Word: jihad
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...would be fanatic in behavior and belief: stern, moralistic, teetotaling. The status of shahid, or holy martyr, would solve his earthly issues in paradise, and someone would give money to his family on earth. If he hailed from the rebel training camps of Afghanistan, where the cult of jihad gets its earthly gunmen, he would be fundamentalist in his faith, ignorant of the outside world, immersed in a life of religious devotion and guerrilla instruction. He would speak not in casual conversation but in scripture. An intense, carefully nurtured fanaticism would replace any natural instinct for self-preservation...
With his supporters, his three wives (he is rumored to have since added a fourth) and some 10 children, bin Laden moved again to Afghanistan. There he returned full time to jihad. This time, instead of importing holy warriors, he began to export them. He turned al-Qaeda into what some have called "a Ford Foundation" for Islamic terror organizations, building ties of varying strength to groups in at least a few dozen places. He brought their adherents to his camps in Afghanistan for training, then sent them back to Egypt, Algeria, the Palestinian territories, Kashmir, the Philippines, Eritrea, Libya...
...built his syndicate, bin Laden also became more open about what he was up to. In 1996 he issued a "Declaration of Jihad." His stated goals were to overthrow the Saudi regime and drive out U.S. forces. He expanded the target with another declaration in early 1998 stating that Muslims should kill Americans, civilians included, wherever they could find them. Later that year, his operatives used car bombs against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224, mostly Africans. Those blasts provoked a U.S. cruise-missile attack on an al-Qaeda base in Afghanistan that missed bin Laden...
...only one of two or three chieftains in al-Qaeda. Many bin Laden watchers and even ex-associates have observed that bin Laden appears to be a simple fighter without a brilliant head for tactics. His lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician who heads the Egyptian al Jihad, which took credit for the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, is often mentioned as the brains behind the operations. U.S. federal prosecutors have asserted in court filings that al Jihad "effectively merged" with al-Qaeda in 1998. Mohamed Atef, al-Qaeda's military commander, is also a powerful...
...latest outrage was perpetrated by Osama Bin Laden, then it is part of an ongoing low-intensity war. Bin Laden is waging a 'jihad' or 'holy war' whose aim is to terrorize the U.S. into withdrawing entirely from the Middle East and Gulf region. U.S. personnel have traditionally worked with allied intelligence agencies for years to thwart the Bin Laden threat and take down his networks. Now the U.S. will escalate its campaign, and punish any states that may have assisted Bin Laden. But this "war" is a complex combination of intelligence, security, diplomatic and military maneuvers that is unlikely...