Some Background on Osama bin Laden

The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism
by Simon Reeve

As a crime fiction author with my debut novel in its initial release, I wholeheartedly recommend Simon Reeve's THE NEW JACKALS. Reeve, a respected journalist, has done some magnificent research here. In THE NEW JACKALS, Reeve clearly explains the methods of our world's leading terorrists, their backgrounds, their motivations, and why they are a genuine threat to our way of life. Read this book, and learn what we all now need to know.
--Kent Braithwaite, crime fiction novelist

Researcher Delves Into the Mind of Bin Laden Through Terror Tapes
For five years, a lone professor has painstakingly been translating and transcribing more than 1,500 audiocassettes in his personal search for revealing clues about the most wanted terrorist in the world: Usama bin Laden.
By Jana Winter

Her Virtual Prison
Carmen bin Ladin lifts the veil on the culture that produced her infamous brother-in-law.
BY DANIELLE CRITTENDEN

Outside View: The Al-Qaeda Factor
Osama bin Laden has been able to transform al-Qaeda into an ideology that fuses politics, religion and historical grievance.
By Muazzam Gill

Prosecutors Eyed bin Laden Before Clinton Let Him Go
In 1996, when President Clinton refused Sudan's offer to extradite Osama bin Laden to America, federal prosecutors had already publicly identified the 9/11 mastermind as an unindicted co-conspirator in a radical Islamist plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

Report cites bin Laden's escapes
Faulty and incomplete intelligence prevented three military attacks against al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 1998 and 1999, according to a commission investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks.
By Bill Gertz

Interactive Guides to the War in Afghanistan

CNN's Interactive Guides to the War in Afghanistan

Excerpts from an Osama bin Laden video

The Power Behind Bin Laden
Behind Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda lie the true masters of terror - the states that sponsor terrorism - many of which the U.S. now considers "allies" in the war against terrorism.
by William F. Jasper

Greetings, America. My Name is Osama bin Laden.
A conversation with the most dangerous man in the world.
by John Miller

Inside the caves that sheltered Bin Laden followers to the last
Hideout reveals signs of panic by fighters.
by John Hooper

Osama, This Is Your Life
A detailed guide to the life and times of al Qaeda financier and puppetmaster Osama bin Laden.
by Bo Crader

Divinely Justified
Osama bin Laden is not crazy. A fanatic, yes. Crazy? No. The alleged mastermind of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is well-educated, organized, high-tech savvy, and an Islamic fundamentalist whose goal is to turn the clock of history back 1,300 years to a time when Islam ruled the world. He and his followers are ready to die for their cause.
by Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Maginnis (U.S.A., Ret.)

CIA sniffs out the honey trail to al-Qa'eda's treasure chest
THE CIA has identified a chain of shops selling top grade Yemeni honey as the bizarre fountainhead of funding and illicit supplies for Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda network, it was reported yesterday.
By Ben Fenton

I was one of the Taliban's torturers: I crucified people
In an astonishing interview with Christina Lamb, the Afghan leader's former bodyguard reveals the full brutality of the fundamentalist regime sheltering Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden Warned Mom of 'Big News' Before Attacks
Twin Towers terrorist Osama bin Laden phoned his mother two days before he dispatched 19 hijackers to slam four commercial jetliners into U.S. landmarks, warning her that "big news" was coming.

Faces of hijackers
THESE are the faces of terror that changed the world — the 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11 outrages against America.

Jihad vs. Crusade
A historian's guide to the new war.
BY BERNARD LEWIS

Terrorists Have Upper Hand in Encryption
Among the U.S. intelligence failures that permitted Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda to plot its devastating Sept. 11 attack for five years without detection, the U.S.'s inability to crack the gang's highly sophisticated Internet encryption methods is perhaps the most serious.

Osama's secret citadel
His elaborate fortress won't be easy target.

Bin Laden's World
A special report on the terrorist mastermind from the Washington Post

200,000 soldiers at bin Laden's command?
Western intelligence has no clue as to his whereabouts.

