Title	7 July 2005 London bombings
Location	Aboard London Underground trains and a bus in central London
Target	General public
Date	Thursday, 7 July 20058:50 am–9:47 am
Timezone	BST
Type	Mass murder; suicide attack; terrorism
Fatalities	56 (including 4 suicide bombers)
Injuries	Approximately 700
Perps	Hasib HussainMohammad Sidique KhanGermaine LindsayShehzad Tanweer }}

The 7 July 2005 London bombings (often referred to as 7/7) were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks upon the United Kingdom, targeting civilians using London's public transport system during the morning rush hour.

On the morning of Thursday, 7 July 2005, four Islamic homegrown terrorists detonated four bombs, three in quick succession aboard London Underground trains across the city and, later, a fourth on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. Fifty-two people, as well as the four bombers, were killed in the attacks, and over 700 more were injured.

The explosions were caused by homemade organic peroxide-based devices packed into rucksacks. The bombings were followed by a series of attempted attacks on 21 July.

Attacks

London Underground

At 8:50 am, three bombs were detonated onboard London Underground trains within fifty seconds of each other: # The first exploded on a Circle line sub-surface train, number 204, travelling eastbound between Liverpool Street and Aldgate. The train had left King's Cross-St. Pancras about eight minutes earlier. At the time of the explosion, the third carriage of the train was approximately 100 yards (90 m) along the tunnel from Liverpool Street. The parallel track of the Hammersmith and City line between Liverpool Street and Aldgate East was also damaged in the blast. # The second device exploded in the second carriage of another Circle line sub-surface train, number 216, which had just left platform 4 at Edgware Road and was travelling westbound toward Paddington. The train had also left King's Cross-St. Pancras about eight minutes prior. There were several other trains nearby at the time of the explosion; an eastbound Circle line train (arriving at platform 3 at Edgware Road from Paddington) was passing next to the bombed train and was damaged, along with a wall that later collapsed. There were two other trains at Edgware Road: an unidentified train on platform 2, and a southbound Hammersmith & City line service that had just arrived at platform 1. # A third bomb was detonated on a Piccadilly line deep-level Underground train, number 311, travelling southbound from King's Cross-St. Pancras and Russell Square. The device exploded approximately one minute after the service departed King's Cross, by which time it had travelled about 500 yards (450 m). The explosion occurred at the rear of the first carriage of the train, in car number 166, causing severe damage to the rear of that carriage as well as the front of the second one. The surrounding tunnel also sustained damage.

It was originally thought that there had been six, rather than three, explosions on the Underground network. The bus bombing brought the reported total to seven; however, this was clarified later in the day. The errroneous reporting can be attributed to the fact that the blasts occurred on trains that were between stations, causing wounded passengers to emerge from both stations, giving the impression that there was an incident at each. Police also revised the timings of the tube blasts: initial reports had indicated that they occurred during a period of almost half-an-hour. This was due to initial confusion at London Underground (LU), where the explosions were initially believed to be have been caused by power surges. One initial report, in the minutes after the explosions, involved a person under a train, while another described a derailment (both of which did actually occur, but only as a result of the explosions). A code amber alert was declared by LU at 09:19, and LU began to cease the network's operations, ordering trains to continue only to the next station and suspending all services. The effects of the bombs are understood to have varied due to the differing characteristics of the tunnels in which they occurred:

The Circle line is a "cut and cover" sub-surface tunnel, about 7 m (21 ft) deep. As the tunnel contains two parallel tracks, it is relatively wide. The two explosions on the Circle line were probably able to vent their force into the tunnel, reducing their destructive force.

The Piccadilly line is a deep-level tunnel, up to 30 m (100 ft) below the surface and with narrow (3.56 m, or 11 ft 8¼ in) single-track tubes and just 15 cm (6 in) clearances. This confined space reflected the blast force, concentrating its effect.

Tavistock Square bus

Almost one hour after the attacks on the London Underground, a fourth bomb was detonated on the top deck of a number 30 double-decker bus, a Dennis Trident 2 (fleet number 17758, registration plate LX03BUF, two years in service at the time) operated by Stagecoach London and travelling its route from Marble Arch to Hackney Wick.

Earlier, the bus had passed through the King's Cross area as it travelled from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch. At its final destination, the bus turned around and started the return route to Hackney Wick. It left Marble Arch at 9 am and arrived at Euston bus station at 9:35 am, where crowds of people had been evacuated from the tube and were boarding buses.

The explosion at 9:47 am in Tavistock Square ripped off the roof and destroyed the rear portion of the bus. The blast took place near BMA House, the headquarters of the British Medical Association, on Upper Woburn Place. A number of doctors and medical staff in or near that building were able to provide immediate emergency assistance.

Witnesses reported seeing "half a bus flying through the air". ''BBC Radio 5 Live'' and ''The Sun'' later reported that two injured bus passengers said that they saw a man exploding in the bus.

The location of the bomb inside the bus meant the front of the vehicle remained mostly intact. Most of the passengers at the front of the top deck survived, as did those near the front of the lower deck, including the driver, but those at the top and lower rear of the bus suffered more serious injuries. The extent of the damage caused to the victims' bodies resulted in a lengthy delay in announcing the death toll from the bombing while police determined how many bodies were present and whether the bomber was one of them. A number of passers-by were also injured by the explosion and surrounding buildings were damaged by debris.

The bombed bus was subsequently covered with tarpaulin and removed by low-loader for forensic examination at a secure Ministry of Defence site. The vehicle was ultimately returned to Stagecoach and sold for breaking. A replacement bus, a new Alexander Dennis Enviro400 (fleet number 18500, registered LX55HGC) was named "Spirit of London".

Bombers

Profiles

The four suicide bombers were later identified and named as:

Mohammad Sidique Khan: aged 30 and of Pakistani descent. Khan detonated his bomb just after leaving Edgware Road on a train travelling toward Paddington, at 8:50 a.m. He lived in Beeston, Leeds, with his wife and young child, where he worked as a learning mentor at a primary school. The blast killed seven people, including himself.

Shehzad Tanweer: aged 22 and also of Pakistani descent. He detonated a bomb aboard a train travelling between Liverpool Street and Aldgate, at 8:50 a.m. He lived in Leeds with his mother and father, working in a fish-and-chips shop. He was killed by the explosion along with seven members of the public.

Germaine Lindsay: 19-year-old Jamaican-born Lindsay detonated his device on a train travelling between King's Cross-St. Pancras and Russell Square, at 8:50 a.m. He lived in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, with his pregnant wife and young son. His blast killed 27 people, including himself.

Hasib Hussain: the youngest of the quartet at 18 years of age, Hussain, who was of Pakistani descent, detonated his bomb on the top deck of a double-decker bus at 9:47 a.m. He lived in Leeds with his brother and sister-in-law. Fourteen people, including Hussain, perished in the explosion in Tavistock Square.

Charles Clarke, Home Secretary when the attacks occurred, described the bombers as "cleanskins," a term describing them as previously unknown to authorities until they carried out their attacks. On the day of the attacks, all four had travelled to Luton, Bedfordshire, by car, then to London by train. They were recorded on CCTV arriving at King's Cross station at about 08:30 am.

On 12 July 2005, the BBC reported that the Metropolitan Police Service's anti-terrorism chief Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke had said that property belonging to one of the bombers had been found at both the Aldgate and Edgware Road blasts.

Videotaped statements

Two of the bombers made videotapes describing their reasons for becoming what they called "soldiers". In a videotape broadcast by Al Jazeera on 1 September 2005, Mohammad Sidique Khan, described his motivation. The tape had been edited and also featured al-Qaeda member — and future leader — Ayman al-Zawahiri:

A second part of the tape continues

On 6 July 2006, a videotaped statement by Shehzad Tanweer was broadcast by Al-Jazeera. In the video, which may have been edited to include remarks by al-Zawahiri who appeared in Khan's video, Tanweer said:

Tanweer argued that the non-Muslims of Britain deserve such attacks because they voted for a government which "continues to oppress our mothers, children, brothers and sisters in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya."

