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Osama bin Laden

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177-668: Osama bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi Arabian-born Islamist dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda . Ideologically a pan-Islamist , he participated in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union and supported the activities of the Bosnian mujahideen during the Yugoslav Wars . After issuing his declaration of war against

354-575: A CIA paid mob led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would spark what a U.S. embassy officer called "an almost spontaneous revolution" but Mosaddegh was protected by his new inner military circle, and the CIA had been unable to gain influence within the Iranian military. Their chosen man, former General Fazlollah Zahedi, had no troops to call on. After the failure of the first coup, Roosevelt paid demonstrators to pose as communists and deface public symbols associated with

531-462: A Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" therefore refers to Bin Laden's great-great-grandfather, Laden Ali al-Qahtani. He was named Usama , meaning "lion", after Usama ibn Zayd , one of the companions of Muhammad . Osama bin Laden had assumed the kunya (teknonym) Abū ʿAbdallāh , meaning "father of Abdallah " The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "Bin Laden" alone, as "Bin Laden"

708-461: A Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942. The idea for a centralized intelligence organization was first proposed by General William J. Donovan, who envisioned an intelligence service that could operate globally to counter communist threats and provide crucial intelligence directly to the President. Donovan proposed the idea to President Roosevelt in 1944, suggesting

885-628: A Russian translator and Soviet spy. However, the CIA was successful in influencing the 1948 Italian election in favor of the Christian Democrats . The $ 200 million Exchange Stabilization Fund (equivalent to $ 2.5 billion in 2023), earmarked for the reconstruction of Europe, was used to pay wealthy Americans of Italian heritage. Cash was then distributed to Catholic Action , the Vatican's political arm, and directly to Italian politicians. This tactic of using its large fund to purchase elections

1062-420: A broader notion of Islamism as a form of identity politics , involving "support for [Muslim] identity, authenticity, broader regionalism, revivalism, [and] revitalization of the community." Islamists themselves prefer terms such as "Islamic movement", or "Islamic activism" to "Islamism", objecting to the insinuation that Islamism is anything other than Islam renewed and revived. In public and academic contexts,

1239-615: A coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself. It is believed that the first bombing attack involving Bin Laden was the 29 December 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed. In the 1990s, Bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially, and sometimes militarily, in Algeria, Egypt, and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993, Bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $ 40,000 to Algeria to aid

1416-580: A deal brokered by Ali Mohamed. Bin Laden's personal security detail consisted of bodyguards personally selected by him. Their arsenal included SA-7 , Stinger missiles , AK-47s, RPGs , and PK machine guns . Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, Bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan , by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating

1593-472: A degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. One source described him as "hard working"; another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree. At university, Bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad " and charitable work. Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with

1770-447: A different school of Islam, such as a "phase between fundamentalism and Islamism". Originally a reformist movement of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abdul, and Rashid Rida, that rejected maraboutism (Sufism), the established schools of fiqh , and demanded individual interpretation ( ijtihad ) of the Quran and Sunnah ; it evolved into a movement embracing the conservative doctrines of

1947-615: A fervent opponent of Westernization , Zionism and nationalism , advocated Sunni internationalism through revolutionary restoration of a pan-Islamic Caliphate to politically unite the Muslim world . Riḍā was a strong exponent of Islamic vanguardism, the belief that Muslim community should be guided by clerical elites ( ulema ) who steered the efforts for religious education and Islamic revival . Riḍā's Salafi - Arabist synthesis and Islamist ideals greatly influenced his disciples like Hasan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher who founded

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2124-586: A formal abandonment of their original vision of implementing sharia (also termed Post-Islamism ) – done by the Ennahda Movement of Tunisia, and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) of Indonesia. Others, such as the National Congress of Sudan, have implemented the sharia with support from wealthy, conservative states (primarily Saudi Arabia). According to one theory – "inclusion-moderation"—the interdependence of political outcome with strategy means that

2301-541: A frugal man and strict father, who enjoyed taking his large family on shooting trips and picnics in the desert. Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot Jim Harrington misjudged a landing. Bin Laden's eldest half-brother, Salem bin Laden , the subsequent head of the Bin Laden family, was killed in 1988 near San Antonio , Texas, in the U.S., when he accidentally flew

2478-688: A member of the National Front , was elected Iranian prime-minister. As prime minister, he nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company which his predecessor had supported. The nationalization of the British-funded Iranian oil industry, including the largest oil refinery in the world, was disastrous for Mosaddegh. A British naval embargo closed the British oil facilities, which Iran had no skilled workers to operate. In 1952, Mosaddegh resisted

2655-475: A modern ideology that owes more to European utopian political ideologies and "isms" than to the traditional Islamic religion. According to Salman Sayyid, "Islamism is not a replacement of Islam akin to the way it could be argued that communism and fascism are secularized substitutes for Christianity." Rather, it is "a constellation of political projects that seek to position Islam in the centre of any social order ". The modern revival of Islamic devotion and

2832-625: A modern nation-state. The reaction to new realities of the modern world gave birth to Islamist ideologues like Rashid Rida and Abul A'la Maududi and organizations such as Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam in India. Rashid Rida, a prominent Syrian-born Salafi theologian based in Egypt , was known as a revivalist of Hadith studies in Sunni seminaries and a pioneering theoretician of Islamism in

3009-619: A natural opening for the left, was instead the beginning of major victories for the Islamist Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party. The reason being the corruption and economic malfunction of the policies of the Third World socialist ruling party (FNL) had "largely discredited" the "vocabulary of socialism". In the post-colonial era, many Muslim-majority states such as Indonesia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, were ruled by authoritarian regimes which were often continuously dominated by

3186-457: A number of subversive operations in the country, all of which failed due to the presence of double agents. Millions of dollars were spent in these efforts. These included a team of young CIA officers airdropped into China who were ambushed, and CIA funds being used to set up a global heroin empire in Burma's Golden Triangle following a betrayal by another double agent. In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh ,

3363-468: A plane into power lines. The FBI described Bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in) and 1.98 m (6 ft 6 in) in height and weighing about 73 kilograms (160 lb), although the author Lawrence Wright , in his Pulitzer Prize -winning book on al-Qaeda , The Looming Tower , writes that a number of Bin Laden's close friends confirmed that reports of his height were greatly exaggerated, and that Bin Laden

3540-457: A purge and violations of democratic principles by the Erdoğan regime . Critics of the concept – which include both Islamists who reject democracy and anti-Islamists – hold that Islamist aspirations are fundamentally incompatible with the democratic principles. [REDACTED] Politics portal The contemporary Salafi movement is sometimes described as a variety of Islamism and sometimes as

3717-469: A redoubling of faith and devotion by the faithful was called for to reverse this tide. The connection between the lack of an Islamic spirit and the lack of victory was underscored by the disastrous defeat of Arab nationalist-led armies fighting Israel under the slogan "Land, Sea and Air" in the 1967 Six-Day War , compared to the (perceived) near-victory of the Yom Kippur War six years later. In that war

