Air strikes aimed at bin Laden

Above all other objectives, the strike against Afghanistan is designed to hit back at one man - Osama bin Laden.

The Saudi-born dissident has been identified by both the United States and Britain as the prime suspect in the terror attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

But the Americans’ interest in bin Laden predates those atrocities by many years - originally in his capacity as an ally against the Russians, but more recently as a fanatical and deadly foe.

Bin Laden developed his guerrilla skills in the 1980s heading up Arab fighters, funded by the US’s Central Intelligence Agency, who fought alongside US-supported Afghan guerrillas against Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan.

His argument with the US - the authorities there have a five million dollar (£3.5m) bounty on his head - stemmed from the deployment of US military forces in Saudi Arabia during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis, prompted by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

Bin Laden viewed their presence as a desecration of the land of Islam.

Like many others in the Arab world, he bitterly resents too America’s long-standing support for Israel, which he regards as a major contribution to the sufferings of the Palestinians.

Western intelligence agencies blamed bin Laden for a series of terrorist attacks long before the latest, stunning outrages.

The US authorities linked him to the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre - the principal target of this month’s attack - which killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Then, as now, he denied involvement.

They identified him also as the prime suspect in bombings which killed 24 US servicemen in the Saudi cities of Riyadh and Khobar in 1995 and 1996.

In August 1996 bin Laden formalised his campaign against America by issuing a fatwa, or religious decree, that US military personnel should be killed.

The most audacious attack attributed to him - prior to last month’s incident - was the 1998 twin bombing of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded 4,000.

His bitter battle with the American people intensified after August 1998 when, in retaliation for the African bombings, the then US President Bill Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan, saying the targets were specifically linked to bin Laden.

More recently, US officials suspected bin Laden’s network of involvement in the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole warship in Yemen. Seventeen US servicemen died.

The depth of bin Laden’s hatred of America was evident in a March 1997 interview for CNN, conducted in eastern Afghanistan, in which he said that US civilians would be targeted inside their own country as part of a ‘‘holy war’’.

He said US actions in the Middle East, including the bombing of Iraq and support for Israel, would lead to the ‘‘transfer of the battle into the United States’’ where civilians ‘‘would not be exonerated’’.

He warned: ‘‘The US Government ... has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal, whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet’s Night Travel Land (Palestine).

‘‘And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq.

‘‘A reaction might take place as a result of the US Government’s hitting Muslim civilians and executing more than 600,000 Muslim children in Iraq by preventing food and medicine from reaching them.

‘‘So, the US is responsible for any reaction because it extended its war against troops to civilians, this is what we say.

‘‘As for what you asked regarding the American people - they are not exonerated from responsibility because they chose this Government and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in other places.’’

The son of a Saudi construction magnate, bin Laden was born in 1957.

His father died when he was 13 and his first marriage was to a Syrian cousin at the age of 17.

His interest in Afghanistan began soon after the Soviet invasion in 1979, with a trip to Pakistan, where he met refugees and opposition leaders.

On his return home bin Laden began raising funds for the Afghan resistance.

Drawing on his vast personal wealth - he is believed to be worth 300 million dollars (£215m) - by the mid 1980s he was establishing camps inside Afghanistan through which to channel Arab volunteers to the Afghan guerrilla forces.

Following a period in Sudan - he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994 - bin Laden himself moved permanently to Afghanistan.

He is thought to live under tight security alternately near the southern Afghan town of Kandahar, the spiritual centre of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, or in the eastern town of Jalalabad.

Few outsiders have met bin Laden but he is described as modest, even shy.

When he has allowed himself to be photographed his narrow eyes stare intently into the camera under a white turban.

His long, thin face is made even longer by a brush of greying beard, falling to his chest. He is thought to have had at least three wives.

Bin Laden’s organisation is al Qaida, or ‘The Base’.

Formed by Islamic fighters who battled Soviet forces in the 1980s, it expanded markedly following the Gulf War, drawing in radicals from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, other Gulf states, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere.

It is now thought to have around 3,000 members, the majority of them Egyptians.

It is essentially an umbrella group for radical Muslims, united by a common hatred of the United States, Israel and moderate Muslim governments, and the desire for more fundamentalist administrations in their own countries.

The network is thought to have agents throughout the Middle East and Africa, in Asian nations such as Malaysia and the Philippines, in Ecuador, Bosnia, Albania, Britain, Canada and the United States.