Effects and response

Initial reports

Initial reports suggested that a power surge on the Underground power grid had caused explosions in power circuits. This was later ruled out by power suppliers National Grid. Commentators suggested that the explanation had been made because of bomb damage to power lines along the tracks; the rapid series of power failures caused by the explosions (or power being ended by means of switches at the locations to permit evacuation) looked similar, from the point of view of a control room operator, to a cascading series of circuit breaker operations that would result from a major power surge. A couple of hours after the bombings, Home Secretary Charles Clarke confirmed the incidents were terrorist attacks.

Security alerts

Although there were security alerts at many locations throughout the United Kingdom, no other terrorist incidents occurred outside of central London. Suspicious packages were destroyed in controlled explosions in Edinburgh, Brighton, Coventry, Southampton, Portsmouth, Darlington and Nottingham. Security across the country was increased to the highest alert level.

''The Times'' reported on 17 July 2005 that police sniper units were following as many as a dozen al-Qaeda suspects in Britain. The covert armed teams were ordered to shoot to kill if surveillance suggested that a terror suspect was carrying a bomb and he refused to surrender if challenged. A member of the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Firearms Command said: "These units are trained to deal with any eventuality. Since the London bombs they have been deployed to look at certain people."

Transport and telecoms disruption

Vodafone reported that its mobile telephone network reached capacity at about 10 a.m. on the day of the bombings, and it was forced to initiate emergency procedures to prioritise emergency calls (ACCOLC, the 'access overload control'). Other mobile phone networks also reported failures. The BBC speculated that the telephone system was shut down by security services to prevent the possibility of mobile phones being used to trigger bombs. Although this option was considered, it became clear later that the intermittent unavailability of both mobile and landline telephone systems was due only to excessive usage.

For most of the day, central London's public transport system was largely out of service following the complete closure of the Underground, the closure of the Zone 1 bus network, and the evacuation of incident sites such as Russell Square. Bus services restarted at 4 p.m. on 7 July, and most mainline train stations resumed service soon afterward. River vessels were pressed into service to provide a free alternative to overcrowded trains and buses. Local lifeboats were required to act as safety boats, including the Sheerness lifeboat from the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. Thousands of people chose to walk home or to the nearest Zone 2 bus or train station. Most of the Underground, apart from the stations affected by the bombs, resumed service the next morning, though some commuters chose to stay at home.

Much of King's Cross station was also closed, with the ticket hall and waiting area being used as a makeshift hospital to treat casualties. Although the station reopened later during the day, only suburban rail services were able to use it, with Great North Eastern Railway trains terminating at Peterborough (the service was fully restored on 9 July). King's Cross St. Pancras tube station remained available only to Metropolitan line services in order to facilitate the ongoing recovery and investigation for a week, though Victoria line services were restored on 15 July and the Northern line on 18 July. St. Pancras station, located next to King's Cross, was shut on the afternoon of the attacks, with all Midland Mainline trains terminating at Leicester, causing disruption to services to Sheffield, Nottingham and Derby.

By 25 July there were still disruptions to the Piccadilly line (which was not running between Arnos Grove and Hyde Park Corner in either direction), the Hammersmith & City line (which was only running a shuttle service between Hammersmith and Paddington) and the Circle line (which was suspended in its entirety). The Metropolitan line resumed services between Moorgate and Aldgate on 25 July. The Hammersmith & City line was also operating a peak-hours service between Whitechapel and Baker Street. Most of the remainder of the Underground network was however operating normally.

On 2 August the Hammersmith & City line resumed normal service; the Circle line was still suspended, though all Circle line stations are also served by other lines. The Piccadilly line service resumed on 4 August.

Economic effect

There were limited reactions to the attack in the world economy as measured by financial market and exchange rate activity. The value of the British pound decreased 0.89 cents to a 19-month low against the U.S. dollar. The FTSE 100 Index fell by about 200 points during the two hours after the first attack. This was its greatest decrease since the invasion of Iraq, and it triggered the London Stock Exchange's special measures, restricting panic selling and aimed at ensuring market stability. However, by the time the market closed it had recovered to only 71.3 points (1.36%) down on the previous day's three-year closing high. Markets in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain also closed about 1% down on the day.

U.S. market indexes increased slightly, partly because the dollar index increased sharply against the pound and the euro. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 31.61 to 10,302.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index increased 7.01 to 2075.66. The S&P; 500 increased 2.93 points to 1197.87 after decreasing as much as 1%. Every benchmark value gained 0.3%.

The market values increased again on 8 July as it became clear that the damage caused by the bombings was not as great as thought initially. By end of trading the market had recovered fully to above its level at start of trading on 7 July. Insurers in the UK tend to reinsure their terrorist liabilities in excess of the first £75,000,000 with Pool Re, a mutual insurer established by the government with major insurers. Pool Re has substantial reserves and newspaper reports indicated that claims would easily be funded.

On 9 July, the Bank of England, HM Treasury and the Financial Services Authority revealed that they had instigated contingency plans immediately after the attacks to ensure that the UK financial markets could keep trading. This involved the activation of a "secret chatroom" on the British government's Financial Sector Continuity website, which allowed the institutions to communicate with the country's banks and market dealers.

Media response

Continuous news coverage of the attacks was broadcast throughout 7 July, by both BBC One and ITV1, uninterrupted until 7 p.m. Sky News did not broadcast any advertisements for 24 hours. ITN confirmed later that its coverage on ITV1 was its longest uninterrupted on-air broadcast of its 50 year history. Television coverage was notable for the use of mobile telephone footage sent in by members of the public and live pictures from traffic CCTV cameras. Local and national radio also generally either suspended regular programming for news reports, or provided regular updates as part of scheduled programmes.

Several movies and drama broadcasts were cancelled or postponed. BBC Radio 4 ended its scheduled Classic Serial without explanation; it was to have been John Buchan's ''Greenmantle'', the story of an attempt by German secret agents to engineer a jihad against the British in the Middle East during World War I. ITV replaced the movies ''The X Files'', in which a building is partly destroyed by a bomb, with ''Stakeout'', and replaced ''The Siege'', where a bomb destroys a bus full of passengers, with ''Gone in 60 Seconds''.

The BBC soap opera ''EastEnders'' was forced to re-edit that night's episode, which contained a sequence involving a house explosion, ambulances and survivors choking from smoke inhalation. The isolated residence used in the ''Big Brother'' series that was occurring at the time decided against telling the housemates of the day's attacks after the producers determined that all relatives and friends of the housemates were safe. Sky One broadcast an episode of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' in place of ''Terror Attacks: Could You Survive ...?''.

Also, Viacom-owned music channels MTV, VH1, TMF and all their sub-channels broadcast a 'sombre' music playlist for the rest of the day, and into some of the next (the MTV studios were situated in Camden Town, close to some of the bomb sites). A two-part episode of ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'', directed by Quentin Tarantino and concerning a suicide bomber and victims being trapped underground, due to be shown on 12 July on Five, was postponed for a week.

The BBC Online website recorded an all-time bandwidth peak of 11 Gb/s at midday on 7 July. BBC News received some 1 billion total accesses throughout the course of the day (including all images, text and HTML), serving some 5.5 terabytes of data. At peak times during the day there were 40,000 page requests per second for the BBC News website. The previous day's announcement of the 2012 Summer Olympics being awarded to London resulted in up to 5 Gb/s. The previous all time maximum for the website followed the announcement of the Michael Jackson verdict, which used 7.2 Gb/s.

On 12 July it was reported that the British National Party released leaflets showing images of the 'No. 30 bus' after it was destroyed. The slogan, "Maybe now it's time to start listening to the BNP" was printed beside the photo. Home Secretary Charles Clarke described it as an attempt by the BNP to "cynically exploit the current tragic events in London to further their spread of hatred".

Governments and media outside the UK have regarded successive British governments as unduly lenient towards radical Islamist militants, so long as they were involved in activities outside the UK. Britain's reluctance to extradite or prosecute terrorist suspects resulted in London being dubbed ''Londonistan''. The policies were believed to be a cynical ''quid pro quo'', the UK accused of avoiding attacks at home in exchange for refusal to extradite.

