Nigel Cawthorne - The Worlds Ten Most Evil Men. From Twisted Dictators to Child Killers...

O n the morning of Tuesday, 11 September 2001, four US airliners were hijacked. Two of the planes, filled with passengers, were deliberately crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, starting fires that eventually destroyed the 110-storey buildings. A third was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. On board a fourth plane, believed to be heading for the White House, the passengers fought back against the hijackers. As a result, the aircraft crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, some 75 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. In all, some 3,000 people lost their lives.

A few hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, the Bush administration concluded that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were to blame, though bin Laden has actually never been formally indicted for the attacks. Soon the British government also came to the decision that bin Laden was to blame. Although bin Laden appears on the FBIs Ten Most Wanted list, this is for the bombing of the US Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998 when over 200 were killed. The wanted poster does, however, state: In addition, bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world and also mentions that he is considered armed and extremely dangerous. And there is a price on his head: The Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Usama Bin Laden. An additional $2million is being offered through a program developed and funded by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association.

At first, bin Laden denied involvement in the attacks, referring to them through an aide as punishment from Allah. Later, he took responsibility for inspiring the events of September 11 although according to him, the attacks were down to the US for supporting Israel. Then, on video tape aired on the Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera on 29 October 2004, bin Laden admitted that al-Qaeda had decided that they should destroy towers in America because they were a free people and we want to regain the freedom of our nation.

Finally, in another video tape released through Al-Jazeera on 23 May 2006, he admitted: I am the man responsible for the recruitment of the 19 people who carried out the attacks. This came two weeks after Zacarias Moussaoui, a would-be hijacker captured during flight-training two weeks before 9/11, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on four counts of conspiracy.

Brother Zacarias Moussaoui has no connection whatever with the 11 September operation, said bin Laden, adding that Moussaouis confession was, null and void, because it was extracted under pressure.

Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organisation run and trained by Osama bin Laden, has also been responsible for attacks in the Yemen, Riyadh, Bali, Jakarta, Tunisia, Casablanca and Istanbul, as well as inspiring bombings in Madrid and London. It is linked to other terrorist groups across the Islamic world, and under the inspiration of bin Laden, it has declared a jihad or Holy War against the US and the West itself. No one can say how many deaths bin Laden has been responsible for; what we can be sure of is that he has promoted hatred and bloodshed on a global scale and the death toll that can be laid at his door will continue to accumulate with the passing years.

Osama bin Laden was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was one of more than 50 children of one of Saudi Arabias richest families. His father, Muhammed Awad bin Laden, was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family. Originally from Yemeni, Muhammed bin Laden moved to Saudi Arabia as a youth, when he began a construction company. Soon, he became so successful that he could lend money to King Faisal, who issued a royal decree awarding all future construction projects to bin Ladens company. As a result, the bin Ladens became the richest non-royals in Saudi Arabia with a company grossing US$5 billion a year.

Muhammed bin Laden married 22 times. Born in Riyadh on 10 March 1957, Osama was his sixteenth child and his only son by his tenth wife Hamida, a Syrian thought to be more cosmopolitan that his other Wahhabi wives. Soon after Osama was born, his parents divorced and his mother married Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children, and the young Osama lived in the new household with three stepbrothers and one stepsister.

Although he was raised a devout Sunni Muslim, from 1968 to 1976 Osama bin Laden was educated at an lite secular school in Jeddah, where the pupils wore a Western-style school uniform. Reports on his further education are confused: he himself claims to have studied Economics and Business Administration at King Abdul Aziz University. Formal biographies say he earned a degree in Civil Engineering in 1979, or a degree in Public Administration in 1981, but other sources state that, though he was reportedly hard-working, bin Laden dropped out of university during the third year before sitting his degree. The implication is that his main interest was religion and he spent his time interpreting the Koran and