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3894-537: A revival of Islam , but others believe that Islamism is a modern deviation from Islam which should either be denounced or dismissed. A writer for the International Crisis Group maintains that "the conception of 'political Islam'" is a creation of Americans to explain the Iranian Islamic Revolution , ignoring the fact that (according to the writer) Islam is by definition political. In fact it

4071-516: A sixth wife, name unknown, whose marriage to Bin Laden was annulled soon after the ceremony. Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives. Many of Bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and as of 2010, Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movements. Nasser al-Bahri , who was Bin Laden's personal bodyguard from 1997 to 2001, details Bin Laden's personal life in his memoir. He describes him as

4248-507: A substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed . By 1984, Bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-Khidamat , which funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat, Bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for

4425-736: A symbol of terrorism and mass murder. Osama bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered as "Osama bin Laden". The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as other U.S. governmental agencies, have used either "Usama bin Laden" or the accepted transliteration "Usama bin Ladin". Osama bin Laden's full name, Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of Awad, son of Laden". "Mohammed" refers to Bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden; "Awad" refers to his grandfather, Awad bin Aboud bin Laden,

4602-689: A terrorist by scholars, journalists from The New York Times , the BBC , and Qatari news station Al Jazeera , analysts such as Peter Bergen , Michael Scheuer , Marc Sageman , and Bruce Hoffman . He was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid , New York City, and Tripoli . Bin Laden supported the targeting of American civilians, in retaliation against U.S. troops indiscriminately attacking Muslims. He asserted that this policy could deter U.S. troops from targeting Muslim women and children. Furthermore, he argued that all Americans were complicit in

4779-568: A thousand years, from the first Moorish landing in Spain to the second Turkish siege of Vienna, Europe was under constant threat from Islam. In the early centuries it was a double threat—not only of invasion and conquest, but also of conversion and assimilation. All but the easternmost provinces of the Islamic realm had been taken from Christian rulers, and the vast majority of the first Muslims west of Iran and Arabia were converts from Christianity ... Their loss

4956-514: A variety of activities such as the CIA's drone fleet and anti- Iranian nuclear program activities, accounts for $ 2.6 billion. There were numerous previous attempts to obtain general information about the budget. As a result, reports revealed that CIA's annual budget in Fiscal Year 1963 was $ 550 million (inflation-adjusted US$ 5.5 billion in 2024), and the overall intelligence budget in FY 1997

5133-489: Is quietist /non-political Islam, not Islamism, that requires explanation, which the author gives—calling it an historical fluke of the "short-lived era of the heyday of secular Arab nationalism between 1945 and 1970". Hayri Abaza argues that the failure to distinguish Islam from Islamism leads many in the West to equate the two; they think that by supporting illiberal Islamic (Islamist) regimes, they are being respectful of Islam, to

5310-499: Is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to one of his sons Omar , the family's hereditary surname is āl-Qaḥṭānī , but Bin Laden's father, Mohammed bin Laden , never officially registered the name. Osama bin Laden was born on 10 March 1957 in Riyadh , Saudi Arabia . His father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden , a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to

5487-577: Is alleged by B. Raman , a founder of India's Research and Analysis Wing , to have been in response to a revolt by the Shias of Gilgit during the rule of military dictator Zia-ul Haq . He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province , into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress

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5664-444: Is for impartiality, but if used in reference to a certain person or group in particular without others, it implies that the author is either unsure whether to affirm or negate their attribution to Islam, or trying to insinuate his disapproval of the attribution without controversy. In contrast, referring to a person as a Muslim or a Kafir implies an explicit affirmation or a negation of that person's attribution to Islam. To evade

5841-635: Is headquartered in the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia . As a principal member of the United States Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA reports to the director of national intelligence and is primarily focused on providing intelligence for the president and Cabinet . The agency's founding followed the dissolution of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) at

6018-582: Is innately political, and that Islam as a political system is superior to communism, liberal democracy, capitalism, and other alternatives in achieving a just, successful society. Islamism is generally considered anti-Zionist, anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist and anti-communist; Islamists support family values, sharia, reformation of interest-based finance, and the broad Quranic command of ' enjoining goodness and forbidding evil .' The advocates of Islamism, also known as "al-Islamiyyun", are dedicated to realizing their ideological interpretation of Islam within

6195-456: Is mainly focused on intelligence gathering overseas, with only limited domestic intelligence collection . The CIA serves as the national manager for HUMINT, coordinating activities across the IC. It also carries out covert action at the behest of the president . The CIA exerts foreign political influence through its paramilitary operations units, including its Special Activities Center . The CIA

6372-769: Is responsible for all matters pertaining to congressional interaction and oversight of US intelligence activities. It claims that it aims to: The CIA established its first training facility, the Office of Training and Education, in 1950. Following the end of the Cold War , the CIA's training budget was slashed, which had a negative effect on employee retention . In response, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet established CIA University in 2002. CIA University holds between 200 and 300 courses each year, training both new hires and experienced intelligence officers, as well as CIA support staff. The facility works in partnership with

6549-402: Is responsible for collecting foreign intelligence (mainly from clandestine HUMINT sources), and for covert action. The name reflects its role as the coordinator of human intelligence activities between other elements of the wider U.S. intelligence community with their HUMINT operations. This directorate was created in an attempt to end years of rivalry over influence, philosophy, and budget between

6726-548: The Athari (literalist) school of Islamic theology . These beliefs, in conjunction with violent jihad , have sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb . Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar 's Taliban , was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by

6903-1064: The Bin Laden Issue Station , code-named "Alec Station", to track and to carry out operations against his activities. Bin Laden Issue Station was headed by Michael Scheuer , a veteran of the Islamic Extremism Branch of the CTC. U.S. intelligence monitored Bin Laden in Sudan using operatives to run by daily and to photograph activities at his compound, and using an intelligence safe house and signals intelligence to surveil him and to record his moves. The 9/11 Commission Report states: Islamism Political Militant [REDACTED] Islam portal Islamism refers to religious and political ideological movements that believe Islam should influence political systems, and generally oppose secularism . Its proponents believe Islam

7080-515: The Blue Nile . During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm Hunting Surveys , and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to

7257-469: The Departments of State and War . The division lasted only a few months. The first public mention of the "Central Intelligence Agency" appeared on a command-restructuring proposal presented by Jim Forrestal and Arthur Radford to the U.S. Senate Military Affairs Committee at the end of 1945. Army Intelligence agent Colonel Sidney Mashbir and Commander Ellis Zacharias worked together for four months at

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7434-611: The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). ISIL has been rejected as blasphemous by the majority of Islamists. Originally the term Islamism was simply used to mean the religion of Islam, not an ideology or movement. It first appeared in the English language as Islamismus in 1696, and as Islamism in 1712. The term appears in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in In Re Ross (1891). By

7611-506: The Islamic region harboring grievances against perceived Western imperialism , often having approval ratings in some countries higher than those of national leaders. Nonetheless, his justification and orchestration of attacks against American civilian targets, such as the September 11 attacks, made him a highly reviled figure in the United States, where public opinion largely views Bin Laden as