Claims of responsibility

In the opinion of the former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Stevens, before the identity of the bombers became known they were almost certainly born or based in Britain. The attacks would have required extensive preparation and prior reconnaissance efforts, and a familiarity with bomb-making and the London transport network as well as access to significant amounts of bomb-making equipment and chemicals.

Some newspaper editorials in Iran have blamed the bombing on British or American authorities seeking to further justify the War on Terror, and have claimed that the plan that included the bombings also involved increasing harassment of Muslims in Europe.

On 13 August 2005, ''The Independent'' reported, quoting police and MI5 sources, that the bombers acted independently of an al-Qaeda terror mastermind some place abroad.

On 1 September it was reported that al-Qaeda officially claimed responsibility for the attacks in a videotape broadcast by the Arab television network Al Jazeera. However, an official inquiry by the British government reported that the tape claiming responsibility had been edited after the attacks, and that the bombers did not have direct assistance from al-Qaeda. Zabi uk-Taifi, an al-Qaeda commander arrested in Pakistan in January 2009, may have had connections to the bombings, according to Pakistani intelligence sources.

Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades

A second claim of responsibility was posted on the Internet by another al-Qaeda-linked group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades. The group had, however, previously falsely claimed responsibility for events that were the result of technical problems, such as the 2003 London blackout and the U.S. Northeast Blackout of 2003.

Conspiracy theories

A survey of 500 British Muslims undertaken by Channel 4 News found that 24% believed the four bombers blamed for the attacks did not perform them. During 2006, the government had refused to hold a public inquiry, stating that "it would be a ludicrous diversion". Prime Minister Tony Blair said an independent inquiry would "undermine support" for MI5, while the leader of the opposition, David Cameron, said only a full inquiry would "get to the truth". In reaction to revelations about the extent of security service investigations into the bombers prior to the attack, the Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, said: "It is becoming more and more clear that the story presented to the public and Parliament is at odds with the facts." However, the decision against an independent public inquest was later reversed. A full public inquest into the bombings was subsequently begun from October 2010. Coroner Lady Justice Hallett stated that the inquest would examine how each victim died and whether MI5, if it had worked better, could have prevented the attack.

There have been various conspiracy theories proposed about the bombings, including the suggestion that the bombers were 'patsies', based on claims about timings of the trains and the train from Luton, supposed explosions underneath the carriages, and allegations of the faking of the one time-stamped and dated photograph of the bombers at Luton station. Claims made by one theorist in the Internet video ''7/7 Ripple Effect'' were examined by the BBC documentary series ''The Conspiracy Files'', in an episode titled ''7/7'' first broadcast on 30 June 2009, which claims to have debunked many of the video's claims.

On the day of the bombings Peter Power gave interviews on BBC Radio 5 Live and ITV saying that he was working on a crisis management simulation drill, in the City of London, "based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning", when he heard that an attack was going on in real life. He described this as a co-incidence. He also gave an interview to the ''Manchester Evening News'' where he spoke of "an exercise involving mock broadcasts when it happened for real". After a few days he dismissed it as a "spooky coincidence" on Canadian TV.

Investigation

Initial results

colspan=2	Number of fatalities
Aldgate	7
Edgware Road	6
King's Cross	26
Tavistock Square	13
Total number of victims	52
Suicide bombers	4
Total fatalities	56

Initially, there was much confused information from police sources as to the origin, method, and even timings of the explosions. Forensic examiners had thought initially that military grade plastic explosives were used and, as the blasts were thought to have been simultaneous, that synchronised timed detonators were employed. This theory changed as more information became available. Home-made organic peroxide-based devices were used, according to a May 2006 report from the British government's Intelligence and Security Committee.

Fifty-six people, including the four suicide bombers, were killed by the attacks and about 700 were injured, of whom about 100 were hospitalised for at least one night. The incident was the deadliest single act of terrorism in the United Kingdom since the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people, and the deadliest bombing in London since the Second World War. More people were killed by the bombings than in any single Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) attack (in Great Britain or Ireland) during The Troubles.

Police examined about 2,500 items of CCTV footage and forensic evidence from the scenes of the attacks. The bombs were probably placed on the floors of the trains and bus.

Investigators identified four men whom they alleged had been the suicide bombers. This made the bombings the first ever suicide attack in the British Isles. Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and future President of France, caused consternation at the British Home Office when he briefed the press that one of the names had been described the previous year at an Anglo-French security meeting as an asset of British intelligence. Home Secretary Charles Clarke said later that this was "not his recollection".

Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency's anti-terrorism centre, told ''The Guardian'' that "two unexploded bombs" were recovered as well as "mechanical timing devices", although this claim was explicitly rejected by London's Metropolitan Police Service.

Police raids

Police raided six properties in the Leeds area on 12 July: two houses in Beeston, two in Thornhill, one in Holbeck and one in Alexandra Grove in Hyde Park, Leeds. One man was arrested. Officers also raided a residential property on Northern Road in the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury on 13 July.

According to West Yorkshire Police a significant amount of explosive material was found in the Leeds raids and a controlled explosion was carried out at one of the properties. Explosives were also found in the vehicle associated with one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, at Luton train station and subjected to controlled explosion.

Luton cell

There was speculation about a possible association between the bombers and another alleged Islamist cell in Luton which was ended during August 2004. The Luton group was uncovered after Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan was arrested in Lahore, Pakistan. His laptop computer was said to contain plans for tube attacks in London, as well as attacks on financial buildings in New York City and Washington, D.C. The group was subject to surveillance but on 2 August 2004 the ''New York Times'' published Khan's name, citing Pakistani sources. The news leak forced police in Britain and Canada to make arrests before their investigations were complete. The U.S. government later said they had given the name to some journalists as "background information", for which Tom Ridge, the U.S. homeland security secretary, apologised.

When the Luton cell was ended, one of the London bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan (no known relation), was scrutinised briefly by MI5 who determined that he was not a likely threat and he was not surveilled.

March 2007 arrests

On 22 March 2007, three men were arrested in connection with the bombings. Two were arrested at 1 pm at Manchester Airport, attempting to board a flight bound for Pakistan that afternoon. They were apprehended by undercover officers who had been following the men as part of a surveillance operation. They had not intended to arrest the men that day, but believed they could not risk letting the suspects leave the country. A third man was arrested in the Beeston area of Leeds at an address on the street where one of the suicide bombers had lived before the attacks.

May 2007 arrests

On 9 May 2007 police made four further arrests, three in Yorkshire and one in Selly Oak, Birmingham. Hasina Patel, widow of the presumed ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan, was among those arrested for "commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism".

Three of those arrested, including Patel, were released on 15 May. The fourth, Khalid Khaliq, an unemployed single father of three, was charged on 17 July 2007 with possessing an al-Qaeda training manual, but the charge was not related to the 2005 London attacks. Conviction for possession of a document containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism carried a maximum ten-year jail sentence.

Deportation of Abdullah el-Faisal

Abdullah el-Faisal was deported to Jamaica, his country of origin, from Britain on 25 May 2006 after reaching the parole date in his prison sentence. He was found guilty of three charges of soliciting the murder of Jews, Americans and Hindus and two charges of using threatening words to incite racial hatred during 2003 and, despite an appeal, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. During 2006 John Reid alleged to MPs that el-Faisal had influenced Jamaican-born Briton Germaine Lindsay into participating in the 7/7 bombings.

Investigation of Mohammad Sidique Khan

''The Guardian'' reported 3 May 2007 that police had investigated Mohammad Sidique Khan twice during 2005. The newspaper said it "learned that on 27 January 2005, police took a statement from the manager of a garage in Leeds which had loaned Khan a courtesy car while his vehicle was being repaired." It also said that "on the afternoon of 3 February an officer from Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch carried out inquiries with the company which had insured a car in which Khan was seen driving almost a year earlier". Nothing about these inquiries appeared in the report by Parliament's intelligence and security committee after it investigated the 7 July attacks. Scotland Yard described the 2005 inquiries as "routine", while security sources said they were related to the fertiliser bomb plot.

