Recent Event Highlights: Osama Bin Laden Dead, Bin Laden Demands French Withdrawal from Afghanistan, Bin Laden Claims Responsibility for Failed Christmas Attack, "Sheikh Osama bin Laden is alive and active.", Osama Speaks to America, Claims Responsibility for 9/11, Bin Laden's Denial, and 10 more...
Created by aterry on May 2, 2011
Last updated: 05/03/11 at 05:02 PM
Barack Obama announces that Osama Bin Laden has been killed in Pakistan. Photo Credit: FBI
The French Foreign Ministry claims that an audio tape wherein Bin Laden threatens France is authentic. "The only way to safeguard your nation and maintain your security is to lift all your injustice and its extensions off our people and most importantly to withdraw your forces from Bush's despicable war in Afghanistan," says the voice on the tape. Photo Credit: CP Images
A senior NATO official, speaking under condition of anyonymity, tells CNN that Bin Laden is living comfortably in a house in northwest Pakistan, protected by locals and members of the Pakistani intelligence community. "Nobody in Al Qaeda is living in a cave," said the source. Photo Credit: Abaca Press [2004]
An audio tape said to contain the voice of Osama Bin Laden has the Al Qaeda leader taking responsibility for the attempt to blow up a US-bound passenger plane on Christmas Day, 2010. The tape also warns US President Barack Obama that attacks will continue as long as the US continues to support Israel. Obama, meanwhile, claims that America has greatly weakened Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as a whole. Photo Credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak
Persistent rumours of Bin Laden's death grind to a halt with the release of a new tape, in which the Al Qaeda leader warns the US of its vulnerability.
Mansour Dadullah, whose brother was involved with the Taliban, reports to Al Jazeera that Osama is still alive and well. "Sheikh Osama bin Laden is alive and active. He's carrying out his duties. ... The latest proof that he is alive is that he sent me a letter of condolences after the martyrdom of my brother. He advised me to follow my brother's path." Photo Credit: AFP, AFP
In an article published in L'Est Républicain, French columnist Laid Sammari cites a French foreign intelligence document as saying that Bin Laden had died of typhoid fever in Pakistan one month earlier. The claim was unsubstantiated.
National Review columnist Michael Ledeen reports, "according to Iranians I trust, Osama bin Laden finally departed this world in mid-December. The al Qaeda leader died of kidney failure and was buried in Iran, where he had spent most of his time since the destruction of al Qaeda in Afghanistan."
Bin Laden is said to be hiding on the Afghan-Pakistani border. According to Pakistani intelligence, he is believed to have been keeping a low profile, with a small group of bodyguards. Photo Credit: Rick Loomis, Los Angeles Times/MCT
Al Jazeera broadcasts an 18-minute video of Bin Laden, in which he speaks directly to citizens of the United States. "I will explain to you the reasons behind these events, and I will tell you the truth about the moments when this decision was taken, so that you can reflect on it," he said. "God knows that the plan of striking the towers had not occurred to us, but the idea came to me when things went just too far with the American-Israeli alliance's oppression and atrocities against our people in Palestine and Lebanon." Photo Credit: Balkis Press, MCT
As his whereabouts remain unknown, Al Jazeera broadcasts an audio tape purported to be voice of Bin Laden, praising the 9/11 hijackers: "We speak of the men who changed the course of history and cleansed the ... filth of treacherous rulers and their subordinates." Photo Credit: Handout, REUTERS
After two months of fighting in Afghanistan, American forces capture Bin Laden's base in the mountainous Tora Bora region, but Bin Laden is said to have escaped by mule to Pakistan. Photo Credit: TV Grab, AFP
In Jalalabad, US military forces find a video that appears to show Osama bin Laden speaking with Khaled al-Harbi and other associates in Afghanistan. In the recording, Bin Laden claims to know of the attack on America a few days in advance of its occurrence: "We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all...We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day." Questions persist as to the video's authenticity.
As US and NATO forces begin strikes in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden releases another video tape. "America has been hit by Allah at its most vulnerable point, destroying, thank God, its most prestigious buildings," he said. Photo Credit: AFP, AFP
In an announcement broadcast on Qatar's Al Jazeera channel, Bin Laden denies involvement with the 9/11 attacks: "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation." Photo Credit: Getty, Getty
Four hijacked airplanes destroy the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and also target the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Nearly 3000 civilians are killed in the worst terror attack on American soil. Six days later, after a meeting at the Pentagon, President George W. Bush said, "I want justice. ... There's an old poster out west, I recall, that said 'Wanted: Dead or Alive'." Photo Credit: REUTERS/Sara K. Schwittek/Files
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