[28] Other interests included writing poetry; reading, with the works of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle said to be among his favorites; black stallions; and association football, in which he enjoyed playing at centre forward and followed the English club Arsenal.

"[48] Nonetheless, Bin Laden criticized the U.S. for its secular form of governance, calling upon Americans to convert to Islam and reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury, in a letter published in late 2002.

[55][56] His viewpoints and methods of achieving them had led to him being designated as a terrorist by scholars;[57][58] journalists from The New York Times,[59][60] the BBC,[61] and Qatari news station Al Jazeera;[62] and analysts such as Peter Bergen,[63] Michael Scheuer,[64] Marc Sageman,[65] and Bruce Hoffman.

"[71]Bin Laden's overall strategy for achieving his goals against much larger enemies such as the Soviet Union and U.S. was to lure them into a long war of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender.

In a December 1998 interview with Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, Bin Laden stated that Operation Desert Fox was proof that Israeli Jews controlled the governments of the U.S. and the United Kingdom, directing them to kill as many Muslims as they could.

[49] In a May 1998 interview with ABC News, Bin Laden claimed that the Israeli state's ultimate goal was to annex the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East into its territory and enslave its peoples, as part of what he called a "Greater Israel".

[82] He also believed climate change to be a serious threat and penned a letter urging Americans to work with U.S. President Barack Obama to make a rational decision to "save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny".

"[86] From 1979 to 1992, the U.S. (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone), Saudi Arabia, and China provided between $6–12 billion worth of financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Bin Laden established camps inside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

[99] He alleged that the Pakistan Army induced Osama bin Laden to lead an armed group of Sunni tribals, from Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, into Gilgit and its surrounding areas to suppress the revolt.

[102] Notes of a meeting of Bin Laden and others on 20 August 1988, indicate that al-Qaeda was a formal group by that time: "Basically an organized Islamic faction, its goal is to lift the word of God, to make his religion victorious."

He then tried to disrupt the Yemeni unification process by assassinating YSP leaders but was halted by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz after President Ali Abdullah Saleh complained to King Fahd.

[117] Nosair was eventually convicted in connection to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and, years later, admitted guilt for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City on 5 November 1990.

[120] Meanwhile, in March–April 1992, Bin Laden tried to play a pacifying role in the escalating civil war in Afghanistan, by urging warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to join the other mujahideen leaders negotiating a coalition government instead of trying to conquer Kabul for himself.

According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find a proper reward in death, going to Jannah (paradise) if they were good Muslims and to Jahannam (hell) if they were bad or non-believers.

In August 1996, Bin Laden issued a fatwā titled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places", which was published by Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper.

Fervently attacking American support for Israel and Saudi Arabia as well as its sanctions on Iraq, Bin Laden declared in the fatwa: "Terrorising you, while you are carrying arms on our land, is a legitimate and morally demanded duty.

"[142] On 23 February 1998; Bin Laden, alongside Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ahmad Refai Taha, Shaykh Mir Hamzah and Maulana Fazlur Rahman; issued another fatwā against the U.S., calling upon Muslims to attack the country and its allies.

[164] A former U.S. State Department official in October 2001 described Bosnia and Herzegovina as a safe haven for terrorists, and asserted that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Bin Laden.

In its 26 June 1997 report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, The New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces.

[174] During his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević quoted from a purported FBI report that al-Qaeda had a presence in the Balkans and aided the Kosovo Liberation Army.

They were charged for killing Silvan Becker, agent of Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in the Terrorism Department, and his wife Vera in Libya on 10 March 1994.

On 10 October 2001, Bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the George W. Bush and based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack.

Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that Bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.

In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs al-Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership.

Testifying to the U.S. Congress, he said that Bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible.

In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability, or would at least show the people that they were careful in keeping Muslims safe on the basis of peace.

During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden.

"[276] Pakistan's U.S. envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find Bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad.

Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that Bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.