Reports of warnings

While no warnings before the 7 July bombings have been documented officially or acknowledged, the following are sometimes quoted as indications either of the events to come or of some foreknowledge. One of the London bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was briefly scrutinised by MI5 who determined that he was not a likely threat and he was not put under surveillance. Some news stories, current a few hours after the attacks, questioned the British government's contention that there had not been any warning or prior intelligence. It was reported by CBS News that a senior Israeli official said that British police told the Israeli embassy in London minutes before the explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the UK capital. This was report was later retracted by the Associated Press. An AP report used by a number of news sites, including ''The Guardian'', attributed the initial report of a warning to an Israeli "Foreign Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity", but added Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's later denial on Israel Defense Forces Radio: "There was no early information about terrorist attacks." A similar report on the site of right-wing Israeli paper ''Israel National News/Arutz Sheva'' attributed the story to "Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources." Although the report has been retracted, the original stories are still circulated as a result of their presence on the news websites' archives. In an interview with the Portuguese newspaper ''Público'' a month after the 2004 Madrid train bombings, Syrian-born cleric Omar Bakri Muhammad warned that "a very well-organised" London-based group which he called 'al-Qaeda Europe', was "on the verge of launching a big operation." During December 2004, Bakri vowed that if Western governments did not change their policies, Muslims would give them "a 9/11, day after day after day." According to a 17 November 2004 post on the ''Newsweek'' website, U.S. authorities during 2004 had evidence that terrorists were planning a possible attack in London. In addition, the article stated that, "fears of terror attacks have prompted FBI agents based in the U.S. embassy in London to avoid travelling on London's popular underground railway (or tube) system." In an interview published by the German magazine ''Bild am Sonntag'' dated 10 July 2005, Meir Dagan, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, said that the agency's office in London was alerted to the impending attack at 8:43 am, six minutes before the first bomb detonated. The warning of a possible attack was a result of an investigation into an earlier terrorist bombing in Tel Aviv, which may have been related to the London bombings.

Anwar al-Awlaki

''The Daily Telegraph'' reported that radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki inspired the bombers. The bombers transcribed lectures of al-Awlaki while plotting the bombings. His materials were found in the possession of accused accomplices of the suicide bombers. Awlaki has also been linked to the 2006 Toronto terrorism plot in Canada, the 2007 Fort Dix attack plot in New Jersey, the 2009 Fort Hood shooting in Texas, and the failed attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, a commercial flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, on Christmas Day, 2009.

Independent inquiry

In October 2010 an independent coroner's inquest of the bombings began. Lady Justice Hallett was been appointed to hear the inquest, which would consider both whether the attacks were preventable, and the emergency service response to them.

After seven months of evidence and deliberation, the verdict of the inquiry was released and read in the Houses of Parliament on 9 May 2011. It determined that the 52 victims had been unlawfully killed; their deaths could not have been prevented, and they would probably have died "whatever time the emergency services reached and rescued them". Hallett concluded that MI5 had not made every possible improvement since the attacks but that it was not "right or fair" to say more attention should have been paid to ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan prior to 7 July. She also decided that there should be no public inquiry.

The report provided nine recommendations to various bodies: #With reference to a photograph of Khan and Shehzad Tanweer which was so badly cropped by MI5 that the pair were virtually unrecognisable to the U.S. authorities asked to review it, the inquiry recommended that procedures be improved so that humans asked to view photographs are shown them in best possible quality. #In relation to the suggestion that MI5 failed to realise the suspects were important quickly enough, the inquiry recommended that MI5 improves the way it records decisions relating to suspect assessment. #The inquiry recommended that 'major incident' training for all frontline staff, especially those working on the Underground, is reviewed. #With regards to the facts that London Underground (LU) is unable to declare a 'major incident' itself and that LU was not invited to an emergency meeting at Scotland Yard at 10:30 am on the morning of the bombings, the inquiry recommends that the way Transport for London (TfL) and the London resilience team are alerted to major incidents and the way the emergency services are informed is reviewed. #Regarding the confusion on 7 July 2005 over the emergency rendezvous point, it was recommended that a common initial rendezvous point is permanently-staffed and advised to emergency services; #In response to the evidence that some firefighters refused to walk on the tracks at Aldgate to reach the bombed train because they had not received confirmation that the electric current had been switched off, the inquiry recommended a review into how emergency workers confirm whether the current is off after a major incident. #A recommendation was made that TfL reviewed the provision of stretchers and first aid equipment at Underground stations. #Training of London Ambulance Service (LAS) staff of "multi-casualty triage" should be reviewed, following concerns in the inquet that some casualties were not actually treated by paramedics who had triaged them. #A final recommendation was made to the Department of Health, the Mayor of London and the London resilience team to review the capability and funding of emergency medical care in the city.

Newspaper phone hacking

It was revealed in July 2011 that relatives of some of the victims of the bombings may have had their telephones accessed by the ''News of the World'' in the aftermath of the attacks. The revelations added to an existing controversy over phone hacking by the tabloid newspaper.

The fathers of two victims, one in the Edgware Road blast and another at Russell Square, told the BBC that police officers investigating the alleged hacking had warned them that their contact details were found on a target list, while a former firefighter who helped injured passengers escape from Edgware Road also said he had been contacted by police who were looking into the hacking allegations. A number of survivors from the bombed trains also revealed that police had warned them their phones may have been accessed and their messages intercepted, and in some cases officers advised them to change security codes and PIN numbers.

Memorials

Since the bombings, the United Kingdom and other nations have honoured the victims in several ways. Most of these memorials have included moments of silence, candlelit vigils, and the laying of flowers at the attack sites. Foreign leaders have also remembered the dead by ordering their flags to be flown at half-mast, signing books of condolences at embassies of the UK, and issuing messages of support and condolences to the British people.

United Kingdom

The government ordered the Union Flag to be flown at half-mast on 8 July. The following day, the Bishop of London led prayers for the victims during a service paying tribute to the role of women during the Second World War. A vigil, called by the Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Muslim Association of Britain, was held from 5 pm, at Friends Meeting House on Euston Road.

A two-minute silence was held on 14 July 2005 throughout Europe. Thousands attended a vigil at 6 pm on Trafalgar Square. After an initial silence there was a series of speakers for two hours. A memorial service was held at St. Paul's Cathedral on 1 November 2005. To mark the first anniversary of the attack, a two-minute silence was observed at midday across the country.

A permanent memorial was opened in 2009 by Prince Charles in Hyde Park to mark the fourth anniversary of the bombings.

International

U.S. President George W. Bush visited the British embassy the day after the bombings, upon his return from the G8 summit in Scotland, and signed a book of condolence. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Army band played ''God Save the Queen'' outside the British embassy in the city. On 12 July, a Detroit Symphony Orchestra brass ensemble played ''God Save the Queen'' during the pre-game festivities of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Comerica Park in Detroit.

Flags were ordered to fly at half-mast across Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The Union Flag was raised to half-mast alongside the Flag of Australia on Sydney Harbour Bridge as a show of "sympathy between nations".

Moments of silence were observed in the European Parliament, the Polish parliament and by the Irish government on 14 July, at the same time as in the United Kingdom. ''God Save the Queen'' was played at the changing of the royal guard at Plaza de Oriente in Madrid in memorial to the victims of the attacks. The ceremony was attended by the British ambassador to Spain and members of the Spanish Royal Family. After the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the UK had hosted a similar ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

See also

Jean Charles de Menezes

COBRA

2007 London car bombs

References

Further reading

;Support

Official 7 July support website

;Official reports

Greater London Authority report ''(PDF)''

House of Commons report ''(PDF)''

Intelligence and Security Committee report – May 2006 ''(PDF)''

Intelligence and Security Committee report – May 2009 ''(PDF)''

;Medical report

The account of the doctor leading the team at the scene of the Tavistock Square bus bomb. Retrieved 11 August 2005

;Radio broadcasts;

The Jon Gaunt show originally broadcast live at 9:00 am on 7 July 2005 on BBC London. First mention of events at approximately 27 minutes into the broadcast.

;Photos

Images of the victims

Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet writes about posters honouring the terrorists

Category:2005 in the United Kingdom Category:Anwar al-Awlaki Category:Islamic terrorism July 2005 London bombings Category:Murder in 2005 Category:Terrorism in London Category:Terrorist incidents in 2005

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Dr. Bruce Lipton (born October 21, 1944) is an American developmental biologist, who is best known for promoting the idea that genes and DNA can be manipulated by a person's beliefs. He teaches at the New Zealand College of Chiropractic.