Bin Laden Seeking to Go Nuclear
Osama bin Laden has made frantic efforts to get his hands on the makings of a nuclear bomb, intelligence sources reveal.
by Phil Brennan

Chief Saudi spy fired before attack
25-year official failed to deliver bin Laden to U.S.
By Jon Dougherty

Judicial Watch takes on bin Laden
Will work to uncover bogus tax-exempt terrorist fronts

Osama bin Laden: The truth about the world's most wanted man
The truth about the prime suspect for the world's worst terrorist atrocity is shrouded in myth and misinformation. But Chris Blackhurst has gained unprecedented access to private dossiers, friends and family to reveal the real Osama bin Laden.

UK rejects Bin Laden's denial
Britain is rejecting Osama Bin Laden's denial that he helped mastermind the terrorist attacks on the US.

The Iraqi Connection
Did Osama bin Laden act alone? Not likely.
BY LAURIE MYLROIE

Pentagon suspects Osama bin Laden
Officials anxious to take terrorist out, after Clinton let him 'grow in strength'.
By Paul Sperry

Is bin Laden under arrest?
Earlier reports say he is leader of Afghanistan's military forces
By Joseph Farah

Possible Saddam - bin Laden Link Examined
There's growing concern in foreign policy circles that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein played a major, albeit hidden, role in Tuesday's terror attacks on the United States.
By John Rossomando

Do bin Ladens benefit financially from attack?
Iridium phones suddenly in high demand for rescue efforts.
By Joseph Farah

Technical background

Terror groups hide behind Web encryption
Hidden in the X-rated pictures on several pornographic Web sites and the posted comments on sports chat rooms may lie the encrypted blueprints of the next terrorist attack against the United States or its allies.
By Jack Kelley
Terrorist instructions hidden online
Osama bin Laden and other Muslim extremists are posting encrypted, or scrambled, photographs and messages on popular Web sites and using them to plan terrorist activities against the United States and its allies, U.S. officials say.
By Jack Kelley

	The Final Days: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Last, Desperate Abuses of Power by the Clinton White House by Barbara Olson Get an inside look at the dark days and late nights of Bill Clinton's last days as president. It was far worse than you imagined!
	Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic--John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. During the 1790s, which Ellis calls the most decisive decade in our nation's history, the greatest statesmen of their generation--and perhaps any--came together to define the new republic and direct its course for the coming centuries.
	Scandalmonger : A Novel Scandalmonger is the 25th book from William Safire, the prolific, feisty New York Times columnist and word wrangler. It's a historic novel set in 1790s New England, when the Founding Fathers were enduring various crises and humiliations as they scurried to become part of the history books. Always a stickler for the truth--as long as it's uttered in the finest of phrases--the author lets us know right from the start that we're "entitled to know what is history and what is twistery." Based on documents and diaries, and complete with an exhaustive section of footnotes separating fact from fiction, Scandalmonger turns out to be a bona fide page-turner. Safire knows what he's doing; he knows he has a lesson to teach. It's a lesson about how early America wasn't much different from Clinton's America--the temptations of mistresses, the power struggles, the ridiculous debates about purity between corrupt men being just as present. If he has one message, it is this: within every powerful politician, there is a dirty-minded second grader trying to get out. Witness this scene between two outraged congressmen who seem intent on "turning the House into a 'gladiators' arena'"
	Setting the World Ablaze : Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the American Revolution Setting the World Ablaze is the story of the three men who, perhaps more than any others, helped bring the United States into being: George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Weaving their three life stories into one narrative, John E. Ferling delivers a genuine and intimate illustration of them and, in doing so, gives us a new understanding of the passion and uncertainty of the struggle to form a new nation.
	Becoming America : The Revolution Before 1776 Publishers Weekly "Butler's original analysis is important reading on 18th-century America . . ." Kirkus Review "A sweeping, well-researched analysis of the transformative changes wrought by immigration, war, and cultural change in colonial America."
	Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell From one of America's best-known economists, the one book anyone who wants to understand the economy needs to read. At last there is a citizen's guide to the economy, written by an economist who uses plain English. No jargon, no graphs, no equations. Yet this is a comprehensive survey, covering everything from rent control and the rise and fall of businesses to the international balance of payments. The purpose of Basic Economics is to enable people without any economic training to understand the way the economy functions-not only the American economy, but other economies around the world.