OSAMA BIN LADEN

The saying "What goes around comes around" seems to be absolutely true in Osama bin Laden's case. Not only is he the issuer of a fatwa against the US but has a fatwa on his head too.

Believed to be one of CIA's most wanted men, in 1996, bin Laden issued a fatwa urging Muslims to kill US troops in Saudi Arabia. In 1998, bin Laden issued a second fatwa, this one calling for attacks on US civilians.

His fatwa "against the United States government because it is unjust, criminal and tyrannical" was first published in a London-based newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi on February 23, 1998.

With a bounty of over $50 million on his head, the old man is believed to be responsible for the worst terror attack - the effect of which boomeranged in the form of the Afghanistan war - the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre.

Along with the 9/11 attacks, which killed over 3,000 people, Osama is wanted for many other terror attacks across the world. The prominent among these being the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi and the 2004 Madrid bombings.

More than 1,500 people were injured when 10 backpack bombs exploded on packed commuter trains on March 11, 2004.

Muslim clerics in Spain issued a fatwa against Osama bin Laden as the country marked the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people.

A man who accused the US of being unjust and criminal was himself accused of abandoning his religion by the clerics in the fatwa against him.

- Text compiled by Sakshi Arora
- Design by Rajesh Angra