Biography & Education

Lipton was born in Mt. Kisco, an affluent town in New York. In 1966 he received a B.A. in Biology from C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University and then his PhD in developmental biology from the University of Virginia in 1971.

Academic Work

In 1973 he taught anatomy as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin School Of Medicine before coming to St. George's University School of Medicine, where he became a Professor of Anatomy for 3 years. From 1987 to 1992 he was involved in research at Penn State and Stanford University Medical Center. Since 1993 he has been teaching in non-tenure positions at different universities.

His publications consist mainly of research on the development of muscle cells.

Books

2005 ''The Biology of Belief – Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles''

2009 ''Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There from Here'' (co-authored with Steve Bhaerman.

Other Work

Lipton has appeared on several radio shows as well as ''The Elaine Smitha Show''

In addition to his appearances on radio and television, he has been a speaker at the Institute of Noetic Sciences's 13th international conference, the Spiritual Science Fellowship International Conference, and various other conventions.

He also has appeared in the Kymatica Documentary.

Awards and honors

2009 Goi Peace Award

References

External links

Nature, Nurture, & the Power of Love: Conscious Parenting (part 1 of 2)

Nature, Nurture, & the Power of Love: Conscious Parenting (part 2 of 2)

Bruce Lipton - The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet 1of 2.avi

Bruce Lipton - The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet 2o f2.avi

Genetics, Epigenetics, and Destiny - Interview with Dr. Bruce Lipton

Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:American academics Category:American biologists Category:Developmental biologists Category:Pennsylvania State University faculty Category:Stanford University faculty Category:University of Virginia alumni Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty

es:Bruce Lipton it:Bruce Lipton

name	Steve Pieczenik|
birth date	December 07, 1943
Birth place	Havana, Cuba
occupation	Publisher, Civil servant, Psychiatrist
nationality	American
period	unknown–present
Genre	Military fiction, Spy fiction
website	http://www.stevepieczenik.com }}

Steve Pieczenik, MD, PhD (born December 7, 1943 in Havana, Cuba) is an American psychiatrist, former State Department official, author and publisher.

Early Life and Education

Pieczenik was born of Russian-Polish parents in Cuba and reared in France. His father, a doctor from Dombrovicz who studied and worked in Toulouse, fled Poland before World War II. His mother, a Russian Jew from Bialystok, fled Europe after many of her family members were killed. The couple met in Portugal, where both had fled ahead of the Nazi invaders. Pieczenik was born in Cuba—out of wedlock in 1943. After living in Toulouse, France for six years, Pieczenik's family migrated to the United States where they settled in the Harlem area of New York City, New York. Steve Pieczenik was eight years old when his parents received their visa to the US.

Pieczenik is a classical pianist who wrote a full-length musical at the age of eight.

Pieczenik is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and has a doctorate in international relations from MIT.

According to Pieczenik's autobiography, he attended Booker T. Washington High School in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Pieczenik received a full scholarship to Cornell University at the age of 16. In 1964, Pieczenik claims he received a B.A. degree in Pre-Medicine and Psychology from Cornell, later attending Cornell University Medical College. In his spare time, he attained a PhD in international relations from MIT while studying at Harvard Medical School. Pieczenik claims to be the first psychiatrist ever to receive a PhD focusing on international relations.

While doing his psychiatric residency at Harvard, he was awarded the Harry E. Solomon award for his paper entitled "The hierarchy of ego-defense mechanisms in foreign policy decision making."

An article written by Pieczenik - "Psychological dimensions of international dependency" appears in The American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol 132(4), Apr 1975, 428-431.

Professional life

Pieczenik was deputy assistant secretary of state under Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance and James Baker. His expertise includes foreign policy, international crisis management and psychological warfare. He served the presidential administrations of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush in the capacity of deputy assistant secretary.

In 1974, Pieczenik joined the U.S. State Department as a consultant to restructure its Office for the Prevention of Terrorism.

In 1976, Pieczenik was made deputy assistant secretary of state for management.

At the State Department, he served as a "specialist on hostage taking." He has been credited with devising successful negotiating strategies and tactics used in several high profile hostage situations including the 1976 TWA Flight 355 hostage situation and the 1977 kidnapping of the son of Cyprus' president. He was involved in negotiations for the release of Aldo Moro after Moro was kidnapped. As a renowned psychiatrist, he was utilized as a press source for early information on the mental state of the hostages involved in the Iranian Hostage Crisis after they were freed. In 1977, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Mary McGrory described Stephen Pieczenik as "one of the most 'brilliantly competent' men in the field of terrorism." He worked "side by side" with Police Chief Maurice J. Cullinane in the Washington, D.C. command center of Mayor Walter Washington during the 1977 Hanafi Siege. In 1978, Pieczenik was known as "a psychiatrist and political scientist in the U.S. State Department whose credentials and experiences are probably unique among officials handling terrorist situations."

On September 17, 1978 the Camp David Accords were signed. Pieczenik was at the secret Camp David negotiations leading up to the signing of the Accords. He worked out strategy and tactics based on psychopolitical dynamics. He correctly predicted that, given their common backgrounds, Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin would get along.

In 1979, he resigned as deputy assistant secretary of state over the handling of the Iranian hostage crisis.

In the early 1980s, Pieczenik wrote an article for The Washington Post in which he claims to have heard a senior U.S. official in the State Department Operations Center give permission for the attack that led to the death of U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1979.

Pieczenik got to know Syrian President Hafez Assad well during his 20 years in the US State Department.

In 1982, Pieczenik was mentioned in a New York Times article as "a psychiatrist who has treated C.I.A. employees".

In 2001, Pieczenik operated as chief executive officer of Strategic Intelligence Associates, a consulting firm.

Dr. Pieczenik has been affiliated in a professional capacity as a psychiatrist with the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Pieczenik has previously consulted with both the United States Institute of Peace and the RAND Corporation

Dr. Pieczenik is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Pieczenik is known to be fluent in five languages including Russian, Spanish and French

Dr. Pieczenik has lectured at the National Defense University.

Writing ventures

Pieczenik has made a number of ventures into fiction, both as an author (of ''State of Emergency'' and a number of other books) and as a business partner of Tom Clancy for several series of novels.

He studied writing along with medicine beginning with drama and poetry. But eventually "I turned to fiction because it allows me to address reality as it is or could be."

Pieczenik received a listed credit as "co-creator" for both Tom Clancy's Op-Center and Tom Clancy's Net Force, two best-selling series of novels, as a result of a business relationship with Tom Clancy. He was not directly involved in writing books in these series, but "assembled a team" including the ghost-writer who did author the novels, and someone to handle the "packaging" of the novels. The Op-Center series alone had grossed more than 28 million dollars in net profit for the partnership by 2003.

Books authored include: novel ''Mind Palace'' (1985), novel ''Blood Heat'' (1989), self-help ''My Life Is Great!'' (1990) and paper-back edition ''Hidden Passions'' (1991), novel ''Maximum Vigilance'' (1993), novel ''Pax Pacifica'' (1995), novel ''State Of Emergency'' (1999), novel ''My Beloved Talleyrand'' (2005). He's also credited under the pseudonym ''Alexander Court'' for writing the novels ''Active Measures'' (2001), and ''Active Pursuit'' (2002).

Dr. Pieczenik has previously had at least two articles published in the American Intelligence Journal, a peer-reviewed journal published by the National Military Intelligence Association.

In September 2010, Dr. John Neustadt was recognized by Elsevier as being one of the Top Ten Cited Authors in 2007 & 2008 for his article, "Mitochondrial dysfunction and molecular pathways of disease." This article was co-authored with Dr. Pieczenik.

Dr. Pieczenik is the co-author of the published textbook, Foundations and Applications of Medical Biochemistry in Clinical Practice.

Personal views

In 1992, Pieczenik told Newsday that in his professional opinion, President Bush was "clinically depressed." As a result, he was brought up on an ethics charge before the American Psychiatric Association and reprimanded. He subsequently quit the APA.

