Osama bin Laden was born around 1957 or 1958, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Osama was the 17th of 52 children born to Mohammed bin Laden. Mohammed bin Laden owned the largest construction company in the Saudi kingdom. When Osama was young he had a privileged and pampered upbringing. He stayed close to home, went to school in Jiddah, married young and joined the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood. Islam shaped all of Osama's political beliefs and influenced his every decision. While in college, he became a follower of the pan-Islamist scholar Abdullah Azzam, who believed that all Muslims should rise up in jihad, or holy war, to create a single Islamic state. From History.com, "This idea pleased the young bin Laden, who resented what he saw as growing Western influence on Middle Eastern life." Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In 1988, Osama bin Laden created a group called al-Qaida that would focus on symbolic acts of terrorism instead of military campaigns. Al-Qaeda struck for the first time: a bomb exploded at a hotel in Aden, Yemen, which had hosted American troops en route to a peacekeeping mission in Somalia. They were also involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York; the attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek in 1995; the bombing of a US National Guard training center in Riyadh; and the truck bomb that destroyed the Khobar Towers. The scale of al-Qaeda attacks continued to increase. From History.com, "On August 7, 1998, bombs exploded simultaneously at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where 213 people were killed and 4,500 injured, and in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, where 11 people were killed and 85 were injured." On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaida terrorists smuggled box cutters and knives through security at three East Coast airports and boarded four early morning flights to California. Immediately after takeoff, terrorists commandeered the four planes, turning ordinary passenger planes into guided missiles. At 8:45 am, an American Airlines Boeing 767 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. 18 minutes later, a United Airlines Boeing 767 crashed into the second tower near the 60th floor. The massive collision caused a massive explosion that rained burning debris onto surrounding buildings and the streets below. At 9:45 a.m., a second plane crashed on the west side of the Pentagon's military headquarters. The fuel caused a devastating inferno that led to the structural collapse of part of the giant concrete building. A fourth California-bound plane was hijacked about 40 minutes after leaving Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. The passengers attacked the hijackers and crashed the plane into a rural field in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 am. All passengers on the plane died and the intended target is unknown. Target theories include the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat, or one of several nuclear power plants along the East Coast. All the attacks made Osama Bin Laden a huge public enemy. The hunt to find him became that much more important. In 2007, American intelligence discovered the name of one of Osama's most trusted couriers. In August 2009, US intelligence identified the area of ​​Pakistan where the courier and his brother lived. The CIA informs President Barack Obama that bin Laden may be living in the compound. They have it.