1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (Airborne)
USASOC patch worn by Delta Force
Active	21 November 1977 – present
Country	United States of America
Branch	United States Army
Type	Special Operations
Role	Tier One Special Operations Force
Size	Classified[1]
Part of	U.S. Special Operations Command Joint Special Operations Command U.S. Army Special Operations Command
Garrison/HQ	Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Nickname	The Unit
Engagements	Operation Eagle Claw Operation Urgent Fury Operation Just Cause Operation Acid Gambit Gulf War Operation Restore Hope Operation Gothic Serpent Battle of Mogadishu (1993) War in Afghanistan Battle of Tora Bora Iraq War Operation Red Dawn Objective Medford Rescue of Roy Hallums

1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D) is one of the United States' secretive tier one counter-terrorism and Special Mission Units. While popularly known as Delta Force, it is normally referred to as The Unit by its members. It was formerly listed as the Combat Applications Group by the Department of Defense but has since been officially re-designated the Army Compartmented Elements (ACE).^[2] While 1st SFOD-D is administratively supported by USASOC, it falls under the operational control of the Joint Special Operations Command. Delta Force and its Navy counterpart, the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six), are the United States military's primary counter-terrorism units.

Delta Force's primary tasks are counter-terrorism, direct action, and national intervention operations, although it is an extremely versatile group capable of conducting many types of covert missions, including, but not limited to, hostage rescues and raids.^[3]

The Central Intelligence Agency's highly secretive Special Activities Division (SAD) and more specifically its elite Special Operations Group (SOG) often recruits operators from Delta Force.^[4]

History[link]

Delta Force was formed after numerous, well-publicized terrorist incidents in the 1970s. These incidents led the U.S. government to develop a full-time counter-terrorism unit. Key military and government figures had already been briefed on a model for this type of unit in the early 1960s. Charles Beckwith, a Special Forces officer and Vietnam veteran, had served as an exchange officer with the British Army's Special Air Service (22 SAS Regiment) during the Malayan Emergency. Upon his return, Beckwith presented a detailed report highlighting the U.S. Army's vulnerability in not having an SAS-type unit. U.S. Army Special Forces in that period focused on unconventional warfare, but Beckwith recognized the need for "not only teachers, but doers."^[5] He envisioned highly adaptable and completely autonomous small teams with a broad array of special skills for direct action and counter-terrorist missions. He briefed military and government figures, who were overtly resistant to create a new unit outside of Special Forces, or change existing methods. Finally, in the mid-70's, as the threat of terrorism grew, Pentagon brass tapped Beckwith to form the unit.^[6] Beckwith had estimated that it would take 24 months to get his new unit mission-ready. In the meantime, the 5th Special Forces Group created Blue Light, a small counter-terrorist contingent which operated until Delta became fully operational in the early 1980s.

On 4 November 1979, shortly after Delta had been created, 53 Americans were taken captive and held in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. The unit was assigned to Operation Eagle Claw and ordered to covertly enter the country and recover the hostages from the embassy by force on the nights of 24 and 25 April in 1980. The operation was aborted after aviation failures. The review commission that examined the failure found 23 problems with the operation, among them unbriefed weather encountered by the aircraft, command-and-control problems between the multi-service component commanders, a collision between a helicopter and a ground-refueling tanker aircraft, and mechanical problems that reduced the number of available helicopters from eight to five (one fewer than the minimum desired) before the mission contingent could leave the transloading/refueling site.^[7]

After the failed operation, the U.S. government realized more changes needed to be made. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), also known as the Night Stalkers, was created specifically for special operations requiring aviation support. The Navy's SEAL Team Six was created for maritime counter-terrorism operations. The Joint Special Operations Command was created for command and control of the various counter-terrorism units of the U.S. military.

Organization and structure[link]

The unit is under the organization of the US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) but is controlled by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Command of 1st SFOD-D is a Colonel's billet. Virtually all information about the unit is highly classified and details about specific missions or operations are generally not publicly available. A number of sources including the book Inside Delta Force by Command Sergeant Major Eric L. Haney (ret.), suggest the unit's strength ranges from between 800 to 1000 personnel, including the following operational groups:

