The world's face of terror

Osama bin Laden used a family inheritance to build the global terrorist network that killed nearly 3,000 people in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

For the U.S. public, the Saudi-born Bin Laden was the face of terrorism, helping to create Al-Qaida in 1988 after fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

He appeared in videos threatening strikes against the West, including a message praising the Sept. 11 attacks as "divine blows" against America.

Even before 9/11, Bin Laden was one of U.S. law enforcement's most wanted, accused in the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on Aug. 7, 1998, which killed 224 people. He also was linked to the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, which killed 17 U.S. sailors.

"He really was able to drive some parts of U.S. foreign policy and domestic policy in a major way," said Thomas M. Sanderson, a deputy director and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Bin Laden formed Al-Qaida with money from a family inheritance and preached an extreme interpretation of Islam. He built a network spanning 60 countries including followers willing to commit suicide.

The bearded fugitive was almost captured on several occasions during the manhunt after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The U.S. commission that investigated the 9/11 attacks concluded that Bin Laden's focus on the wounded pride of Muslims won him "thousands of followers and some degree of approval from millions more."

"He appeals to people disoriented by cyclonic change as they confront modernity and globalization," the commission said in its final report. For many Muslims, Bin Laden was an underdog who fought a powerful infidel enemy.

An attack born in 1999

According to the 9/11 commission, Bin Laden was weighing ideas for new operations in 1999 when he received a proposal from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti-born engineer active for several years in planning jihadist attacks. His idea for an attack on the U.S. using commercial airplanes won Bin Laden's support.

The commission said Mohammed later told authorities that he, Bin Laden and Al-Qaida's military chief, Mohammed Atef, developed the list of targets. "According to KSM," the commission wrote, "Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon, KSM wanted to strike the World Trade Center, and all of them wanted to hit the Capitol."

'Patient, stubborn adversary'

Obama entered office in January 2009 promising to beef up U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and root out Bin Laden. Days before Obama's inauguration, Bin Laden warned that the new president would "inherit a long guerrilla war against a patient, stubborn adversary" in a recording released on an Islamist website.

Bin Laden criticized Obama six months later. In an audiotape aired on Al-Jazeera as Obama began a tour of the Middle East, Bin Laden said the president had adopted the same policies toward Muslims as his predecessor and that he and his administration were "sowing the seeds for revenge and hatred" against Americans.

Born to Saudi wealth

Osama bin Laden was born on March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, the 17th child of Muhammad Bin Laden, an immigrant from Yemen who helped found Saudi Binladin Group, a family construction business, in 1931.