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The factors that led him down the road to holy war are also what make him such a danger to his foes. Born in Riyadh, he is the son of a building contractor from Yemen who made a fortune from his friendship with King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia. No sooner had Osama finished college with a business degree than the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden volunteered to aid the mujahedin cause, at first driving a bulldozer to construct fortifications and later taking up a Kalashnikov to fight. By all accounts, he acquitted himself bravely and earned equal respect for his religious fervor. Later, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the thousands of U.S. troops who poured into Saudi Arabia provoked him to denounce the desecration of the Prophet's homeland by infidels. He began agitating against the Saudi monarchy and the West.
Nowadays, he is a stateless outlaw, but his influence is all the greater. Having fled to Sudan in 1991, then back to Afghanistan when Khartoum expelled him under U.S. pressure, he enjoys the tacit protection of the Afghan Taliban leaders, ardent holy warriors as well. His far-flung investments and business empire have remained almost entirely beyond Washington's reach, and the sundry movements he helps sponsor, including the "International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders," have confederates in many countries. According to U.S. intelligence, his aims are nothing less than defeat of the West and establishment of a global Islamic caliphate.
What comes next is anyone's guess, but suspicions are strong that bin Laden is planning another strike. Reputedly, some of his operatives have shopped around former Soviet states for an assembled nuclear warhead, only to buy some bogus goods. But his networks are picking up pointers all the time, plugged into the Internet and following events on CNN. Oddly, Washington's campaign against him seems to be in part self-defeating, having enhanced the man's prestige and influence in the Muslim world. The prominent Saudi dissident Saad Fagih remarks, "What Clinton is saying is there are two superpowers again: the United States and Osama bin Laden." If the superfoe hits back, the West can only hope that it will not be with a superweapon.
Reported by Scott MacLeod/Paris and Douglas Waller/Washington
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December 28, 1998
MEN OF THE YEAR
For rewriting the book on crime and punishment, for putting prices on values we didn't want to rank, for fighting past all reason a battle whose casualties will be counted for years to come, Bill Clinton and Kenneth Starr are TIME's 1998 Men of the Year
Click here for TIME.com's full coverage of the 1998 Men of the Year
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
How we made the choice
WHAT A YEAR!
You want history? In 1998 Asia experienced Suharto's downfall, Pol Pot's demise, two new nuclear powers and the glittering productions of Turandot in Beijing and the Olympics in Nagano
MAHATHIR MOHAMAD
Asia's newsmaker of 1998
OSAMA BIN LADEN
Another man who left his mark
POLL
Tell us your choice for Asia's newsmaker of the year
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