Detachment designations[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

• D – Command and Control (Headquarters)
• E – Communications, Intelligence and Administrative Support (includes finance, logistics, medical detachment, research and development, technology and electronics, etc.)
• F – Operational Arm (The teams of operators)
• Medical Detachment maintains special doctors at Fort Bragg and various other bases around the country secretly, to provide medical assistance as needed.
• Operational Support Troop, or "the Funny Platoon", is the in-house intelligence arm of Delta. They grew out of a long-running dispute/rivalry with the Intelligence Support Activity. They will infiltrate a country ahead of a Delta intervention to gather intelligence.
• Aviation Squadron, although Delta relies heavily on the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and US Air Force assets to transport them to and from operational deployments and training exercises, within the unit there is a small aviation squadron used for limited in-house air transportation. The aviation squadron consists of twelve AH-6 Attack and MH-6 Transport helicopters (although this figure may have increased). It is not known if pilots are recruited from the air force, the army's 160th SOAR or if they are Delta operators trained as helicopter pilots.
• Operational Research Section
• Training wing

Delta Force's structure is similar to the British 22 Special Air Service Regiment, the unit which inspired Delta's formation. In Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, Army Times staff writer Sean Naylor describes Delta as having nearly 1,000 soldiers.^[8] Naylor wrote that approximately 250 of those are operators trained to conduct direct action and reconnaissance missions.^[8] There are three main operational squadrons:

• A Squadron

• B Squadron

• C Squadron

These squadrons are based on the organization of the SAS "Sabre Squadron" and each contains 75 to 85 operators.^[9] Each sabre squadron is broken down into three troops, one recce/sniper troop, and two direct action/assault troops, that can either operate in teams or in groups as small as four to six men. According to testimony given to the House Armed Services Committee on 29 June 2006 by Michael Vickers, Delta, along with all other special mission units, is scheduled to add an additional squadron and increase in size by one third. By 2012 Delta and DEVGRU have both added a fourth squadron to their ranks.

Recruitment[link]

Most recruits come from the Special Forces Groups and the 75th Ranger Regiment, but some operators have come from other units of the army.^[10] Since the 1990s, the army has posted recruitment notices for the 1st SFOD-D.^[11] The army, however, has never released an official fact sheet for the force. The recruitment notices placed in Fort Bragg's newspaper, Paraglide, refer to Delta Force by name, and label it "...the U.S. Army's special operations unit organized for the conduct of missions requiring rapid response with surgical application of a wide variety of unique special operations skills..."^[12] The notice states that all applicants must be male, in the ranks of E-4 through E-8, have at least two and a half years of service time remaining in their enlistment, be 21 years or older and score high enough on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test to attend a briefing to be considered for admission.

On 29 June 2006 during a session of the Committee on Armed Services, General Wayne Downing while testifying before the House stated that 70% of all Delta operators started their military careers in the 75th Ranger Regiment.^[13]

Selection process[link]

Haney's book Inside Delta Force described the selection course and its inception in detail. Haney writes the selection course began with standard tests including push-ups, sit-ups, and a 2-mile (3.2 km) run, an inverted crawl and a 100 meter swim fully dressed. The selection candidates were then put through a series of land navigation courses to include an 18-mile (29 km), all-night land navigation course while carrying a 40-pound (18 kg) rucksack. The rucksack's weight and the distance of the courses are increased and the time standards to complete the task are shortened with every march. The physical testing ended with a 40-mile (64 km) march with a 45-pound (20 kg) rucksack over very rough terrain which had to be completed in an unknown amount of time. Haney wrote that only the senior officer and NCO in charge of selection are allowed to see the set time limits, but all assessment and selection tasks and conditions were set by Delta training cadre.^[14][15] The mental portion of the testing began with numerous psychological exams. The men then went in front of a board of Delta instructors, unit psychologists and the Delta commander, who each ask the candidate a barrage of questions and then dissect every response and mannerism of the candidate with the purpose to mentally exhaust the candidate. The unit commander then approaches the candidate and tells him if he has been selected. If an individual is selected for Delta, he undergoes an intense 6-month Operator Training Course (OTC), to learn counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence techniques. This includes firearm accuracy and various other munitions training.^[15]

Training[link]

Operator Training Course: According to the book Inside Delta Force by Eric Haney, OTC consisted of the following events. Although OTC has probably changed since then, it remains around 6 months long.

• Marksmanship
  • The students shoot stationary targets at close range until they are able to have almost complete accuracy. They will then move on to moving targets.
  • Once shooting skills are perfected, they will move to a shooting house where they will clear rooms of "enemy" targets. At first it will be done by one student, then two at a time, three at a time, and finally four. After the students learn techniques to clear a room, "hostages" are added to the room mixed with the enemies.

• Demolitions
  • Students learn how to break into many different locks such as cars and safes.
  • Demolition and how to build bombs out of various commonly found materials.