7788-583: The Muslim Brotherhood and the Ennahda were excluded from democratic political participation. At least in part for that reason, Islamists attempted to overthrow the government in the Algerian Civil War (1991–2002) and waged a terror campaign in Egypt in the 90s. These attempts were crushed and in the 21st century, Islamists turned increasingly to non-violent methods, and "moderate Islamists" now make up

7965-618: The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the 50s and 60s). Qutbism argued that not only was sharia essential for Islam, but that since it was not in force, Islam did not really exist in the Muslim world, which was in Jahiliyya (the state of pre-Islamic ignorance). To remedy this situation he urged a two-pronged attack of 1) preaching to convert, and 2) jihad to forcibly eliminate the "structures" of Jahiliyya . Defensive jihad against Jahiliyya Muslim governments would not be enough. "Truth and falsehood cannot coexist on this earth", so offensive Jihad

8142-632: The Muslim Brotherhood movement, and Hajji Amin al-Husayni , the anti-Zionist Grand Mufti of Jerusalem . Al-Banna and Maududi called for a " reformist " strategy to re-Islamizing society through grassroots social and political activism. Other Islamists (Al-Turabi) are proponents of a " revolutionary " strategy of Islamizing society through exercise of state power, or ( Sayyid Qutb ) for combining grassroots Islamization with armed revolution. The term has been applied to non-state reform movements, political parties, militias and revolutionary groups. At least one author ( Graham E. Fuller ) has argued for

8319-651: The National Intelligence University , and includes the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis , the Directorate of Analysis' component of the university. For later stage training of student operations officers, there is at least one classified training area at Camp Peary , near Williamsburg, Virginia . Students are selected, and their progress evaluated, in ways derived from the OSS, published as

8496-469: The National Security Council issued Directive 10/2 calling for covert action against the Soviet Union , and granting the authority to carry out covert operations against "hostile foreign states or groups" that could, if needed, be denied by the U.S. government. To this end, the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) was created inside the new CIA. The OPC was unique; Frank Wisner , the head of

8673-817: The Parliament of Pakistan to carry out an unsuccessful motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto . The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on 2 August 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the royal family at risk. With Iraqi forces on the Saudi border , Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism was potentially inciting internal dissent. One week after King Fahd agreed to U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney 's offer of American military assistance, Bin Laden met with King Fahd and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan bin Abdulaziz , telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from

8850-893: The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) in India , the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Pakistan , the General Intelligence Service in Egypt , Mossad in Israel , and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) in South Korea . The CIA was instrumental in the establishment of intelligence services in several U.S. allied countries, including Germany's BND and Greece's EYP (then known as KYP). The closest links of

9027-450: The Saudi royal family , and his mother was Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Syrian Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). Despite it being generally accepted that Bin Laden was born in Riyadh, his birthplace was listed as Jeddah in the initial FBI and Interpol documents. 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

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9204-434: The Soviet atomic bomb project . In particular, the agency failed to predict the Chinese entry into the Korean War with 300,000 troops. The famous double agent Kim Philby was the British liaison to American Central Intelligence. Through him, the CIA coordinated hundreds of airdrops inside the iron curtain, all compromised by Philby. Arlington Hall , the nerve center of CIA cryptanalysis, was compromised by Bill Weisband ,

9381-431: The U.S. military , including the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command , by providing it with information it gathers, receiving information from military intelligence organizations, and cooperating with field activities. The associate deputy director of the CIA is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the agency. Each branch of the agency has its own director. The Office of Military Affairs (OMA), subordinate to

9558-508: The United Nations designated al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization. Bin Laden was the organizer of the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people . This resulted in the United States invading Afghanistan , which launched the war on terror . Bin Laden became the subject of nearly a decade-long multi-national manhunt led by the United States. During this period, he hid in several mountainous regions of Afghanistan and later escaped to neighboring Pakistan . On 2 May 2011, Bin Laden

9735-561: The United States Department of Defense (DOD) and the CIA. In spite of this, the Department of Defense announced in 2012 its intention to organize its own global clandestine intelligence service, the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS), under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Contrary to some public and media misunderstanding, DCS is not a "new" intelligence agency but rather a consolidation, expansion and realignment of existing Defense HUMINT activities, which have been carried out by DIA for decades under various names, most recently as

9912-404: The president with Senate confirmation and reports directly to the director of national intelligence (DNI); in practice, the CIA director interfaces with the director of national intelligence (DNI), Congress , and the White House , while the deputy director (DD/CIA) is the internal executive of the CIA and the chief operating officer (COO/CIA), known as executive director until 2017, leads

10089-457: The 1960s in these countries "went out of their way to impress upon children that socialism was simply Islam properly understood." Olivier Roy writes that the "failure of the 'Arab socialist' model ... left room for new protest ideologies to emerge in deconstructed societies ..." Gilles Kepel notes that when a collapse in oil prices led to widespread violent and destructive rioting by the urban poor in Algeria in 1988, what might have appeared to be

10266-419: The Afghan resistance leaders themselves. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, Bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords; no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. Steve Coll states that although Bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that Bin Laden did have

10443-431: The Afghans. However, he continued working with the Saudi GID and the Pakistani ISI . In March 1989 Bin Laden led 800 Arab foreign fighters during the unsuccessful Battle of Jalalabad . Bin Laden led his men in person to immobilize the 7th Sarandoy Regiment but failed doing so leading to massive casualties. He funded the 1990 Afghan coup d'état attempt led by hardcore communist General Shahnawaz Tanai . He also lobbied

10620-418: The Agency , metonymously as Langley and historically as the Company , is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations . The agency

10797-524: The Agency's mission activities. It is the Agency's newest directorate. The Langley, Virginia -based office's mission is to streamline and integrate digital and cybersecurity capabilities into the CIA's espionage, counterintelligence, all-source analysis, open-source intelligence collection, and covert action operations. It provides operations personnel with tools and techniques to use in cyber operations. It works with information technology infrastructure and practices cyber tradecraft . This means retrofitting

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10974-529: The Air Force. A DS&T organization analyzed imagery intelligence collected by the U-2 and reconnaissance satellites called the National Photointerpretation Center (NPIC), which had analysts from both the CIA and the military services. Subsequently, NPIC was transferred to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). The Directorate of Support has organizational and administrative functions to significant units including: The Directorate of Digital Innovation (DDI) focuses on accelerating innovation across

11151-502: The Americans in 1996, Bin Laden began advocating attacks targeting U.S. assets in several countries, and supervised al-Qaeda's execution of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. Bin Laden was born in Riyadh to the aristocratic bin Laden family . He studied at local universities until 1979, when he joined the Afghan mujahidin against the Soviet Union in the wake of the Soviet–Afghan War . In 1984, he co-founded Maktab al-Khidamat which recruited foreign mujahidin into

11328-432: The CIA for cyberwarfare . DDI officers help accelerate the integration of innovative methods and tools to enhance the CIA's cyber and digital capabilities on a global scale and ultimately help safeguard the United States. They also apply technical expertise to exploit clandestine and publicly available information (also known as open-source data ) using specialized methodologies and digital tools to plan, initiate and support

