Bin Laden was the 17th of more than 50 children of construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden, whose business empire closely served the Saudi royal family. Educated at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, he became influenced by Islamist thinkers such as Abdullah Azzam. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, bin Laden financed and joined the Afghan mujahideen, organizing Arab volunteers to fight the Soviets.
In 1988, bin Laden created al-Qaeda (“the Base”) from a database of foreign fighters. The group evolved into a transnational network pursuing violent jihad against Western influence in Muslim lands. His anger over U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the 1990–91 Gulf War deepened his hostility toward the West. In exile in Sudan and later Afghanistan, he issued fatwas in 1996 and 1998 declaring war on the United States.
Al-Qaeda conducted or inspired multiple attacks, including the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda hijackers carried out coordinated attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, triggering the War on Terror and the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to dismantle the Taliban regime that harbored him.
After nearly a decade in hiding, U.S. Navy SEALs killed bin Laden during Operation Neptune Spear on May 2, 2011, at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. His body was identified through DNA testing and buried at sea. The raid, authorized by President Barack Obama, was widely seen as a pivotal moment in the counterterrorism campaign. Bin Laden’s ideology continues to influence extremist groups worldwide, though al-Qaeda’s central power has since diminished.