• Combined skills. The FBI, FAA, and other agencies were used to advise the training of this portion of OTC. Sometimes commercial airliners such as Delta Air Lines would allow Delta to train on their aircraft too.
  • The new Delta operators use both demolition and marksmanship skills at the shoothouse and other training facilities to train for hostage and counter-terrorist operations with both assault and sniper troops working together. They practice terrorist or hostage situations in buildings, aircraft, and other settings.
  • All trainees learn how to set sniper positions around a building with hostages in it. They learn the proper ways to set up a TOC and communicate in an organized manner. Although Delta has specialized sniper troops, all members go through this training.
  • The students then go back to the shoothouse and the "hostages" are replaced with other students and Delta Force members. It is known that live ammunition has been used in these exercises, to test the students, and build trust between one another.

• Trade Craft – During the first OTC's and creation of Delta, CIA personnel were used to teach this portion.
  • Students learn different espionage-related skills such as dead drops, brief encounters, pickups, load and unload signals, danger and safe signals, surveillance and countersurveillance.

• Executive Protection – During the first OTC's and creation of Delta, the U.S. State Department's Diplomatic Security Service and the United States Secret Service would advise Delta in this portion of training.
  • Students take an advanced driving course learning how to use a vehicle or many vehicles as defensive and offensive weapons.
  • They then learn techniques developed by the Secret Service and DSS on how to cover a VIP and diplomatic protection missions.

• Culmination Exercise
  • A final test that requires the students to apply and dynamically adapt all of the skills that they have learned.

Although these are the main skills taught in every OTC, no OTC classes are ever exactly the same.

Delta Force has occasionally cross-trained with similar units from allied countries such as the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, New Zealand Special Air Service, British Special Air Service, Canadian Joint Task Force 2, South Korean 707th Special Mission Battalion, Danish Jaegerkorpset, French GIGN, German KSK, Israeli Sayeret Matkal and Polish GROM. They cross train and deploy with US Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU).^[16] They have helped train other U.S. counter-terrorism units, such as the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team.

Commanding officers[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2012)

Command of 1st SFOD-D is a Colonel's billet.

Uniform[link]

The Pentagon tightly controls information about Delta Force and publicly refuses to comment on the highly secretive unit and its activities. Delta operators are granted an enormous amount of flexibility and autonomy. To conceal their identities, they rarely wear a uniform and usually wear civilian clothing both on and off duty.^[15] When military uniforms are worn, they lack markings, surnames, or branch names.^[15] Civilian hair styles and facial hair are allowed to enable the members to blend in and avoid recognition as military personnel.^[15][17]

The term "operator"[link]

Inside the United States Special Operations community, the term "operator" describes one specific individual—a Delta Force member who has completed selection and has graduated OTC (Operators Training Course). “Operator” was first used by Delta Force to distinguish between “operational” and “non-operational” personnel assigned to the unit.^[15] Other special operations forces use specific names to describe their jobs (Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Pararescuemen); "Operator" is the specific term used to describe Delta’s operational personnel. However, since the early 2000s other special operations forces have adopted the term “operator.”

SEALs have unofficially referred to themselves as operators since the Vietnam War. Author and Navy SEAL Gene Wentz makes many references to fellow SEALs as operators in his 1992 book titled "Men In Green Faces," which is about the SEALs in Vietnam.^[18]

Operations and covert actions[link]

The majority of the operations assigned to Delta are classified and may never be known to the public. However, details of some operations have become public knowledge. There have been many occasions that Delta have been put on standby and operational plans developed but the unit was stood down for various reasons. Known operations and deployments include:

Operation Eagle Claw[link]

Delta's very first tasking began the night after they successfully completed their operational assessment on 4 November 1979 when Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Delta was immediately tasked to rescue the hostages and began training on storming the embassy with a compound mock-up built by military combat engineers at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, while putting together a complex multi-stage rescue operation involving a rigid schedule and demanding helicopter night-flying skills using first-generation night vision goggles. The rescue force was to be inserted by air force special operations C-130s at night to a remote location in the desert outside Tehran called Desert One, and meet up with a group of marine RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, flown in from the U.S.S. Nimitz aircraft carrier staged nearby in the Indian Ocean. The helicopters would then be refueled on the ground at Desert One by refueling specialists using specially-designed fuel bladders inside the C-130s. The refueled helicopters and the rescue force (composed of Delta and Rangers) would then fly to a hidden staging location outside Tehran and hide until the next evening. On the evening of the rescue, Delta would drive to the embassy compound using pre-staged trucks, assault the compound and rescue the hostages, and take them across the street to a soccer stadium where the helicopters would have landed to extract them and take them to a nearby airfield which the Rangers would have assaulted and captured. C-141s would then extract the entire rescue force with hostages and the helicopters would be destroyed and left behind.