11505-519: The CIA is organized under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Despite having had some of its powers transferred to the DNI, the CIA has grown in size following the September 11 attacks . In 2013, The Washington Post reported that in the fiscal year 2010, the CIA had the largest budget of all intelligence community agencies, exceeding prior estimates. The CIA's role has expanded since its creation, now including covert paramilitary operations. One of its largest divisions,

11682-404: The CIA was created, its purpose was to create a clearinghouse for foreign policy intelligence and analysis, collecting, analyzing, evaluating, and disseminating foreign intelligence, and carrying out covert operations. As of 2013, the CIA had five priorities: The CIA has an executive office and five major directorates: The director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) is appointed by

11859-402: The CIA would corroborate Hart's findings. The CIA's station in Seoul had 200 officers, but not a single speaker of Korean . Hart reported to Washington that Seoul station was hopeless, and could not be salvaged. Loftus Becker, deputy director of intelligence, was sent personally to tell Hart that the CIA had to keep the station open to save face. Becker returned to Washington, D.C., pronouncing

12036-422: The CIA's computer network operations budget for fiscal year 2013 was $ 685.4 million. The NSA's budget was roughly $ 1 billion at the time. Rep. Adam Schiff , the California Democrat who served as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee , endorsed the reorganization. "The director has challenged his workforce, the rest of the intelligence community, and the nation to consider how we conduct

12213-435: The CIA's hunt for Bin Laden, Bin Laden was motivated by a belief that U.S. foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East. As such, the threat to U.S. national security arises not from al-Qaeda being offended by what the U.S. is but rather by what the U.S. does, or in the words of Scheuer, "They (al-Qaeda) hate us (Americans) for what we do, not who we are." Nonetheless, Bin Laden criticized

12390-401: The CIA. The role and functions of the CIA are roughly equivalent to those of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in Germany , MI6 in the United Kingdom , the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) in Australia , the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) in France , the Foreign Intelligence Service in Russia , the Ministry of State Security (MSS) in China ,

12567-417: The Defense Human Intelligence Service. This Directorate is known to be organized by geographic regions and issues, but its precise organization is classified. The Directorate of Science & Technology was established to research, create, and manage technical collection disciplines and equipment. Many of its innovations were transferred to other intelligence organizations, or, as they became more overt, to

12744-479: The EIJ. After this bombing, al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim , the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa

12921-693: The German Bundesnachrichtendienst is keeping contact to the CIA office in Wiesbaden . The success of the British Commandos during World War II prompted U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the creation of an intelligence service modeled after the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), and Special Operations Executive . This led to the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) by

13098-502: The Information Operations Center (IOC), has shifted from counterterrorism to offensive cyber operations . The agency has been the subject of several controversies , including its use of torture , domestic wiretapping , propaganda , and alleged human rights violations and drug trafficking . In 2022, a CIA domestic surveillance program was uncovered that had not been subject to congressional oversight. When

13275-521: The Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded. The war that followed caused the deaths of 150,000 to 200,000 Algerians and ended with the Islamists surrendering to the government. In Sudan, Bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum . He bought a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at Soba on

13452-458: The Israeli state's goals. He often delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next." Shia Muslims have been listed along with heretics , the United States, and Israel as the four principal enemies of Islam at ideology classes of Bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization. Bin Laden

13629-463: The Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a " Greater Israel ". He stated that Jews and Muslims could never get along and that war was "inevitable" between them, and further accused the U.S. of stirring up anti-Islamic sentiment . He claimed that the U.S. State Department and U.S. Department of Defense were controlled by Jews, for the sole purpose of serving

13806-495: The Middle East more than any trend since the modern states gained independence", redefining "politics and even borders". Central and prominent figures in 20th-century Islamism include Sayyid Rashid Riḍā , Hassan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood ), Sayyid Qutb , Abul A'la Maududi , Ruhollah Khomeini (founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran), Hassan Al-Turabi . Syrian Sunni cleric Muhammad Rashid Riḍā,

13983-401: The Muslim world. Compared to other societies around the globe, "[w]hat is striking about the Islamic world is that ... it seems to have been the least penetrated by irreligion ". Where other peoples may look to the physical or social sciences for answers in areas which their ancestors regarded as best left to scripture, in the Muslim world, religion has become more encompassing, not less, as "in

14160-436: The Muslim world." By the late 1960s, non-Soviet Muslim-majority countries had won their independence and they tended to fall into one of the two cold-war blocs – with "Nasser's Egypt, Baathist Syria and Iraq, Muammar el-Qaddafi's Libya, Algeria under Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumedienne, Southern Yemen , and Sukarno's Indonesia" aligned with Moscow. Aware of the close attachment of the population with Islam, "school books of

14337-707: The OPC, answered not to the CIA Director , but to the secretaries of defense, state, and the NSC. The OPC's actions were a secret even from the head of the CIA. Most CIA stations had two station chiefs, one working for the OSO, and one working for the OPC. With the agency unable to provide sufficient intelligence about the Soviet takeovers of Romania and Czechoslovakia , the Soviet blockade of Berlin , and

14514-515: The OSO was tasked with spying and subversion overseas with a budget of $ 15 million (equivalent to $ 190 million in 2023), the largesse of a small number of patrons in Congress. Vandenberg's goals were much like the ones set out by his predecessor: finding out "everything about the Soviet forces in Eastern and Central Europe – their movements, their capabilities, and their intentions." On June 18, 1948,

14691-476: The Office of Reports and Estimates, which drew its reports from a daily take of State Department telegrams, military dispatches, and other public documents. The CIA still lacked its intelligence-gathering abilities. On August 21, 1950, shortly after, Truman announced Walter Bedell Smith as the new Director of the CIA. The change in leadership took place shortly after the start of the Korean War in South Korea , as

14868-675: The Ottoman capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul ), on 17 November 1922. The legal position was solidified with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. In March 1924, the Caliphate was abolished legally by the Turkish National Assembly, marking the end of Ottoman influence. This shocked the Sunni clerical world, and many felt the need to present Islam not as a traditional religion but as an innovative socio-political ideology of

15045-539: The Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan's minister of defense , Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to

15222-523: The Shah to exercise his constitutional right to dismiss Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh launched a military coup , and the Shah fled the country. Under CIA Director Allen Dulles , Operation Ajax was put into motion. Its goal was to overthrow Mossadegh with military support from General Fazlollah Zahedi and install a pro-western regime headed by the Shah of Iran. Kermit Roosevelt Jr. oversaw the operation in Iran. On August 16,

15399-463: The Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia as a hero of jihad. Along with his Arab legion, he was thought to have brought down the mighty superpower of the Soviet Union. After his return to Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden engaged in opposition movements to the Saudi monarchy while working for his family business . He offered to send al-Qaeda to overthrow

15576-631: The Soviet-aligned Yemeni Socialist Party government in South Yemen but was rebuffed by Prince Turki bin Faisal . He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd . He was also angered by the internecine tribal fighting among