He calls himself a "maverick troublemaker. You make your own rules. You pay the consequences."

On May 3, 2011, radio host Alex Jones aired an interview in which Dr. Pieczenik claimed that Osama Bin Laden had died of Marfan syndrome back in July 2002, and that the attacks on the United States on 9/11 were part of a false flag operation by the American government.

External links

References

Category:Living people Category:American military writers Category:American thriller writers Category:American spy fiction writers Category:American psychiatrists Category:Tom Clancy Category:American people of Polish descent Category:American people of Russian descent Category:Immigrants to the United States Category:Council on Foreign Relations Category:1943 births

fr:Steve Pieczenik

Name	Osama bin Laden
Birth date	March 10, 1957
Birth place	Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Death date	May 02, 2011
Death place	Abbottabad, Pakistan
Placeofburial	North Arabian Sea
Religion	Sunni Islam (Qutbism)
Years active	1979–2011
Death cause	Ballistic trauma
Successor	Ayman Al-Zawahiri
Spouse(s)	Najwa GhanhemKhadijah SharifKhairiah SabarSiham SabarAmal Ahmed al-Sadah
Children
Allegiance	Al-Qaeda
Serviceyears	1988–2011
Battles	Soviet war in AfghanistanWar on Terror: War in Afghanistan *Battle of Tora Bora War in North-West Pakistan *Operation Neptune Spear }}

}} Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (; , ''''; March 10, 1957 May 2, 2011) was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.

Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, with a bounty by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

After being placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list, bin Laden remained in hiding during three U.S. presidential administrations. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs and CIA operatives in a covert operation ordered by United States President Barack Obama. Shortly after his death, bin Laden's body was buried at sea. Al-Qaeda acknowledged his death on May 6, 2011, vowing to retaliate.

Early life and education

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem). In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.

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 the late 1950s or early 1960s, and they are still together. 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 Wahhabi Muslim. From 1968 to 1976, he attended the élite secular Al-Thager Model School. He studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned 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 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 fortunes of Arsenal F.C.

Personal life

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria; they were divorced before September 11, 2001. Bin Laden's 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 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 Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movement.

Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot 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 United States, when he accidentally flew a plane into power lines.

The FBI described bin Laden as an adult as tall and thin, between 6 ft 4 in and 6 ft 6 in (193–198 cm) in height and weighing about 165 pounds (75 kg). Interviewer Lawrence Wright, on the other hand, described him as quite slender, but not particularly tall. Bin Laden had an olive complexion and was left-handed, usually walking with a cane. He wore a plain white turban and he had stopped wearing the traditional Saudi male headdress. Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.

Name

There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English; bin Laden's name is most frequently rendered "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 "Usama bin Ladin", both of which may be abbreviated as "UBL". Less common renderings include "Ussamah bin Ladin" and, in the French-language media, "Oussama ben Laden". Other spellings include "Binladen" or, as used by his family in the West, "Binladin". The decapitalization of ''bin'' is based on the convention of leaving short prepositions and articles uncapitalized in surnames; however, ''bin'' means "son of" and is not, strictly speaking, a preposition or article. The spellings with ''o'' and ''e'' come from a Persian-influenced pronunciation also used in Afghanistan, where bin Laden spent many years.

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, a Kindite Hadhrami tribesman; "Laden" refers not to bin Laden's great-grandfather, who was named Aboud, but to a more distant ancestor.

The Arabic linguistic convention would be to refer to him as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden" alone, as "bin Laden" is a patronymic, not a surname in the Western manner. According to bin Laden's son Omar bin Laden, the family's hereditary surname is "al-Qahtani" (, ''āl-Qaḥṭānī''), but bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden never officially registered the name.

Osama bin Laden had also assumed the ''kunyah'' "Abū ʿAbdāllāh" ("father of Abdallah"). His admirers have referred to him by several nicknames, including the "Prince" or "Emir" (الأمير, ''al-Amīr''), the "Sheik" (الشيخ, ''aš-Šayḫ''), the "Jihadist Sheik" or "Sheik al-Mujahid" (شيخ المجاهد, ''al-Muǧāhid Šayḫ''), "Hajj" (حج, ''Ḥaǧǧ''), and the "Director". The word ''ʾusāmah'' (أسامة) means "lion", earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".

Beliefs and ideology

According to former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who led the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader was motivated by a belief that U.S. foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East, condensed in the phrase "They hate us for what we do, not who we are."

Bin Laden also said only the restoration of Sharia law would "set things right" in the Muslim world, and that alternatives such as "pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy" must be opposed. This belief, in conjunction with violent jihad, has 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 the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states, the need to eliminate the state of Israel, and the necessity of forcing the United States to withdraw from the Middle East. He also called on Americans to "reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury", in an October 2002 letter.

Bin Laden's ideology included the idea that innocent civilians, including women and children, are legitimate targets of jihad. Bin Laden was anti-Semitic, and 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, [...] America, and Israel" as the four principal "enemies of Islam" at ideology classes of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization.

Bin Laden opposed 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.

His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as 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 and he was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.

Bin Laden's overall strategy against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and United States 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 the enemy nation. Al-Qaeda manuals clearly outline this strategy.

Militant activity

Mujahideen in Afghanistan

After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan and joined Abdullah Azzam to take part in the Soviet war in Afghanistan. During Operation Cyclone from 1979 to 1989, the United States provided financial aid and weapons to the mujahideen leaders through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). 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, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI.

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 the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and used it to train volunteer fighters against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. It was during his time in Pakistan that he began wearing camouflage-print jackets and carrying a Russian-made assault rifle.

Formation and structuring of Al-Qaeda

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 August 20, 1988, indicate al-Qaeda 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 was still a closely held secret". His research suggests that al-Qaeda was formed at an August 11, 1988, meeting between "several senior leaders" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, 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 the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion "had brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait under Saddam Hussein on August 2, 1990, put the Saudi kingdom and the House of Saud at risk, with Iraqi forces on the Saudi border and Saddam's appeal to pan-Arabism potentially inciting internal dissent. Bin Laden met with King Fahd, and Saudi Defense Minister Sultan, telling them not to depend on non-Muslim assistance from the United States and others, offering to help defend Saudi Arabia with his mujahideen. Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and after the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. troops in Saudi territory, Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on the U.S. military. Bin Laden believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led that government to attempt to silence him.

Shortly after Saudi Arabia invited U.S. troops into Saudi Arabia, bin Laden turned his attention to attacks on the West. On November 8, 1990, the FBI raided the New Jersey home of El Sayyid Nosair, an associate of al-Qaeda operative Ali Mohamed, discovering copious evidence of terrorist plots, including plans to blow up New York City skyscrapers. This marked 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 later admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York on November 5, 1990.

Bin Laden continued to speak publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops, for which the Saudis banished him. He went to live in exile in Sudan, in 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed.

Sudan and return to Afghanistan

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 the Blue Nile. During his time in the country he heavily invested in the infrastructure and in agriculture and businesses. He continued his verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and in response, on March 5, 1994, Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan demanding bin Laden's passport. His family was persuaded to cut off his $7 million a year stipend. By now bin Laden was strongly associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed, and the EIJ was expelled from Sudan.

As a result of his dealings in and advocacy of violent extremist jihad, Osama bin Laden lost his Saudi citizenship in 1994 and was disowned by his billionaire family.

Sudan also began efforts to expel bin Laden. 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 the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. CIA paramilitary officer Billy Waugh tracked down Bin Ladin in the Sudan and prepared an operation to apprehend him, but was denied authorization. U.S. 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 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.

The 9/11 Commission Report further states:

In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. U.S. officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also Bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, or both.

In May 1996, under increasing pressure on Sudan, from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden returned to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight, and there forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar. When bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.

In August, 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. This fatwā was first published in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper. The fatwā is entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places." Saudi Arabia is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest places in Islam. The reference to occupation in the fatwā refers to U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of controlling air space in Iraq, known as Operation Southern Watch.

In Afghanistan, bin Laden and al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to establish more training camps for Mujahideen fighters.

