In 1996 shortly after the terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers building in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US servicemen, Osama Bin Laden issued a fatwa (religious declaration) entitled "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". The "Land of the Two Holy Places" (the cities of Mecca and Medina) that he is referring to is Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden was outraged that infidel forces had been welcomed into the country by the ruling monarchy shortly after the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990 and he was declaring jihad.

Soon after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in the summer of 1990, US military forces entered into Saudi Arabia with the approval of King Fahd to participate in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Six years after the First Gulf War the US presence was still in the country and Bin Laden felt that this was a grave insult to Muslims. He was so outraged that he would put the expulsion of US forces from Saudi soil second only to belief in Islam declaring:

"Clearly after Belief (Imaan) there is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land. No other priority, except Belief, could be considered before it".

Regarding the Saudi Monarchy he wrote that they "give legitimacy to the greatest betrayal, the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places".

His ultimate goal of overthrowing the Saudi regime and ruling the Muslim world (and eventually the entire world) with a strict interpretation of Islamic law known as "Sharia" could only be carried out after the US presence was removed from the Arabian Peninsula.

In addition to the presence of US military forces in Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden was angered over the United Nations sanctions that had been placed on Iraq as a result of the invasion of Kuwait and the Iraqi regime's failure to comply with a disarmament program following the Persian Gulf War. Of these he wrote:

"More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression imposed on Iraq and its nation. The children of Iraq are our children. You, the USA, together with the Saudi regime are responsible for the shedding of the blood of these innocent children."

Not only does Bin Laden want to see infidel forces evicted from the Arabian Peninsula, he also seeks defend Iraq from "Western Aggression" and avenge the events of Operation Desert Storm.

The means by which this could be carried out would be terrorism of which he would write:

"Terrorizing you, while you are carrying arms on our land, is a legitimate and morally demanded duty" and "It is a duty now on every tribe in the Arab Peninsula to fight, Jihad, in the cause of Allah and to cleanse the land from those occupiers."

But he did not limit operations strictly to Saudi Arabia or even the Middle East, he declared a worldwide conflict by saying:

"Since the sons of the land of the two Holy Places feel and strongly believe that fighting (Jihad) against the Kuffar (non-Muslims) in every part of the world, is absolutely essential".

Bin Laden knew that he could not compete with the force and military power of the Americans. Realizing this challenge he wrote:

"due to the imbalance of power between our armed forces and the enemy forces, a suitable means of fighting must be adopted i.e using fast moving light forces that work under complete secrecy. In other word to initiate a guerrilla warfare, were the sons of the nation, and not the military forces, take part in it."

These guerrilla warfare operations had already taken place prior to this 1996 fatwa in the forms of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the Battle of Mogadishu and the Khobar bombing. In fact, Bin Laden specifically mentions the firefight in Somalia that killed 19 US soldiers saying:

"your most disgraceful case was in Somalia; where- after vigorous propaganda about the power of the USA and its post cold war leadership of the new world order- you moved tens of thousands of international force, including twenty eight thousands American solders into Somalia. However, when tens of your solders were killed in minor battles and one American Pilot was dragged in the streets of Mogadishu you left the area carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you."

The withdrawal of US military forces from Somalia was viewed as a major victory by Bin Laden and his followers who directly participated in the street battle. When this event was viewed alongside the withdrawal of the United States from Lebanon in 1983 after a terrorist attack on a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut killed 220 Marines, Bin Laden was sure that he would be able to evict the US presence on the Arabian Peninsula with a few terrorist strikes.

Bin Laden issued a second Fatwa in 1998, a few months before carrying out bombings of US embassies in the countries of Kenya and Tanzania that killed over 200 people, mostly Africans. Clearly frustrated with the continued presence of the US military after the Khobar bombing he said, "for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people".

Bin Laden's frustration with the US military presence on the Arabian Peninsula, continued United Nations imposed economic sanctions and daily enforcement of "no fly" zones in Iraq with aircraft originating from airbases within Saudi Arabia had reached a boiling point by this time and his instructions to all Muslims would be:

"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque (Mecca) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim."

Three years after he issued his second fatwa, Bin Laden would finish what had been started in 1993 with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in New York that killed six people and injured over one thousand. It is no coincidence that the majority of September 11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. The US presence there was (and still is) the main focal point of his extreme Islamic ideology. Of course, the US military presence in that country in 2001 was the direct result of over twenty years of aggression and warfare waged by the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Chad founded the website WhoServed.com, which tracks the military service of previous and current U.S. government leaders, and is currently pursuing a degree in political science from the University of Michigan - Dearborn.