The helicopters caused the cancellation of the mission at Desert One, when enough helicopters were lost from attrition due to sandstorms, pilot fatigue, and failed hydraulics that the on-site commanders acknowledged helicopter numbers were below the required minimum for that stage to go forward and recommended to President Carter that the mission be canceled, which he did. As the entire rescue force was leaving Desert One, one of the helicopters crashed into a U.S. Air Force special operations C-130 and in the ensuing explosion and panic the helicopters were abandoned en masse leaving unauthorized mission plans which fell into Iranian hands, ruining any chance of a possible second covert rescue attempt following a brief regrouping period.^[15]

Central American operations[link]

Delta has seen action extensively in Central America, fighting the Salvadoran revolutionary group Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front and assisting the Central Intelligence Agency-funded Contras in Nicaragua.^[15]

Operation Urgent Fury[link]

A second Delta mission launched in the early daylight hours of the first day of Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada was to assault Richmond Hill Prison and rescue the political prisoners being held there. Built on the remains of an old eighteenth-century fort, the prison cannot be approached by foot from three sides except through dense jungle growing on the steep mountainside; the fourth side is approachable by a narrow neck of road with high trees running along it. The prison offers no place for a helicopter assault force to land. Richmond Hill forms one side of a steep valley. Across and above the valley, on a higher peak, is another old fort, Fort Frederic, which housed a Grenadian garrison. From Fort Frederic, the garrison easily commanded the slopes and floor of the ravine below with small arms and machine gun fire. It was into this valley and under the guns of the Grenadian garrison that the helicopters of Delta Force flew at 6:30 that morning.^{[citation needed]}

The helicopters of Task Force 160 flew into the valley and turned their noses toward the prison. Unable to land, the Delta raiders began to rappel down ropes dragging from the doors of the helicopters. Suddenly, as men swung wildly from the rappelling ropes, the helicopters were caught in a cross-fire from the front, as forces from the prison opened fire; and more devastatingly, from behind, as enemy forces in Fort Frederic rained heavy small arms and machine gun fire down from above. According to eyewitness accounts by Grenadian civilians, a number of helicopters that could, flew out of the valley. In at least one instance, a helicopter pilot turned back without orders and refused to fly into the assault. Charges of cowardice were filed against the Nightstalker pilot by members of Delta who wanted to be inserted, but were later dropped.^[19]

Aeropostal Flight 252[link]

On 29 July 1984 Aeropostal Flight 252 from Caracas to the island of Curaçao was hijacked. Two days later, the DC-9 was stormed by Venezuelan commandos, who killed the hijackers.^[20] Delta Force provided support during the ordeal.^[21]

Operation Round Bottle[link]

Delta planned an operation for three teams to go into Beirut, Lebanon to rescue Westerners held by Hezbollah, but the action was terminated when negotiations appeared to promise to deliver the hostages in exchange for arms. The operation was ultimately aborted in the aftermath of the Los Angeles Times story that revealed the Iran–Contra affair.^[22]

Operation Heavy Shadow[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2012)

In his book Killing Pablo, Mark Bowden suggests that a Delta Force sniper may have killed Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. There is no hard evidence of this though and credit is generally attributed to Colombian security forces.

Operation Just Cause[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2012)

Before Operation Just Cause by US forces took place, there were key operations that were tasked to Special Operations Forces. Operation Acid Gambit was an operation tasked to Delta to rescue and recover Kurt Muse held captive in Carcel Modelo, a prison in Panama City. Another important operation that was assigned to Delta was Operation Nifty Package, the apprehension of General Manuel Antonio Noriega.

Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm[link]

Delta was deployed during Desert Storm to the region and tasked with a number of responsibilities. These include supporting regular army units that were providing close protection detail for General Norman Schwarzkopf in Saudi Arabia. Army relations' officers tried to play down Schwarzkopf's growing number of bodyguards.^{[citation needed]} Delta was tasked with hunting for SCUD missiles alongside the British Special Air Service and other coalition special forces.

Operation Gothic Serpent[link]

On 3 October 1993, members of Delta Force were sent in with U.S. Army Rangers in the conflict in Mogadishu, Somalia codenamed Operation Gothic Serpent.

They were tasked with securing several of Mohammed Farah Aidid's top lieutenants, as well as a few other targets of high value. The mission was compromised after two MH-60L Blackhawk helicopters were shot down by RPGs. This resulted in an ongoing battle and led to the death of five Delta operators (a sixth was killed by mortar fire some days later), six Rangers, five army aviation crew, and two 10th Mountain Division soldiers. Estimates of Somali deaths range from 133 by an Aidid sector commander^[23] to an estimate of 1500 to 2000 by the US Ambassador to Somalia.^[24] In 1999, writer Mark Bowden published the book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, which chronicles the events that surrounded the 3 October 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.^[17] The book, in a short brief, relates Delta Force's involvement in the operations that occurred before the events leading to the battle.^[17] The book was turned into a film by director Ridley Scott in 2001.