Bin Laden effectively had hijacked Ariana Afghan Airlines, which ferried Islamic militants, arms, cash and opium through the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan as well as provided false identifications to members of bin Laden's terrorist network. Viktor Bout helped to run the airline, maintaining planes and loading cargo. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, concluded that Ariana was being used as a "terrorist taxi service".

Early attacks and aid for attacks

It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992, bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.

It was after this bombing that 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 their 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 was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.

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 the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded but the war that followed killed 150,000–200,000 Algerians and ended with Islamist surrender to the government.

Bin Laden funded the Luxor massacre of November 17, 1997, which killed 62 civilians, but outraged the Egyptian public. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing bin Laden to abandon his Nazim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.

Another successful attack was carried out in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with the Taliban by sending several hundreds of Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.

In February 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a ''fatwa'' in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders which declared the killing of North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to "liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip". At the public announcement of the fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets". He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."

Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998.

The 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on August 7, 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the major East African cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. The attacks were linked to local members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, brought Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to the attention of the United States public for the first time, and resulted in the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation placing bin Laden on its Ten Most Wanted list.

In December 1998, the Director of Central Intelligence Counterterrorist Center reported to President Bill Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the United States of America, including the training of personnel to hijack aircraft.

At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000 which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman and tourists at Mount Nebo and a site on the Jordan River, the sinking of the destroyer USS ''The Sullivans'' in Yemen, as well as an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.

Yugoslav Wars

A former U.S. State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, after it was asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, ''Rzeczpospolita'', one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an "all-mujahedeen unit" called El Moujahed in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall.

According to Middle East intelligence reports, bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the United States of America. He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.

A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other groups of suspected terrorists, and had lived in the area north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997, report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ''The New York Times'' noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslims forces. Further, the captured men also admitted to ties with Osama bin Laden.

In 1999 it was revealed that bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passports in 1993 by the government in Sarajevo. This information was denied by the Bosnian government following the September 11 attacks, but it was later found that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden "did not personally collect his Bosnian passport" and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.

During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević presented FBI documents that verified bin Laden's al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army, which was identified by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization shortly before the 1998 embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. Milošević had argued that the United States aided the terrorists which culminated in its backing of the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.

September 11, 2001 attacks

}}

After his denial, Osama bin Laden finally claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States in 2004. The attacks involved the hijacking of four commercial passenger aircraft, the subsequent destruction of those planes and the World Trade Center in New York City, New York, severe damage to The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the deaths of 2,974 people and the nineteen hijackers. In response to the attacks, the United States launched a War on Terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing bin Laden.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report notes that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient for a prosecutable case.

Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack.

In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."

In the 2004 Osama bin Laden video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he stated he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence on the hijacking of the planes on September 11.

According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.

Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. [...] I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers [...] with the raids" (May 23, 2006). In the tapes he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast September 7, 2006).

Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the U.S. military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.

Criminal charges

name	Usama Bin Laden
charge	* Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United States Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States Attack on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death
reward	$25 million
alias	* Usama Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin Shaykh Usama Bin Ladin the Prince the Emir Abu Abdallah Mujahid Shaykh Hajj the Director
birth date	1957
birth place	Saudi Arabia
death date	May 02, 2011
death place	Abbottabad, Pakistan
cause	Ballistic trauma
nationality	Saudi Arabian
gender	Male
height	6'4" to 6'6"
weight	Approximately 160 pounds
occupation	Unknown
added date	June 7, 1999
remove date	May 2, 2011
number	456
status	Killed/Captured }}

On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official Interpol arrest warrant against bin Laden and three other people. They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on March 10, 1994. Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by the United States on June 8, 1998, when a grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the November 14, 1995, truck bombing of a U.S.-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh. Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al-Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of ''Murder of U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder U.S. Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death'' for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former al-Qaeda members and satellite phone records, from a phone purchased for him by al-Qaeda procurement agent Ziyad Khaleel in the United States.

Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added to the list on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure prior to the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, U.S. President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him.

Years later, on October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the September 11 attacks, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.

Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. They did however offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial in return for the United States ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by President Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable, with Bush responding "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."

On June 15, 2011, federal prosecutors of the United States of America officially dropped all criminal charges against Osama Bin Laden following his death in May.

Attempted capture by the United States

Clinton administration

Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA (and specifically their elite Special Activities Division) to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa; if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, narrowly missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, had prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état; in 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.

In 2000, prior to the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as "correctly focused on bin Laden", while Robert Oakley criticized their "obsession with Osama".

Bush administration

Immediately after the September 11 attacks, U.S. government officials named bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, this figure was doubled to $50 million. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.

According to ''The Washington Post'', the U.S. government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the United States to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.

''The Washington Post'' also reported that the CIA unit composed of their special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing bin Laden was shut down in late 2005. Bush had previously defended this scaling back of the effort several times, saying, "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between August 14–16, 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Obama administration

On October 7, 2008, in the second presidential debate, on foreign policy, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, then President-elect Obama expressed his plans to "renew U.S. commitment to finding al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers" in an effort to ratchet up the hunt for the terrorist. President Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on bin Laden that "conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah," replacing it with "with a covert, laserlike focus on al-Qaeda and its spawn."

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda will not be defeated unless its leader, Osama bin Laden, is captured or killed. Testifying to the U.S. Congress, he said bin Laden had become an "iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world", and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of bin Laden. "Killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large."

In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 1, 2011, the White House announced that U.S. Navy SEALs had carried it out, killing him in his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.

Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks

While referring to Osama bin Laden in a CNN film clip on September 17, 2001, then President George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted dead or alive'. Subsequently, bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods. None were ever definitively proven. After military offensives in Afghanistan failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place. Some of the conflicting reports regarding bin Laden’s continued whereabouts and mistaken claims about his death follow:

In December 11, 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, "Atiyah" instructs Zarqawi to "send messengers from your end to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership [...] I am now on a visit to them and I am writing you this letter as I am with them..." Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are "weak" and "have many of their own problems." The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post. Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally-verified videos demonstrating bin Laden's continued survival as recently as August 2007. In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts. . In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author, Rohan Gunaratna, stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that bin Laden was hiding in Chitral. In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee reported that in January or February (2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on December 6, 2009, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan. On Dec. 9, 2009 BBC News reported that U.S. Army General Stanley A. McChrystal, who served as Commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan from June 15, 2009 until June 23, 2010 emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus indicating that the U.S. high command believed that bin Laden was still alive On February 2, 2010, Afghan president, Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai’s plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden. On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Siyassa reported that bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Savzevar, in north eastern Iran. The Australian News,online edition published the claim on June 9. On June 9, The Australian News, online edition repeated the claim. On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was "alive and well and living comfortably" in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States. On April 16, 2011, a leaked Al Jazeera report claimed that bin Laden had been captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Whereabouts just prior to his death

In July 2010, CIA operatives spotted Bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti driving through the streets of Peshawar, Pakistan. In August 2010, Al-Kuwaiti drives into a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. About 35 miles north of the capital, Islamabad, and just yards from a military academy. It was originally believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found away in a three-story mansion in Abbottabad at . Bin Laden's mansion was located southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy, the country's "West Point". Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but was present on images taken in 2005.

Death

Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried it at sea within 24 hours of his death.

Critics accused Pakistan's military and security establishment of protecting bin Laden. For example, Mosharraf Zaidi, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government "baseless speculation".

It was speculated that the issue might further strain U.S. ties with Pakistan. Bin Laden was killed in what some suggest was his residence for five years. It was an expensive compound located less than a mile from Pakistan's version of West Point, probably built for him and less than 100 kilometers' drive from the capital.

The Pakistani government's foreign office issued a statement that "categorically denies" any reports by the media that the country's leadership, "civil as well as military, had any prior knowledge of the U.S. operation against Osama bin Laden".

Pakistan's United States envoy, ambassador Husain Haqqani, promises a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound, just a few hours drive from Islamabad, and stated that "obviously bin Laden did have a support system; the issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan or within the society of Pakistan?"

