Pathway to 9/11: How bin Laden came to mastermind the devastating terror attacks
Fox News
Usama bin Laden planned and financed a number of terror attacks over two decades leading to Sept. 11, 2001, when four planes were hijacked and used as weapons.
"As a former Marine Corps officer, my career of eight years was very much defined by the Sept. 11 attacks," author and former CIA paramilitary officer Elliot Ackerman told Fox News. Hannah Ray Lambert is an associate producer/writer with Fox News Digital Originals.
Bin Laden’s journey to becoming one of the most infamous jihadist leaders of all time began to take shape in 1979. At the urging of his mentor Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, bin Laden dropped out off college and left Saudi Arabia to join the jihad against the Soviets who had invaded Afghanistan, Ackerman said. The son of a wealthy construction magnate and close friend of the Saudi royal family, bin Laden’s role was primarily to fund training of new mujahideen, a term describing guerillas who fight on behalf of Islam.
Azzam and bin Laden went on to help found al Qaeda — which translates to "The Base" — in 1989. The Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan the same year and bin Laden returned to his home country a hero, Ackerman said. But bin Laden and his former mentor soon ended up on opposing sides of a violent debate about the future of jihad.
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