15753-526: The Soviets, such as the Battle of Jaji in 1987. Despite its little strategic significance, the battle was lionized in the mainstream Arab press. It was during this time that he became idolized by many Arabs. In May 1988, responding to rumours of a massacre of Sunnis by Shias, large numbers of Shias from in and around Gilgit, Pakistan were killed in a massacre. Shia civilians were also subjected to rape. The massacre

15930-415: The U.S. and others and offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his Arab legion. When Sultan asked how Bin Laden would defend the fighters if Saddam used Iraqi chemical and biological weapons against them he replied "We will fight him with faith." Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory. Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on

16107-604: The U.S. and sometimes by other non-Muslim states. In his Letter to the American People published in 2002, Bin Laden described the formation of the Israeli state as "a crime which must be erased" and demanded that the United States withdraw all of its civilians and military personnel from the Arabian Peninsula , as well as from all Muslim lands . His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as

16284-555: The U.S. during the 1980s. Nor did his followers. The Afghan mujahideen, via Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, received large amounts of both. Some bled to the Arabs fighting the Soviets but nothing significant." Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul , who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons,

16461-535: The U.S. for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication , homosexuality , intoxicants , gambling , and usury , in a letter published in late 2002. Bin Laden believed that the Islamic world was in crisis and that the complete restoration of Sharia law would be the only way to set things right in the Muslim world. He opposed such alternatives as secular government, as well as pan-Arabism , socialism , communism , and democracy . He subscribed to

16638-463: The U.S. forces, arguing that that it was indignity that the kingdom was being defended by an army of American unbelievers.Bin Laden tried to convince the Saudi ulama to issue a fatwa condemning the American military deployment but senior clerics refused out of fear of repression. Bin Laden's continued criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to put him under house arrest, under which he remained until he

16815-504: The U.S. intelligence community to other foreign intelligence agencies are to Anglophone countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Special communications signals that intelligence-related messages can be shared with these four countries. An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation is the creation of a new message distribution label within the main U.S. military communications network. Previously,

16992-536: The U.S., but American officials refused to meet with them even after they had expelled Bin Laden. It was not until 2000 that the State Department authorized U.S. intelligence officials to visit Sudan. The 9/11 Commission Report states: In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with

17169-504: The US. Thus the two areas of responsibility for the CIA were covert action and covert intelligence. One of the main targets for intelligence gathering was the Soviet Union , which had also been a priority of the CIA's predecessors. U.S. Air Force General Hoyt Vandenberg , the CIG's second director, created the Office of Special Operations (OSO) and the Office of Reports and Estimates (ORE). Initially,

17346-416: The United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against Bin Laden in any country. In January 1996, the CIA launched a new unit of its Counterterrorism Center (CTC) called

17523-601: The associate deputy director, manages the relationship between the CIA and the Unified Combatant Commands , who produce and deliver regional and operational intelligence and consume national intelligence produced by the CIA. The Directorate of Analysis , through much of its history known as the Directorate of Intelligence (DI), is tasked with helping "the President and other policymakers make informed decisions about our country's national security" by looking "at all

17700-568: The attraction to things Islamic can be traced to several events. By the end of World War I, most Muslim states were seen to be dominated by the Christian-leaning Western states. Explanations offered were: that the claims of Islam were false and the Christian or post-Christian West had finally come up with another system that was superior; or Islam had failed through not being true to itself. The second explanation being preferred by Muslims,

17877-575: The available information on an issue and organiz[ing] it for policymakers". The directorate has four regional analytic groups, six groups for transnational issues, and three that focus on policy, collection, and staff support. There are regional analytical offices covering the Near East and South Asia , Russia , and Europe; and the Asia–Pacific , Latin America , and Africa . The Directorate of Operations

18054-405: The book Assessment of Men, Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services . Additional mission training is conducted at Harvey Point , North Carolina . The primary training facility for the Office of Communications is Warrenton Training Center , located near Warrenton, Virginia . The facility was established in 1951 and has been used by the CIA since at least 1955. Details of

18231-510: The business of intelligence in a world that is profoundly different from 1947 when the CIA was founded," Schiff said. The Office of Congressional Affairs ( OCA ) serves as the liaison between the CIA and the US Congress . The OCA states that it aims to ensures that Congress is fully and currently informed of intelligence activities. The office is the CIA's primary interface with Congressional oversight committees, leadership, and members. It

18408-515: The conservative "guardians of the tradition" ( Salafis , such as those in the Wahhabi movement) and the revolutionary "vanguard of change and Islamic reform" centered around the Muslim Brotherhood . Olivier Roy argues that " Sunni pan-Islamism underwent a remarkable shift in the second half of the 20th century" when the Muslim Brotherhood movement and its focus on Islamisation of pan-Arabism

18585-761: The context of the state or society. The majority of them are affiliated with Islamic institutions or social mobilization movements. Islamists emphasize the implementation of sharia , pan-Islamic political unity, and the creation of Islamic states . In its original formulation, Islamism described an ideology seeking to revive Islam to its past assertiveness and glory, purifying it of foreign elements, reasserting its role into "social and political as well as personal life"; and in particular "reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam" (i.e. Sharia). According to at least one observer (author Robin Wright ), Islamist movements have "arguably altered

18762-784: The country to establish a new base in Afghanistan , where he was supported by the Taliban . Bin Laden declared two fatawa , the first in August 1996, and the second in February 1998, declaring holy war against the United States. After the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa , Bin Laden was indicted by a district court in the United States in November 1998. He was then listed on the FBI 's Most Wanted Terrorists and Most Wanted Fugitives lists. In October 1999,

18939-420: The creation of a "Central Intelligence Service" that would continue peacetime operations similar to those of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which he led during World War II. Upon President Roosevelt's death, the new president Harry Truman inherited a presidency largely uninformed about key wartime projects and global intelligence activities. Truman's initial view of the proposed central intelligence agency

19116-543: The crimes of their government due to majority of them electing it to power and paying taxes that fund the U.S. military. According to Noah Feldman , Bin Laden's assertion was that "since the United States is a democracy, all citizens bear responsibility for its government's actions, and civilians are therefore fair targets." Two months after the September 11, 2001 attacks , Bin Laden stated during an interview with Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir : "According to my information, if

19293-421: The day-to-day work as the third-highest post of the CIA. The deputy director is formally appointed by the director without Senate confirmation, but as the president's opinion plays a great role in the decision, the deputy director is generally considered a political position, making the chief operating officer the most senior non-political position for CIA career officers. The Executive Office also supports

19470-539: The democratic and political process as well as armed attacks by their powerful paramilitary wings. Jihadist organizations like al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad , and groups such as the Taliban , entirely reject democracy, seeing it as a form of kufr (disbelief) calling for offensive jihad on a religious basis. Another major division within Islamism is between what Graham E. Fuller has described as

19647-683: The democratic process include parties like the Tunisian Ennahda Movement . Some Islamists can be religious populists or far-right. Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan is basically a socio-political and " vanguard party " working with in Pakistan's Democratic political process, but has also gained political influence through military coup d'états in the past. Other Islamist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine claim to participate in