See also

Afghan civil war

Childhood, education and personal life of Osama bin Laden

Fatawā of Osama bin Laden

Islamic fundamentalism

Islamic mujahid movement

Islamic terrorism

Osama bin Laden in popular culture

Pakistan and state terrorism

The Golden Chain

War against Islam

Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad

References

;Footnotes ;Additional notes # The date according to Pakistan Standard Time (UTC+05:00). ;Bibliography }} }} }}

Further reading

}} }} }}

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (2006) – Compilation of Usama Bin Laden Statements 1994 – January 2004

External links

Osama bin Laden collected news and commentary at ''Dawn''

Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America', ''The Observer'', November 24, 2002

Hunting Bin Laden, ''PBS Frontline'', (November 2002)

Young Osama, Steve Coll, ''The New Yorker'', December 12, 2005

How the World Sees Osama bin Laden, slideshow by ''Life''

The Osama bin Laden File from The National Security Archive, posted May 2, 2011

Category:1957 births Category:2011 deaths Category:20th-century criminals Category:21st-century criminals Category:Abdullah Yusuf Azzam Category:Afghan Civil War Category:Al-Qaeda founders Category:Al-Qaeda propagandists Category:Bin Laden family Category:Burials at sea Category:Civil engineers Category:Deaths by firearm in Pakistan Category:FBI Most Wanted Terrorists Category:FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives Category:Islamic terrorism Category:People from Abbottabad Category:People of the Soviet war in Afghanistan Category:People of the War in Afghanistan (2001–present) Category:Salafis Category:Saudi Arabia expatriates Category:Saudi Arabian expatriates in Pakistan Category:Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda members Category:Saudi Arabian anti-communists Category:Saudi Arabian poets Category:September 11 attacks Category:Stateless persons Category:War on Terror Category:People designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee

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name	10 Years
background	group_or_band
origin	Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
genre	Alternative metal, post-grunge
years active	1999–present
label	Universal Records
website	www.10yearsmusic.com
current members	Jesse HasekRyan "Tater" JohnsonLewis "Big Lew" CosbyBrian Vodinh
past members	Mike UnderdownAndy ParksMatt Wantland }}

10 Years is an American alternative metal band, formed in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1999.

History

Early Years, ''Into the Half Moon'' (1999–2001)

10 Years was initially formed in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1999 with singer Mike Underdown, drummer Brian Vodinh, bassist Lewis Cosby, and guitarists Ryan "Tater" Johnson (also of The American Plague) and Matt Wantland. In 2001, Cosby left and the band recruited Andy Parks on bass. They independently recorded ''Into the Half Moon'' the same year.

''Killing All That Holds You'', ''The Autumn Effect'' (2002–2006)

Lead vocalist Mike Underdown left the band to pursue a career in acting. 10 Years soon recruited current vocalist Jesse Hasek from another local band. In 2002, Parks decided to leave the band and Cosby returned. The band then released their independent album ''Killing All That Holds You'' in 2004.

10 Years was then signed to Universal Records in 2005 and released their major label debut, ''The Autumn Effect'' on August 16, 2005 with the songs "Wasteland" and "Through the Iris" picking up regional radio play. Their first single, "Wasteland" spent over 12 months on the rock charts, finally reaching #1 at active rock radio in December 2005.

That same summer, the band toured with Disturbed and Ill Niño. In the fall of 2005, they toured with Breaking Benjamin and Smile Empty Soul, then followed up with the Masters of Horror tour with Mudvayne and Sevendust. They opened for Korn and Mudvayne on Korn's ''See You on the Other Side'' tour. They also toured with Korn and Deftones on the Family Values Tour, which started in late July 2006.

In mid February 2006, "Wasteland" reached #1 on the ''Billboard'' Alternative Songs chart. "Wasteland" has been certified Gold by the RIAA.

In mid-2006, the band toured Australia in a lineup which included Hatebreed, Disturbed and Korn.

Their first music video, "Wasteland", addresses the social problem of human rights as well as addiction around the world. The video received a nomination for Best Direction and Best Art Direction at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, but did not win either.

On March 27, 2006, an EP was released on iTunes containing acoustic versions of "Wasteland" and other tracks from ''The Autumn Effect''.

''Division'' (2006–2008)

On November 19, 2006, 10 Years unveiled and confirmed the title "Division" for their second album. The band would begin recording Division in late June 2007 after spending the better part of a year writing.

Lewis told in an interview that the album is "so different from the first one [The Autumn Effect], but it's still 10 Years," and, "It just sounds like [the songs] would be from a totally different album, which was, you know, the goal." It was also revealed that the track titled "Focus" was co-written with Stone Temple Pilots and former Army of Anyone guitarist Dean DeLeo.

On May 21, 2007 a demo song titled "All Your Lies" from Division was released onto their MySpace along with a post stating the band had chosen producer Rick Parasher to produce the new album. On September 7, the band announced on their MySpace that the album was finished and would be released in 2008, following a tour with Dir En Grey, Sevendust, Operator, Thousand Foot Krutch and Chevelle.

On January 29, 2008, "Beautiful," the new single from Division, was released to iTunes and a snippet was also posted on the band's MySpace page. ''Division'' was released on May 13, 2008 after being pushed back due to finalization of the album's artwork.

10 Years was featured on the Revolution Stage of Linkin Park's Summer Projekt Revolution 2008 tour with Atreyu, Hawthorne Heights and Armor For Sleep.

They went on tour with Mudvayne until mid December 2008.

''Feeding the Wolves'' (2009–present)

10 Years announced that their upcoming third major label album would be entitled ''Feeding the Wolves''. The album was produced by Grammy-nominated producer Howard Benson and mixed by Chris "Lord" Alge. The band has mentioned the album is of their heaviest material to date and "very similar to some of their early songs."

Throughout the first half of 2010, the band went back and forth between putting on live shows and working in the studio. Before the album was released, the band debuted new songs at live performances such as "Dead in the Water", "Now is the Time", and the new album's first single "Shoot It Out".

On June 12, 2010, "Shoot It Out" was featured on Sirius/XM Radio. The track was released to radio later that month, and was made available for download on iTunes July 6. ''Feeding the Wolves'' was released on August 31, 2010.

To promote the album's release, the band opened Shinedown's 2010 Carnival of Madness summer tour alongside Chevelle, Puddle of Mudd, and Sevendust. In the fall they joined Sevendust again on the Hard Drive Live tour with support from Since October and Anew Revolution.

In December, the band went on a mini-headline tour, where they played some older songs that they had not played in some time. February 2011, their new single "Fix Me" releases to radio while they headline a spring tour with Hollywood Undead.

On June 17 and 18 the band shot a music video for "Fix Me" in Columbus, Ohio with production company Thunder Down Country. The video was released via YouTube on August 9, 2011.

Band members

Current

Jesse Hasek – Vocals (2002–present)

Ryan "Tater" Johnson – Guitar, Backing Vocals (1999–present)

Lewis Cosby – Bass (1999–present)

Brian Vodinh – Guitar, Backing Vocals (2009–present); Drums (1999–2009)

Matt Brown – Drums (2010–present)

Live

Sam Anderson – Drums (2010)

Kyle Mayer – Drums (2010)

Former

Mike Underdown – Vocals (1999–2001)

Matt Wantland – Guitar (1999–2009)

Discography

Studio albums

Year	Album details	Peak chart positions
		!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"
2001	''Into the Half Moon''	* Released: 2001	Compact Disc>CD
2004	''Killing All That Holds You''	* Released: 2004	Universal Records>Universal	* Format: CD
2005	''The Autumn Effect''	* Released: August 16, 2005	* Label: Universal Republic	* Format: CD
2008		* Released: May 13, 2008	* Label: Universal Republic	* Format: CD
2010		* Released: August 31, 2010	* Label: Universal Republic	* Format: CD

Extended plays

2006: ''Acoustic EP''

Singles

Year	Title	Peak chart positions	Album
!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"	!style="width:3em;font-size:75%"
2005
	"Through the Iris"
"Waking Up"
2009	"Actions & Motives"
2010	"Shoot It Out"
2011	"Fix Me"

References

External links

Official Site

Category:American post-grunge musical groups Category:Musical groups from Knoxville, Tennessee Category:Musical groups established in 1999 Category:Rock music groups from Tennessee Category:Musical quartets

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