Operation Uphold Democracy[link]

1994 Invasion of Haiti

Counter-terrorist training[link]

In January 1997, a small Delta advance team and six members of the British SAS were sent to Lima, Peru immediately following the takeover of the Japanese Ambassador's residence.^[25]

Seattle WTO[link]

Members of Delta Force were involved in preparing security for the 1999 Seattle WTO Conference, specifically against a chemical weapon attack.^[26]

Operation Enduring Freedom[link]

Delta Force and British Special Boat Service commandos at Tora Bora

Delta Force was involved in the offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.^[27] Delta Force has formed the core of the special strike unit which has been hunting High Value Target (HVT) individuals like Osama Bin Laden and other key al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership since October 2001, the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom. One such operation was an airborne assault supported by the 75th Ranger Regiment on Mullah Mohammed Omar's headquarters at a Kandahar airstrip. Although Delta Force's mission was a failure in capturing Mohammed Omar, the Rangers had captured a vital strategic airstrip.^[28] The strike force has been variously designated Task Force Sword, Task Force 11, Task Force 20, Task Force 121, Task Force 145 and Task Force 6-26. The Delta Force have increased operations in eastern Afghanistan in 2009. "The Navy’s SEAL Team 6, sometimes called Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU; the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or Delta Force; the 75th Ranger Regiment; the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment; the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron; plus elements from other even more secret units and intelligence organizations" has killed or captured more than 2,000 enemy insurgents in Afghanistan against the Haqqani network, which is a strong faction of the Taliban.^[29]

Operation Iraqi Freedom[link]

This photo was taken in Mosul during Uday and Qusay's last stand. Delta Force Operators can be seen in front of 1st BDE 101st A/B DIV soldiers wearing MICH helmets.

One of several operations in which Delta Force operators are thought to have played important roles was the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[30] They allegedly entered Baghdad in advance and undercover. Their tasks included guiding air strikes, and building networks of informants while eavesdropping on and sabotaging Iraqi communication lines.^{[citation needed]} They were instrumental in Operation Phantom Fury in April 2004 when they were attached to USMC companies,^[31] usually as snipers.^{[citation needed]}

Delta was present in the siege in Mosul where Uday and Qusay Hussein were killed, and were involved in the hunt and eventual capture of Saddam Hussein. It was a task force consisting of a Delta Force troop and a Ranger platoon that captured Saddam Hussein. Delta was also on the ground north of Baquba on 7 June 2006 surveilling a compound where Al-Zarqawi had been staying. After a long manhunt, Delta had Zarqawi in their sights and had called in an airstrike.^[32]

Objective Medford, 8 June 2004[link]

On 8 June 2004 Delta Force's A Squadron along with Army's 160th SOAR (Night Stalkers) carried out a raid to save foreign workers at a compound near Ramadi. The kidnappers were caught off guard and surrendered immediately. The mission was a complete success.^[33]

See also[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (Airborne)

• List of special forces units
• Delta Force in popular culture
• List of Delta Force members
• Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division
• Task Force 121

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Beckwith, Charles (with Donald Knox) (1983). Delta Force.
• Bowden, Mark (1999). Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. Berkeley, California: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0-87113-738-0. About Operation Gothic Serpent.
• Bowden, Mark (2001). Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. ISBN 0-87113-783-6. About the hunt for Pablo Escobar.
• Bowden, Mark (2006). Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle In America's War With Militant Islam. Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0-87113-925-1. 
• Bowden, Mark (May 2006). "The Desert One Debacle". The Atlantic Monthly. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200605/iran-hostage. 
• Fury, Dalton. Kill Bin Laden. ISBN 978-0-312-56740-8.
• Griswold, Terry. DELTA: America's Elite Counterterrorist Force. ISBN 0-87938-615-0.
• Haney, Eric L. (2002). Inside Delta Force. New York: Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0-385-33603-1.
• Naylor, Sean (2005). Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda. New York: Penguin Group. About Operation Anaconda.
• National Geographic Documentary: Road to Baghdad
• Pushies, Fred J., et al. (2002). U.S. Counter-Terrorist Forces. Unknown: Crestline Imprints. ISBN 0-7603-1363-6.
• Schauer, Hartmut (2008). Delta Force. Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag. ISBN 978-3-613-02958-3.
• Smith, Michael (2007). Killer Elite: America's Most Secret Special Operations Team. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-36272-2. About Delta cooperation with the Intelligence Support Activity.

