Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1997

Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism

Usama Bin Ladin

Usama bin Muhammad bin Awad Bin Ladin is one of the most significant sponsors of Sunni Islamic terrorist groups. The youngest son of Saudi construction magnate Muhammad Bin Ladin, Usama joined the Afghan resistance almost immediately after the Soviet invasion in December 1979. He played a significant role in financing, recruiting, transporting, and training Arab nationals who volunteered to fight in Afghanistan. During the war, Bin Ladin founded al-Qaida--the Base--to serve as an operational hub, predominantly for like-minded Sunni Islamic extremists. The Saudi Government revoked his citizenship in 1994 and his family officially disowned him. He had moved to Sudan in 1991, but international pressure on that government forced him to move to Afghanistan in 1996.

In August 1996, Bin Ladin issued a statement outlining his organization's goals: drive US forces from the Arabian Peninsula, overthrow the Government of Saudi Arabia, "liberate" Muslim holy sites in "Palestine," and support Islamic revolutionary groups around the world. To these ends, his organization has sent trainers throughout Afghanistan as well as to Tajikistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen and has trained fighters from numerous other countries including the Philippines, Egypt, Libya, and Eritrea. Bin Ladin also has close associations with the leaders of several Islamic terrorist groups and probably has aided in creating new groups since the mid-1980s. He has trained their troops, provided safehaven and financial support, and probably helps them with other organizational matters.

Since August 1996, Bin Ladin has been very vocal in expressing his approval of and intent to use terrorism. He claimed responsibility for trying to bomb US soldiers in Yemen in late 1992 and for attacks on them in Somalia in 1993, and reports suggest his organization aided the Egyptian al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya in its assassination attempt on Egyptian President Mubarak in Ethiopia in 1995. In November 1996 he called the 1995 and 1996 bombings against US military personnel in Saudi Arabia "praiseworthy acts of terrorism" but denied having any personal participation in those bombings. At the same time, he called for further attacks against US military personnel, saying: "If someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting time on other matters."

Fact Sheet: Usama bin Ladin

As released by the Coordinator for Counterterrorism,

Department of State, August 21, 1998

On August 20, 1998, the U.S. military struck a number of facilities of the terrorist network associated with Usama bin Ladin. Today bin Ladin's network leads, funds and inspires a wide range of Islamic extremist groups that perpetrate acts of terrorism around the world.

The bin Ladin network is multi-national and has established a worldwide presence. Senior figures in the network are also senior leaders in other Islamic terrorist networks, including those designated by the Department of State as foreign terrorist groups, such as the Egyptian al-Gama'At al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bin Ladin and his network seek to provoke a war between Islam and the West and the overthrow of existing Muslim governments, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Our decision to attack facilities belonging to Usama bin Ladin's network is the result of convincing intelligence that his group, working with other terrorist groups, was behind the heinous attacks of August 7 against the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Elements of bin Ladin's network were also involved last week in a plot to attack other U.S. embassies.

Moreover, on August 19, an Islamic front created by the bin Ladin network, and calling itself the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders, praised the bombings of our embassies and warned 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."

These latest atrocities in Africa are not the first occasion in which members of bin Ladin's network have carried out acts of terrorism against America and its friends. The list is a long one:

They conspired to kill U.S. servicemen in Yemen who were on their way to participate in the humanitarian mission "Operation Restore Hope" in Somalia in 1992.

They plotted the deaths of American and other peacekeepers in Somalia who were there to deliver food to starving Muslim people.

Bin Ladin's network assisted Egyptian terrorists who tried to assassinate Egyptian President Mubarak in 1995 and who have killed dozens of tourists in Egypt in recent years.

The Egyptian Islamic Jihad, one of the key groups in the network, conducted a car bombing against the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan in 1995 that killed over 20 Egyptians and Pakistanis.

Members of bin Ladin's network plotted to blow up U.S. airliners in the Pacific and separately conspired to kill the Pope.

His followers bombed a joint U.S. and Saudi military training mission in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1995.
Bin Ladin's network has publicly and repeatedly articulated a clear and violent anti-U.S. agenda: In August 1996, bin Ladin issued a "declaration of war" against the United States. In February 1998, bin Ladin stated "If someone can kill an American soldier, it is better than wasting time on other matters."

In February of this year, the bin Ladin network's World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders declared its intention to attack Americans and our allies, including civilians, anywhere in the world.

In May of this year, bin Ladin stated at a press conference in Afghanistan that we would see the results of his threats "in a few weeks."

Bin Ladin's Network

Bin Ladin's goal in his own words is to "unite all Muslims and establish a government which follows the rule of the caliphs," which he believes he can accomplish only by overthrowing nearly all Muslim governments, driving Western influence from those countries and eventually to abolishing state boundaries.
The bin Ladin network supports terrorists in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Somalia, Yemen, and now Kosovo. It also trains members of terrorist networks from such diverse countries as the Philippines, Algeria and Eritrea.

Additional Background

Bin Ladin, the youngest son of a wealthy Saudi businessman, developed a worldwide organization in the 1970s to recruit Muslim terrorists for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. In 1988, he formed a network devoted to terror and subversion. He returned to his home in Saudi Arabia in 1989, but the Government of Saudi Arabia expelled him the following year for his continued support of terrorist groups.

Bin Ladin then went to Sudan from which he carried on his support for terrorist operations. At the urging of the United States, and following the attempted assassination of President Mubarak of Egypt, in which bin Ladin was involved and in which the Sudanese Government was complicit, the Government of Sudan expelled bin Ladin in 1996. However, he has maintained considerable business interests and facilities in Sudan.

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