Bin Laden, millionaire with a dangerous grudge

(CNN) -- Osama bin Laden, the man U.S. intelligence officials say is the prime suspect behind the September 11 hijacking attacks, is the head of a shadowy organization that is believed to have been targeting the United States and its allies since the early 1990s.

Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist and the son of a Saudi billionaire, has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since 1999, and the U.S. State Department has offered a $5 million reward for his arrest.

U.S. prosecutors say bin Laden is the leader of al Qaeda (Arabic for "the Base"), a worldwide network blamed for both successful and failed strikes on U.S. targets. These include the millennium bombing plot, last year's attack on the USS Cole in Yemen and the nearly simultaneous bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998.Bin Laden's anger with the United States stems from the 1990 decision by Saudi Arabia to allow the U.S. to stage attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and Iraq. After the U.S. victory, the U.S. military presence became permanent.

In a CNN interview with bin Laden in 1997, he said the ongoing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia is an "occupation of the land of the holy places."

He left Saudi Arabia in 1991 after feuding with the Saudi monarchy, taking assets that had grown to an estimated $250 million with him, U.S. officials say.

In 1996, bin Laden issued a "fatwah," a religious ruling urging Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Somalia. A second fatwah in 1998 called for attacks on American civilians.