When the Taliban – who would eventually give him refuge – first took control of Kabul in September 1996, bin Laden and his Arab followers kept a low profile, uncertain of their welcome under the new regime. The Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar called bin Laden to southern Kandahar from his headquarters in Tora Bora and eventually through large and continual financial contributions to the isolated Taliban, bin Laden became dependent on the religious militia for his survival.
In Afghanistan, he would wake before dawn for prayers, then eat a simple breakfast of cheese and bread. He closely monitored world affairs. Almost daily, he and his men – Egyptians, Yemenis, Saudis, among others – practiced attacks, hurling explosives at targets and shooting at imaginary enemies.
He also went horseback riding, his favorite hobby, and enjoyed playing traditional healer, often prescribing honey, his favorite food, and herbs to treat colds and other illnesses. In Afghanistan, bin Laden was often accompanied by his four wives – the maximum Islam allows. Estimates on the number of his children range up to 23.
Al-Qaida's first major strike after bin Laden returned to Afghanistan was on Aug. 7, 1998, when twin explosions rocked U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Most of the victims were African passers-by, but the bombings also killed 12 Americans.
Days later, bin Laden escaped a cruise missile strike on one of his training camps in Afghanistan launched by the United States in retaliation. Bin Laden is believed to have been at the Zhawar Kili Al-Badr camp for a meeting with several of his top men, but left shortly before some 70 Tomahawk cruise missiles slammed into the dusty complex.
Since Sept. 11, bin Laden stayed a step ahead of the dragnet – perhaps the largest in history for a single individual.
As the Taliban quickly fell under pressure of the U.S. bombardment, bin Laden fled into the inhospitable mountains in the seam that separates Pakistan and Afghanistan, keeping up a spotty stream of chatter – first in video tapes and then in scratchy audio recordings – to warn his Western pursuers of more bloodshed.
Just hours after the U.S. assault on Afghanistan began on Oct. 7, 2001, bin Laden appeared in a video delivered to Al-Jazeera, an Arab satellite television station, to issue a threat to America.
"I swear by God ... neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security before we live it in Palestine, and not before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him," said bin Laden, dressed in fatigues.
He reappeared in a video appearance broadcast by Al-Jazeera on Dec. 27, 2001, shortly after U.S. forces apparently had him cornered in Tora Bora, a giant cave complex in eastern Afghanistan. Hundreds of al-Qaida suspects are believed to have escaped the massive U.S. bombing campaign there, and bin Laden is believed to have been among them.
During the past decade, bin Laden and deputy Ayman al-Zawahri have appeared regularly in audio and video tapes to issue threats, and comment on a wide range of current events, although the appearances trailed off in recent years.
In November 2002, bin Laden threatened Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia for their support for the United States, saying: "It is time we get even. You will be killed just as you kill, and will be bombed just as you bomb." Later, he called on Muslims to rise up against leaders in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait he saw as Washington's stooges.
In 2004, he tried a new tack, offering a "truce" to European countries that don't attack Muslims, then later saying that the United States could avoid another Sept. 11 attack if it stopped threatening the security of Muslims.
After a long silence, bin Laden stepped up his messages in 2006, and the subjects he addressed became more political. In January 2006, he addressed his comments to the American people rather than U.S. President George W. Bush because, he said, polls showed "an overwhelming majority" of Americans wanted a withdrawal from Iraq. He even recommended Americans pick up a copy of the book "The Rogue State," which he said offered a path to peace.
At several points in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden's capture or death had appeared imminent. After the March 2003 arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, officials in Islamabad and Washington were paraded out to deny a consistent stream of rumors that bin Laden had been captured.
U.S. forces poured into the border region looking for him and former Taliban and Taliban in hiding said bin Laden had constantly been on the move, traveling through the mountains with a small entourage of security.
Through it all, bin Laden vowed repeatedly that he was willing to die in his fight to drive the Israelis from Jerusalem and Americans from Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
"America can't get me alive," bin Laden was quoted as saying in an interview with a Pakistani journalist conducted shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.
And while his bluster proved prophetic, in the end it was not bin Laden who would get the last word.
"On nights like this one," Obama said in announcing bin Laden's death to the world, "we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al-Qaida's terror: Justice has been done."
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