestine question. I stress that the Palestine
question is my nation’s central issue. It was,
therefore, a key factor that has, since my
childhood, provided me and the free 19 men
with an overwhelming feeling of the need to
punish the Jews and those supporting them.
This is why the incidents of September 11th took
place” (Riedel, 130).
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V0ISgosTlQ
 Start at 15 seconds
 Adolph Hitler
Sadam Hussein
Musab al-Zarqawi
 Mastermind behind 9/11
 Had planned to blow up
jumbo jets with his
cousin Ramzi Yusuf
across the Pacific
 Bin Laden heard of this
idea and had KSM tweak
it to make it feasable
 Captured in Pakistan in
2003 and has been a key
contributor for helping
stop terrorists
WTC 1993 Bombings
 February 26,
bombed planted in
Ryder Truck in
garage of North
Tower
 Ramzi Yousef
 6 people killed and
around 1,000
wounded
 October 12, 2000
 Claimed by Al Qaeda
 Killed 17 and wounded 40
 “ The destroyer
represented the capital of
the West,” Bin Laden said,
“and the small boat
represented Mohammad”
(Wright, pg.319).
 America did not retaliate,
and bin Laden felt he
needed to do something
bigger
 Al Qaeda called 9/11 the
Manhattan Raid (Riedel, pg. 1)
 Possibly wanted Eastern and
Western attacks but felt it was
too risky, so decided to stick
only with the East.
 Decided to target 4 major
targets of significance:
1. World Trade Center
(Economic strength)
2. Pentagon (Military strength)
3. White House/Capital
Building
(governmental/Democracy)
 http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/09/07/na
tpkg-911-aircheck-timeline.cnn
 CNN (9 min)
 http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/09/11/coo
per-911-wtc-history.cnn#/video/us/2011/09/11/cooper911-wtc-history.cnn
 CNN World Trade Center Video
1) The World Trade Centers
 Opened in 1973, 7th building
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finished in 1987
Was made up of 7 buildings
Towers 1 and 2 (Twin Towers)
stood as world tallest
buildings (110 stories)
Cost was $400 million
50,000 people worked in the
towers, 200,000 passed
through
Had its own zip code: 10048
2,753 people died in attacks,
343 firefighters and 23 NYPD
Around 3,000 total deaths
and people from 80 countries
Construction of WTC in 1971
Design of WTC Twin Towers
Top of the World Observation Deck
80,000 visitors a year
 Such momentous constructions are bound to intrude
on the subconscious, as they are meant to do—”those
awesome symbolic towers that speak of liberty, human
rights and humanity”—as bin Laden labeled them.”
 Looming Tower (pg. 176)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNw0jOhVJ3A
 Firefighter video (1st tower)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XELamUnF0EU
 Second tower video
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzKI9TBR-XQ
 People jumping from WTC (start at 1:50)
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaPoD_7TmNc
 Hits pentagon at 25 seconds
 Went to flight school in
Minnesota in 2001 and
alerted the flight school
after strange questions
about flying.
 Captured by FBI, but not
allowed to thoroughly
check his belongings or
would have probably
made connection.
 FBI supervisor responded
that he was “trying to
keep somone from taking
a plane and crashing into
the World Trade Center”
(Wright, 351).
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbqCquDl4k4&fea
ture=related
 4 ½ minutes
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQAeeimx3S4
 Bush declares war on Terror
 http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/09/08/tsr
-todd-911-audiorecordings.cnn#/video/us/2011/09/08/tsr-todd-911audio-recordings.cnn
 CNN Video
Remembering and Rebuilding
 Building 5 new
towers
 Tallest is One World
Trade Center,
measuring 1,776 feet
(tallest in North
America)
 Also a Memorial
and Museum
 January meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was
photographed and surveillance but not wiretap.
Meeting produced USS Cole bombing and 9/11
attacks (Wright, 310-311)
 CIA failed to let FBI or State Department know
about two terrorists from Malaysia meeting
needed to be put on terror list or had entered the
country 19 months before 9/11 (Wright, 311-312)
 CIA found laptop of Zawahiri’s closest political
confidant in Azerbaijan, but would not turn it over
to the FBI
 Sensitive information from the CIA may
compromise their work with FBI, which
could demand total control of a situation
 CIA was hoping to recruit some of the
terrorists and use them against Al Qaeda
 FBI wanted to capture bin Laden for
questioning; CIA wanted to kill bin Laden
before he became too big a threat
 Delays at the airport are longer, arrival time is earlier,
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and items being carried on are smaller (Fear of flying)
Created a new cabinet department (Homeland
Security, 2001)
Declared a War on Terrorism that took us into
Afghanistan and then into Iraq
Repression of freedom exchanged for control of
security, especially against suspected terrorists (Patriot
Act)
Fear/Misunderstandings of Radical Muslims or anyone
who might be from the Middle East
 Some pictures, information, and slides came from
professor Max Wise class
 The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
 The 9/11 Commission Report
 American Foreign Policy in a New Era by Robert Jarvis
 The Search for Al Qaeda by Bruce Riedel
 Mastermind (KSM) by Richard Miniter