19824-463: The democratic public square in places like Turkey , Tunisia , Malaysia and Indonesia ". Islamism is not a united movement and takes different forms and spans a wide range of strategies and tactics towards the powers in place—"destruction, opposition, collaboration, indifference" —not because (or not just because) of differences of opinions, but because it varies as circumstances change. Moderate and reformist Islamists who accept and work within

20001-502: The detriment of those who seek to separate religion from politics . Another source distinguishes Islamist from Islam by emphasizing the fact that Islam "refers to a religion and culture in existence over a millennium ", whereas Islamism "is a political/religious phenomenon linked to the great events of the 20th century". Islamists have, at least at times, defined themselves as "Islamiyyoun/Islamists" to differentiate themselves from "Muslimun/Muslims". Daniel Pipes describes Islamism as

20178-647: The direction of Fleet Admiral Joseph Ernest King , and prepared the first draft and implementing directives for the creation of what would become the Central Intelligence Agency. Despite opposition from the military establishment, the State Department , and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Truman established the National Intelligence Authority in January 1946. Its operational extension

20355-560: The earliest discovery of al-Qaeda terrorist plans outside of Muslim countries. Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and, years later, admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on 5 November 1990. In 1991, Bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia by its government after repeatedly criticizing the Saudi alliance with the United States. He and his followers moved first to Afghanistan and then relocated to Sudan by 1992, in

20532-422: The enactment of religious bylaws to counter the popularity of Islamist oppositions. In Egypt, during the short period of the democratic experiment , Muslim Brotherhood seized the momentum by being the most cohesive political movement among the opposition. Few observers contest the immense influence of Islamism within the Muslim world . Following the collapse of the Soviet Union , political movements based on

20709-554: The end of World War II by President Harry S. Truman , who created the Central Intelligence Group under the direction of a director of central intelligence by presidential directive on January 22, 1946. The agency's creation was authorized by the National Security Act of 1947 . Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is a domestic security service, the CIA has no law enforcement function and

20886-462: The enemy countries, by "bleeding" them dry. Al-Qaeda manuals express this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by Al Jazeera, Bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy". A number of errors and inconsistencies in Bin Laden's arguments have been alleged by authors such as Max Rodenbeck and Noah Feldman . He invoked democracy both as an example of the deceit and fraudulence of Western political system —American law being "the law of

21063-466: The enemy occupies an Islamic land and uses its people as human shields , a person has the right to attack the enemy. ... The targets of September 11 were not women and children. The main targets were the symbol of the United States: their economic and military power. Our Prophet Muhammad was against the killing of women and children. When he saw the body of a non-Muslim woman during a war, he asked what

21240-553: The fiscal 2013 figure is $ 52.6 billion. According to the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures , the CIA's fiscal 2013 budget is $ 14.7 billion, 28% of the total and almost 50% more than the budget of the National Security Agency. CIA's HUMINT budget is $ 2.3 billion, the SIGINT budget is $ 1.7 billion, and spending for security and logistics of CIA missions is $ 2.5 billion. "Covert action programs," including

21417-647: The globe. Sayyid Rashid Rida had visited India in 1912 and was impressed by the Deoband and Nadwatul Ulama seminaries. These seminaries carried the legacy of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid and his pre-modern Islamic emirate. In British India , the Khilafat movement (1919–24) following World War I led by Shaukat Ali , Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar , Hakim Ajmal Khan and Abul Kalam Azad came to exemplify South Asian Muslims' aspirations for Caliphate . Muslim alienation from Western ways, including its political ways. For almost

21594-404: The governments of the U.S. and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could. In a letter released in late 2002, he stated that Jews controlled the civilian media outlets, politics, and economic institutions of the United States. In a May 1998 interview with ABC 's John Miller, Bin Laden stated that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and

21771-875: The harmful gases that threaten its destiny". After leaving college in 1979, Bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Afghan–Soviet War . He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan." From 1979 to 1992, the U.S. (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan , specifically Operation Cyclone ), Saudi Arabia , and China provided between $ 6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). British journalist Jason Burke wrote: "He did not receive any direct funding or training from

21948-472: The hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth obtained from the Persian Gulf's huge oil deposits were nothing less than a gift from God to the Islamic faithful. As the Islamic revival gained momentum, governments such as Egypt's, which had previously repressed (and was still continuing to repress) Islamists, joined the bandwagon. They banned alcohol and flooded the airwaves with religious programming, giving

22125-465: The information they sent. In September 1952 Haney was replaced by John Limond Hart, a Europe veteran with a vivid memory for bitter experiences of misinformation. Hart was suspicious of the parade of successes reported by Tofte and Haney and launched an investigation which determined that the entirety of the information supplied by the Korean sources was false or misleading. After the war, internal reviews by

22302-527: The jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan . Between 1986 and 1987, Bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan for several dozen of his own Arab soldiers. From this base, Bin Laden participated in some combat activity against

22479-456: The lack of a clear warning to the President and NSC about the imminent North Korean invasion was seen as a grave failure of intelligence. The CIA had different demands placed on it by the various bodies overseeing it. Truman wanted a centralized group to organize the information that reached him. The Department of Defense wanted military intelligence and covert action, and the State Department wanted to create global political change favorable to

22656-496: The last few decades, it has been the fundamentalists who have increasingly represented the cutting edge" of Muslim culture. Writing in 2009, German journalist Sonja Zekri described Islamists in Egypt and other Muslim countries as "extremely influential. ... They determine how one dresses, what one eats. In these areas, they are incredibly successful. ... Even if the Islamists never come to power, they have transformed their countries." Political Islamists were described as "competing in

22833-641: The late 1950s or early 1960s. The couple had four children, and Bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister. The Bin Laden family made $ 5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $ 25–30 million. Bin Laden was raised as a devout Sunni Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the elite Al-Thager Model School . Bin Laden attended an English-language course in Oxford , England, during 1971. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University . Some reports suggest he earned

23010-414: The liberal ideology of free expression and democratic rule have led the opposition in other parts of the world such as Latin America, Eastern Europe and many parts of Asia; however "the simple fact is that political Islam currently reigns [circa 2002-3] as the most powerful ideological force across the Muslim world today". The strength of Islamism also draws from the strength of religiosity in general in

23187-434: The majority of the contemporary Islamist movements. Among some Islamists, Democracy has been harmonized with Islam by means of Shura (consultation). The tradition of consultation by the ruler being considered Sunnah of the prophet Muhammad , ( Majlis-ash-Shura being a common name for legislative bodies in Islamic countries). Among the varying goals, strategies, and outcomes of "moderate Islamist movements" are

23364-435: The marking of NOFORN (i.e., No Foreign Nationals) required the originator to specify which, if any, non-U.S. countries could receive the information. A new handling caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL Five Eyes , used primarily on intelligence messages, gives an easier way to indicate that the material can be shared with Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. The task of the division called " Verbindungsstelle 61 " of