External links[link]

• The official website of the United States Department of Defense (DoD)
• The official website of the United States Army
• ShadowSpear Special Operations: SFOD
• Special Operations.com Delta Force Article
• Transcript of Sean Naylor's speech to American Enterprise Institute
• 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment (Airborne) DELTA at Global Security

v t e Fort Bragg XVIII Airborne Corps 82nd Airborne Division 1st Brigade Combat Team 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment • 2nd Battalion, 504th Infantry Regiment • 3rd Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment • 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment • 307th Brigade Support Battalion • Special Troops Battalion 2nd Brigade Combat Team 1st Battalion, 325th Infantry Regiment • 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment • 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment • 2nd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment • 407th Brigade Support Battalion • Special Troops Battalion 3rd Brigade Combat Team 1st Battalion, 505th Infantry Regiment • 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment • 5th Squadron, 73d Cavalry Regiment • 1st Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment • 82nd Brigade Support Battalion • Special Troops Battalion 4th Brigade Combat Team 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment • 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment • 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment • 2nd Battalion, 321st Airborne Field Artillery Regiment • 782nd Brigade Support Battalion • Special Troops Battalion 18th Fires Brigade Headquarters & Headquarters Battery • 1st Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment • 3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment • 3rd Battalion, 27th Field Artillery Regiment • 188th Brigade Support Battalion • D Battery, 26th Field Artillery Regiment • 206th Signal Company 82nd Aviation Regiment Headquarters and Headquarters Company • 1st Battalion, 82nd Aviation Regiment • 2nd Battalion, 82nd Aviation Regiment, Company F • 3rd Battalion, 82nd Aviation Regiment • 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment • 122nd Aviation Support Battalion 82nd Division Special Troops Battalion Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 82nd Airborne Division • Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 82nd Division Special Troops Battalion • Company A (Signal) • 82nd Airborne Division Band • 82nd Airborne Division Advanced Airborne School 82nd Sustainment Brigade Special Troops Battalion • Headquarters and Headquarters Company • 11th Quartermaster Company • 21st Chemical Company • 18th Human Resources Company • 82nd Signal Company • 82nd Financial Management Company • 125th Mail Movement Team Other units 1st Sustainment Command (Theater) • 16th Military Police Brigade • 20th Engineer Brigade • 44th Medical Brigade • Womack Army Medical Center • 82nd Sustainment Brigade • 406th Army Field Support Brigade • 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade Special Operations Command Special Forces Command 3rd Special Forces Group • Delta Force 4th Military Information Support Group Headquarters and Headquarters Company • 1st Military Information Support • 3rd Military Information Support • 5th Military Information Support • 6th Military Information Support • 8th Military Information Support • 9th Military Information Support 95th Civil Affairs Brigade Headquarters and Headquarters Company • 91st Civil Affairs Battalion • 96th Civil Affairs Battalion • 97th Civil Affairs Battalion • 98th Civil Affairs Battalion Other units Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command • JFK Special Warfare Center Other units United States Army Parachute Team

v t e United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Portal:Military of the United States United States Army USASOC Special Forces · U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School · 75th Ranger Regiment · 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment · Psychological operations/Military Information Support Groups · Civil Affairs United States Marine Corps MARSOC Part of SOCOM: Marine Special Operations Regiment United States Navy NAVSPECWARCOM Navy SEALs · Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen United States Air Force AFSOC Units: 1st Special Operations Wing · 24th Special Operations Wing · 27th Special Operations Wing · 352nd Special Operations Group · 353rd Special Operations Group Types: Air Force Pararescue · Combat Control Team · Special Operations Weather · SERE · Tactical Air Control Party Special Mission Units JSOC Army: 1st SFOD - Delta (Delta Force) · Intelligence Support Activity Navy: Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU / SEAL Team Six) Air Force: 24th Special Tactics Squadron Other: Advanced Force Operations (AFO) Source: SOCOM Fact Book

Coordinates: 35°07′14″N 79°21′50″W / 35.12047°N 79.363775°W / 35.12047; -79.363775 (Delta Force (1st SFOD-D))

