NOW IN HIS MID-FORTIES, a university graduate with computer skills, Osama bin
Laden lives with his four wives and some fifteen children in a small cave in
eastern Afghanistan. They have no running water and only a rudimentary heating
system against the extreme cold of winter. Bin Laden is always on guard against
assassins, commando raids, and air strikes. Had he followed the path chosen for
him by his father, bin Laden could have been a respected building contractor in
Saudi Arabia and a billionaire in his own right. Instead he freely elected to
abandon the life of affluence and commit himself to waging a jihad under
extremely harsh conditions.
Osama bin Laden is not the only Islamist who has abandoned a good career and
comfortable lifestyle in order to wage a jihad. Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri -- bin
Laden's right-hand man -- now in his late forties, could have been one of
Egypt's leading pediatricians but gave up a promising career and affluence to
fight the Egyptian government. He then refused political asylum in Western
Europe (with a generous stipend) and ended up living in eastern Afghanistan not
far from bin Laden.
Although bin Laden and Zawahiri are the most notorious Islamist terrorists,
there are hundreds like them. These dedicated commanders in turn lead thousands
of terrorists in a relentless and uncompromising holy war against the United
States and the West as a whole. The bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania in 1998 were the latest but by far not the last shots in this rapidly
escalating war of terrorism. What makes these individuals -- the leaders and
symbols of the new Islamist upsurge -- commit themselves to this kind of war?
The rise of the new radical Islamist elite is a recent phenomenon in the
developing world. These leaders, from the affluent and privileged segment of
society, are highly educated and relatively Westernized. They are not the
underprivileged, impoverished, and embittered isolates who usually constitute
the pool that breeds terrorists and radicals. These Islamist terrorist leaders
are different from the typical European middle-class revolutionaries and
terrorists -- from the anarchists of the nineteenth century to the Communist
revolutionaries of the late twentieth century -- because the Islamists have
become popular leaders of the underprivileged masses, while the European
terrorists remained isolated from a generally hostile population. Only Ernesto
"Che" Guevara -- the Argentinian doctor turned revolutionary fighter
of the early 1960s -- came close to being the kind of populist leader these
Islamists are.
To understand these Islamist leaders -- particularly Osama bin Laden -- one
needs to understand their break with their past, their motivation, the fire in
their veins, and the depth of their hatred of the United States and what it
stands for.
OSAMA BIN LADEN, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and their compatriots, mostly Saudis and
Egyptians, are the product of the tumultuous 1970s and 1980s. Their entire
lives, from their early years up until the time they rejected a luxurious
lifestyle and embraced radicalism and militancy, were strongly influenced by key
events unfolding in the Middle East -- most importantly, the Arab prosperity and
identity crisis that accompanied the oil boom in the 1970s, the triumph of
revolutionary Islam in Iran, and the rallying cry of the jihad in Afghanistan in
the 1980s.
Osama bin Muhammad bin Laden was born in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
probably in 1957. At the time his father, Muhammad bin Laden, was a small-time
builder and contractor who had arrived from Yemen in search of employment. Osama
was one of numerous siblings -- his father had more than fifty children from
several wives. Muhammad bin Laden was conscientious about education and
advancement in life and tried to provide his children with proper schooling.
During the 1960s the family moved to the Hijaz, western Saudi Arabia, and
ultimately settled in Al-Medina Al-Munawwara. Osama received most of his formal
education in the schools of Medina and later Jedda, Saudi Arabia's main
commercial port on the Red Sea.
Excerpted from bin Laden by Yossef Bodansky Copyright
2001 by Yossef Bodansky. Excerpted by permission of Prima Lifestyles, a
division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt
may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the
publisher.
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