23541-447: The masses a channel to express their economic grievances and frustration toward the lack of democratic processes. As a result, in the post-Cold War era , civil society-based Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood were the only organizations capable to provide avenues of protest. The dynamic was repeated after the states had gone through a democratic transition . In Indonesia, some secular political parties have contributed to

23718-461: The medieval Hanbali theologian Ibn Taymiyyah . While all salafi believe Islam covers every aspect of life, that sharia law must be implemented completely and that the Caliphate must be recreated to rule the Muslim world, they differ in strategies and priorities, which generally fall into three groups: Qutbism refers to the Jihadist ideology formulated by Sayyid Qutb , (an influential figure of

23895-527: The military services. The development of the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, for instance, was done in cooperation with the United States Air Force . The U-2's original mission was clandestine imagery intelligence over denied areas such as the Soviet Union . It was subsequently provided with signals intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence capabilities and is now operated by

24072-534: The military's slogan was "God is Great". Along with the Yom Kippur War came the Arab oil embargo where the (Muslim) Persian Gulf oil-producing states' dramatic decision to cut back on production and quadruple the price of oil, made the terms oil, Arabs and Islam synonymous with power throughout the world, and especially in the Muslim world's public imagination. Many Muslims believe as Saudi Prince Saud al Faisal did that

24249-462: The modern age. During 1922–1923, Rida published a series of articles in seminal Al-Manar magazine titled " The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate ". In this highly influential treatise, Rida advocates for the restoration of Caliphate guided by Islamic jurists and proposes gradualist measures of education, reformation and purification through the efforts of Salafiyya reform movements across

24426-532: The more moderate the Islamists become, the more likely they are to be politically included (or unsuppressed); and the more accommodating the government is, the less "extreme" Islamists become. A prototype of harmonizing Islamist principles within the modern state framework was the " Turkish model ", based on the apparent success of the rule of the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan . Turkish model, however, came "unstuck" after

24603-817: The movement even more exposure. The abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 1 November 1922 ended the Ottoman Empire , which had lasted since 1299. On 11 November 1922, at the Conference of Lausanne , the sovereignty of the Grand National Assembly exercised by the Government in Angora (now Ankara ) over Turkey was recognized. The last sultan, Mehmed VI , departed

24780-410: The non-military National Intelligence Program, including $ 4.8 billion for the CIA. After the Marshall Plan was approved, appropriating $ 13.7 billion over five years, 5% of those funds or $ 685 million were secretly made available to the CIA. A portion of the enormous M-fund, established by the U.S. government during the post-war period for reconstruction of Japan, was secretly steered to

24957-410: The notion that the will of the people must necessarily reflect the will of an all-knowing God." Bin Laden was heavily anti-Semitic , stating that most of the negative events that occurred in the world were the direct result of Jewish actions. In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai , Bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled

25134-424: The overall United States intelligence budget are classified. Under the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, the Director of Central Intelligence is the only federal government employee who can spend "un-vouchered" government money . The government showed its 1997 budget was $ 26.6 billion for the fiscal year. The government has disclosed a total figure for all non-military intelligence spending since 2007;

25311-445: The poor and popular with the people. He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in 1994, Fahd stripped Bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $ 7 million a year stipend. By that time, Bin Laden was being linked with EIJ, which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995, the EIJ attempted to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak . The attempt failed, and Sudan expelled

25488-415: The problem resulting from the confusion between the Western and Arabic usage of the term Islamist, Arab journalists invented the term Islamawi ( Islamian ) instead of Islami ( Islamist ) in reference to the political movement, though this term is sometimes criticized as grammatically incorrect. Islamism has been defined as: Islamists simply believe that their movement is either a corrected version or

25665-432: The reason for killing her was. If a child is older than thirteen and bears arms against Muslims, killing him is permissible." Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and U.S. was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of

25842-449: The revolt. By 1988, Bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, Bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main points leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was Azzam's insistence that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming a separate fighting force. Notes of a meeting of Bin Laden and others on 20 August 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda

26019-475: The rich and wealthy"—and as the reason civilians are responsible for their government's actions and so can be lawfully punished by death. He denounced democracy as a "religion of ignorance" that violates Islam by issuing man-made laws, but in a later statement compares the Western democracy of Spain favorably to the Muslim world in which the ruler is accountable. Rodenbeck states, "Evidently, [Bin Laden] has never heard theological justifications for democracy, based on

26196-657: The royal refusal to approve his Minister of War and resigned in protest. The National Front took to the streets in protest. Fearing a loss of control, the military pulled its troops back five days later, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi gave in to Mosaddegh's demands. Mosaddegh quickly replaced military leaders loyal to the Shah with those loyal to him, giving him personal control over the military. Given six months of emergency powers, Mosaddegh unilaterally passed legislation. When that six months expired, his powers were extended for another year. In 1953, Mossadegh dismissed parliament and assumed dictatorial powers. This power grab triggered

26373-438: The same individuals or their cadres for decades. Simultaneously, the military played a significant part in the government decisions in many of these states ( the outsized role played by the military could be seen also in democratic Turkey). The authoritarian regimes, backed by military support, took extra measures to silence leftist opposition forces, often with the help of foreign powers. Silencing of leftist opposition deprived

26550-404: The same time, their popularity is such that no government can call itself democratic that excludes mainstream Islamist groups. Arguing distinctions between "radical/moderate" or "violent/peaceful" Islamism were "simplistic", circa 2017, scholar Morten Valbjørn put forth these "much more sophisticated typologies" of Islamism: Throughout the 80s and 90s, major moderate Islamist movements such as

26727-409: The situation to be "hopeless," and that, after touring the CIA's Far East operations, the CIA's ability to gather intelligence in the far east was "almost negligible". He then resigned. Air Force Colonel James Kallis stated that CIA director Allen Dulles continued to praise the CIA's Korean force, despite knowing that they were under enemy control. When China entered the war in 1950, the CIA attempted

26904-476: The technical and human-based operations of the CIA. Before the establishment of the new digital directorate, offensive cyber operations were undertaken by the CIA's Information Operations Center. Little is known about how the office specifically functions or if it deploys offensive cyber capabilities. The directorate had been covertly operating since approximately March 2015 but formally began operations on October 1, 2015. According to classified budget documents,

27081-562: The term Islamist (m. sing.: Islami , pl. nom/acc: Islamiyyun , gen. Islamiyyin; f. sing/pl: Islamiyyah ) was already being used in traditional Arabic scholarship in a theological sense as in relating to the religion of Islam, not a political ideology. In heresiographical, theological and historical works, such as al-Ash'ari 's well-known encyclopaedia Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn ( The Opinions of The Islamists ), an Islamist refers to any person who attributes himself to Islam without affirming nor negating that attribution. If used consistently, it

27258-403: The term "Islamism" has been criticized as having been given connotations of violence, extremism, and violations of human rights, by the Western mass media, leading to Islamophobia and stereotyping. Following the Arab Spring , many post-Islamist currents became heavily involved in democratic politics, while others spawned "the most aggressive and ambitious Islamist militia " to date, such as