Osama bin Laden أسامة بن لادن
Born	Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1957-03-10)March 10, 1957 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Died	May 2, 2011(2011-05-02) (aged 54) Abbottabad, Pakistan 34°10′9″N 73°14′33″E / 34.16917°N 73.2425°E / 34.16917; 73.2425
Resting place	Arabian Sea
Nationality	Saudi Arabian (1957–1994) None (Stateless) (1994–2011)[1]
Years active	1979–2011
Successor	Ayman Al-Zawahiri[2]
Religion	Sunni Islam (Qutbism)[3][4]
Children	show all (20) Abdallah Saad Omar Hamza Abdul Rahman Amer Osman Mohammed Fatima Iman Laden Rukhaiya Nour Ali Safiyah Aisha Kadhija Khalid Miriam Sumaiya
Military career
Allegiance	Al-Qaeda
Years of service	1988–2011
Battles/wars	Soviet war in Afghanistan War on Terror: War in Afghanistan Battle of Tora Bora War in North-West Pakistan Operation Neptune Spear

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden ( /oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmɨd bɪn əˈwɑːd bɪn ˈlɑːdən/; Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎, ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011^a), was the founder of 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.^[5][6][7] He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.^[8]

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.^[9][10][11] From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, with a US$25 million bounty by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.^[12] 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.^[13][14]

Early life and education[link]

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,^[15] a son of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family,^[16] and Mohammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas (then called Alia Ghanem).^[17] In a 1998 interview, bin Laden gave his birth date as March 10, 1957.^[18]

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.^[19] The couple had four children, and bin Laden lived in the new household with three half-brothers and one half-sister.^[17] The bin Laden family made $5 billion in the construction industry, of which Osama later inherited around $25–30 million.^[20]

Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.^[21] From 1968 to 1976, he attended the élite secular Al-Thager Model School.^[17][22] He studied economics and business administration^[23] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest he earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,^[24] or a degree in public administration in 1981.^[25] One source described him as "hard working",^[26] another said he left university during his third year without completing a college degree.^[27] At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.^[28] Other interests included writing poetry;^[29] 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 English club Arsenal F.C.^[30]

Personal life[link]

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married Najwa Ghanem at Latakia, Syria;^[31] 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.^[32] Bin Laden fathered between 20 and 26 children with his wives.^[33][34] Many of bin Laden's children fled to Iran following the September 11 attacks and as of 2010^[update] Iranian authorities reportedly continue to control their movement.^[35]

Bin Laden's father Mohammed died in 1967 in an airplane crash in Saudi Arabia when his American pilot misjudged a landing.^[36] 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.^[37]

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). 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.^[38] Bin Laden was described as soft-spoken and mild-mannered in demeanor.^[39]

Name[link]

There is no universally accepted standard for transliterating Arabic words and Arabic names into English;^[40] 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". 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" (Arabic: القحطاني‎, āl-Qaḥṭānī), but bin Laden's father Mohammed bin Laden never officially registered the name.^[41]

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".^[42] The word ʾusāmah (أسامة) means "lion",^[43] earning him the nicknames "Lion" and "Lion Sheik".^[44]

Beliefs and ideology[link]

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,^[45] 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.^[46] This belief, in conjunction with violent jihad, has sometimes been called Qutbism after being promoted by Sayyid Qutb.^[47] Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan, under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban, was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world.^[48] 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,^[49] 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.^[50]

Bin Laden's ideology included the idea that civilians, including women and children, are legitimate targets of jihad.^[51][52] 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."^[53] 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.^[54]

Bin Laden opposed music on religious grounds,^[55] 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.^[56]

His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars,^[57][58] journalists from The New York Times,^[59][60] the BBC,^[61] and Qatari news station Al Jazeera,^[62] analysts such as Peter Bergen,^[63] Michael Scheuer,^[64] Marc Sageman,^[65] and Bruce Hoffman^[66][67] and he was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.^[68]

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.^[69] Al-Qaeda manuals clearly outline this strategy. In a 2004 tape broadcast by al-Jazeera, bin Laden spoke of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy".^[70]

Militant activity[link]

Mujahideen in Afghanistan[link]

After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan, joined Abdullah Azzam and used money and machinery from his own construction company to help the mujahideen resistance in the Soviet war in Afghanistan.^[71][72] He later told a journalist: "I felt outraged that an injustice had been committed against the people of Afghanistan."^[73] Under Operation Cyclone from 1979 to 1989, the United States provided financial aid and weapons to the mujahideen^[74] 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^[75] 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 trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet puppet regime; the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.^[76]

Formation and structuring of Al-Qaeda[link]

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.^[77] 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.^[78]

According to Wright, the group's real name was not used in public pronouncements because "its existence was still a closely held secret".^[79] 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.^[80] 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.^[81] However, he was angry at the outbreak of internecine tribal fighting among the Afghans.^[82]

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 Arab legion. Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed, and the Saudi monarchy invited the deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi territory.^[83] Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi dependence on the U.S. military, arguing the two holiest shrines of Islam, Mecca and Medina, the cities in which the Prophet Mohamed received and recited God's message, should only be defended by Muslims. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led them to attempt to silence him. The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division landed in north-eastern Saudi city of Dhahran and was deployed in the desert barely 400 miles from Medina.^[82]

Meanwhile, 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.^[84] 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 City on November 5, 1990.

