- Led by Osama bin Laden - Responsible for 9/11 attacks - Bombed
two U.S. embassies in Africa, killing 301 - Bombed the American
Navy ship USS Cole, killing 17 and wounding 39 - Seeks to
acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack the West Al Qaeda,
an Arabic word meaning "the Base," was founded in approximately
1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and Muhammad Atef --
the latter a native Egyptian and a onetime member of the
terrorist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Al Qaeda grew out of the
Services Office, a clearinghouse for the international Muslim
brigade that opposed the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In
the 1980s, under the leadership of bin Laden and the Palestinian
religious scholar Abdullah Azzam, the Services Office recruited,
trained, and financed thousands of foreign mujahideen, or "holy
warriors," from more than fifty countries. Seeking to extend the
Islamic jihad, or "holy war," beyond the borders of Afghanistan
even after the March 1988 Soviet pledge to withdraw its forces,
bin Laden