Founder and leader of the jihadist organisation al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia on March 10, 1957 to the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family. He is widely believed to be responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and other attacks against civilian and military targets. Bin Laden has been on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives since the September 11 attack.

He grew up amid wealth and privilege as the 17th child of Mohammed bin Laden, a construction business man with ties to the Saudi royal family.

As a young man he joined his mentor, Abdullah Azzam, in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet invasion, establishing the Maktab al-Khadamat organisation to fund and arm local fighters with the wealth he had inherited. He returned to Saudi Arabia in the late 1980s as a mujahideen hero, having driving away the Russians. He then formed his own secretive group called al-Qaeda, or The Base. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia turned to the US, leading bin Laden to denounce the country of his birth for allowing American troops onto its soil.

Osama bin Laden was killed on May 2nd 2011 by US special forces in Pakistan.