27435-451: The training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, the person in charge of the ISI's Afghan operations at the time, it was a strict policy of Pakistan to prevent any American involvement in the distribution of funds or weapons or in the training of the mujahideen, and the CIA officials stayed in the embassy in Islamabad , never entering Afghanistan or meeting with

27612-540: The turn of the twentieth century the shorter and purely Arabic term "Islam" had begun to displace it, and by 1938, when Orientalist scholars completed The Encyclopaedia of Islam , Islamism seems to have virtually disappeared from English usage. The term remained "practically absent from the vocabulary" of scholars, writers or journalists until the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1978–79, which brought Ayatollah Khomeini 's concept of "Islamic government" to Iran. This new usage appeared without taking into consideration how

27789-472: The use of federal funds. The act also exempted the CIA from having to disclose its "organization, functions, officials, titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed," and created the program "PL-110" to handle defectors and other "essential aliens" who fell outside normal immigration procedures. At the outset of the Korean War , the CIA still only had a few thousand employees, around one thousand of whom worked in analysis. Intelligence primarily came from

27966-403: The war. He founded al-Qaeda in 1988 for worldwide jihad . In the Gulf War (1990–1991), 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 1991. He subsequently shifted his headquarters to Sudan until 1996 when he left

28143-454: The works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions ; and association football , in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal . During his studies in Jeddah, Bin Laden became a pupil of the influential Islamist scholar Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and avidly read his treatises. He also read the writings of several Muslim Brotherhood leaders and

28320-410: Was US$ 26.6 billion (inflation-adjusted US$ 50.5 billion in 2024). There have been accidental disclosures; for instance, Mary Margaret Graham , a former CIA official and deputy director of national intelligence for collection in 2005, said that the annual intelligence budget was $ 44 billion, and in 1994 Congress accidentally published a budget of $ 43.4 billion (in 2012 dollars) in 1994 for

28497-414: Was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious." A list of requirements for membership itemized the following: listening ability, good manners, obedience, and making a pledge ( bayat ) to follow one's superiors. According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because its existence

28674-430: Was a student of Qutb's brother Muhammad Qutb and later became a mentor of Osama bin Laden . Al-Zawahiri helped to pass on stories of "the purity of Qutb's character" and persecution he suffered, and played an extensive role in the normalization of offensive Jihad among followers of Qutb. Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA / ˌ s iː . aɪ ˈ eɪ / ), known informally as

28851-575: Was actually "just over 6 feet (1.8 m) tall". Eventually, after his death, he was measured to be roughly 1.93 m (6 ft 4 in). Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white keffiyeh . Bin Laden had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male keffiyeh and instead wore the traditional Yemeni male keffiyeh. He was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor. Political Militant [REDACTED] Islam portal According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer , who led

29028-464: Was eclipsed by the Salafi movement with its emphasis on "sharia rather than the building of Islamic institutions". Following the Arab Spring (starting in 2011), Roy has described Islamism as "increasingly interdependent" with democracy in much of the Arab Muslim world , such that "neither can now survive without the other." While Islamist political culture itself may not be democratic, Islamists need democratic elections to maintain their legitimacy. At

29205-412: Was frequently repeated in the subsequent years. At the beginning of the Korean War , CIA officer Hans Tofte claimed to have turned a thousand North Korean expatriates into a guerrilla force tasked with infiltration, guerrilla warfare, and pilot rescue. In 1952 the CIA sent 1,500 more expatriate agents north. Seoul station chief Albert Haney would openly celebrate the capabilities of those agents and

29382-458: Was highly influenced by the Islamic revolutionary ideas advocated by Sayyid Qutb . At age 17 in 1974, Bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia , Syria; but they were later separated and she left Afghanistan on 9 September 2001, 2 days before the 9/11 attacks. His other known wives were Khadijah Sharif (married 1983, divorced 1990s); Khairiah Sabar (married 1985); Siham Sabar (married 1987); and Amal al-Sadah (married 2000). Some sources also list

29559-428: Was instrumental in establishing intelligence services in many countries, such as Germany 's Federal Intelligence Service . It has also provided support to several foreign political groups and governments, including planning, coordinating, training in torture , and technical support. It was involved in many regime changes and carrying out terrorist attacks and planned assassinations of foreign leaders. Since 2004,

29736-411: Was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public. The U.S. State Department accused Sudan of being a sponsor of international terrorism and Bin Laden of operating terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. However, according to Sudan officials, this stance became obsolete as the Islamist political leader Hassan al-Turabi lost influence in their country. The Sudanese wanted to engage with

29913-479: Was killed by U.S. special operations forces at his compound in Abbottabad . His corpse was buried in the Arabian Sea and he was succeeded by his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri on 16 June 2011. Bin Laden grew to become an influential ideologue who inspired several Islamist organizations. He was considered a war hero due to his role in successfully opposing the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and offered an articulate voice and organizational structure to many across

30090-416: Was known as the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which was the direct predecessor of the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency was created on July 26, 1947, when President Truman signed the National Security Act into law. A major impetus for the creation of the agency was growing tensions with the USSR following the end of World War II . Lawrence Houston, head counsel of the SSU , CIG, and, later CIA,

30267-408: Was needed to eliminate Jahiliyya not only from the Islamic homeland but from the face of the Earth. In addition, vigilance against Western and Jewish conspiracies against Islam would-be needed. Although Qutb was executed before he could fully spell out his ideology, his ideas were disseminated and expanded on by the later generations, among them Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Ayman Al-Zawahiri , who

30444-421: Was opposed to music on religious grounds, and his attitude towards technology was mixed. He was interested in earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants on the one hand, but rejected chilled water on the other. Bin Laden also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from

30621-424: Was principal draftsman of the National Security Act of 1947 , which dissolved the NIA and the CIG, and established both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1949, Houston helped to draft the Central Intelligence Agency Act ( Pub. L.   81–110 ), which authorized the agency to use confidential fiscal and administrative procedures, and exempted it from most limitations on

30798-477: Was sorely felt and it heightened the fear that a similar fate was in store for Europe. Islamism is described by Graham E. Fuller as part of identity politics , specifically the religiously oriented nationalism that emerged in the Third World in the 1970s: " resurgent Hinduism in India, Religious Zionism in Israel, militant Buddhism in Sri Lanka , resurgent Sikh nationalism in the Punjab , ' Liberation Theology ' of Catholicism in Latin America, and Islamism in

30975-407: Was still a closely held secret. His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an 11 August 1988, meeting between several senior leaders of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), Abdullah Azzam , and Bin Laden, where it was agreed to join Bin Laden's money with the expertise of the Islamic Jihad organization and take up the jihadist cause elsewhere after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan . Following

31152-427: Was that of a simple information gathering entity that would function more as a global news service rather than a spy network. His vision starkly contrasted with Donovan's, which focused on avoiding the creation of an American version of the Gestapo . On September 20, 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, Truman signed an executive order dissolving the OSS. By October 1945 its functions had been divided between

31329-458: Was ultimately forced to leave the country in 1991. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in the north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina. Meanwhile, on 8 November 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair , an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed . They discovered copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked

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