Bin Laden continued to speak publicly against the Saudi government, for which the Saudis banished him. He went to live in exile in Sudan, in 1992, in a deal brokered by Ali Mohamed.^[85]

Sudan and return to Afghanistan[link]

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.^[86][87] During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in agriculture and businesses. He built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union. He was generous to the poor and popular with the people.^[88][89] He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, and in response, in 1994, Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.^[90][1] By now bin Laden was being linked 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.

The U.S. State Department accused Sudan of being a 'sponsor of international terrorism' and bin Laden himself of operating 'terrorist training camps in the Sudanese desert. Sudan therefore 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.^[91] 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 against bin Laden in any country.^[92]

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, and paid for by the CIA.

In May 1996, due to increasing pressure on Sudan, from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States, bin Laden was permitted to leave for a country of his choice. He chose to return to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered flight, and there forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar.^[93][94] Despite his ambitions and organizational skills, when bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened.^[95]

In August, 1996, bin Laden declared war against the United States. Despite the assurance of President George H.W. Bush to King Fahd in 1990, that all U.S. forces based in Saudi Arabia would be withdrawn once the Iraqi threat had been dealt with, by 1996 the Americans were still there, citing the continued existence of Saddam's regime (which Bush had chosen not to destroy). Bin Laden's view was that "the 'evils' of the Middle East arose from America's attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into 'an American colony".^[96] The fatwā was first published in Al Quds Al Arabi, a London-based newspaper. It was entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places."^[97] 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 referred to US forces based 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.^[98] Bin Laden effectively took over 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.^[99] 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".^[100]

Early attacks and aid for attacks[link]

Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir interviewing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1997

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.^[101]

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.^[102] 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,^{[103][104][105]} 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.^[106]

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.^[107]

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".^[108][109] 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."^[110]

Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri organized an al-Qaeda congress on June 24, 1998.^[111]

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.^[112]

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.^[113]

Yugoslav Wars[link]

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.^[114] 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.^[115] 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.^[116][117] He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.^[118]

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 60 miles (97 km) 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.^{[119][120][121]}

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.^{[119][120][121]} The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.^[119]

In 1998 it was reported that bin Laden was operating his al-Qaeda network out of Albania. The Charleston Gazette quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Confirmation of these activities came from Claude Kader, a French national who said he was a member of bin Laden's Albanian network.

By 1998 four members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) were arrested in Albania and extradited to Egypt.^[122]

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.^[123]

September 11, 2001 attacks[link]

"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."

— Osama bin Laden, 2004^[124]

United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into the south tower

After his denial,^{[125][126][Full citation needed]} Osama bin Laden finally claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States in 2004.^{[127][128][129]} The attacks involved the hijacking of four commercial passenger aircraft,^[130] 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,^[131] and the deaths of 2,973 people^[132] and the nineteen hijackers.^[133] 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.^[134]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified^[135] evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable.^[136] 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.^[137]

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.^[138]

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.^[139] 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."^[140]

2001 video of bin Laden

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.^[128][141] 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.^[128]

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.^[142]

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).^[143] 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).^[144]

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[link]

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.^[68][145] Bin Laden was still wanted by the Libyan government at the time of his death.^[146][147] 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.^[148] 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.^[148] 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^[149] 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.^[150][151] However the Taliban ruled not to extradict Bin Laden on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence published in the indictments and that non-Muslim courts lacked standing to try Muslims^[152]

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.^[153] 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.^[154]

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."^[155] In June 2006 FBI's chief of investigative publicity, Rex Tomb, saw no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.^[156][157]

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.^[158]

Pursuit by the United States[link]

U.S. propaganda leaflet used in Afghanistan, with bin Laden second from the left

Clinton administration[link]

Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton.^[159] 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.^[160] 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.^[161] 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;^[161] 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 in.^[160]

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".^[113]

Bush administration[link]

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.^[42][162] On July 13, 2007, this figure was doubled to $50 million.^[163] The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.^[164]

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.^[165]

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.^[166] 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."^[167]

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.^[168]

Obama administration[link]

Members of the Obama administration track the mission that killed bin Laden

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."^[169] 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.^[169] 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."^[170][171]

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."^[172]

In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, the White House announced that U.S. Navy SEALs had carried it out, killing him in his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.^[173]