Osama bin Laden was a Saudi-born militant leader and the founder of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. He was born on March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and died on May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Bin Laden was the mastermind behind numerous terrorist attacks, most notably the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people. He declared war on the U.S. due to American foreign policies in the Middle East and was involved in supporting various militant Islamist causes and mujahideen fighters, particularly during the Soviet-Afghan War. After being expelled from Saudi Arabia, he operated from Sudan and later Afghanistan, where he was supported by the Taliban. He was killed in a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in 2011, and his death marked a significant event in the global war on terror.
