NAME: al Qaeda
DATE STARTED/FIRST ACTIVE: Established by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s.
GOALS: Establish a pan-Islamic Caliphate throughout the world by working with allied Islamic extremist groups to overthrow regimes it deems "non-Islamic," and expelling Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries.
MAIN ANTI-U.S. ACTIVITIES TO DATE: Is suspected of involvement in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen. Conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed at least 301 persons and injured more than 5,000 others. Claims to have shot down U.S. helicopters and killed U.S. servicemen in Somalia in 1993, and to have conducted three bombings that targeted U.S. troops in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992.
STRENGTH: May have several hundred to several thousand members.
OPERATIONAL LOCATIONS: Al Qaeda has a worldwide reach with cells in a number of countries, and benefits from its ties to Sunni extremist networks. Bin Laden and his top associates reside in Afghanistan, and the group maintains terrorist training camps there.
AFFILIATIONS: Serves as the umbrella organization for a worldwide network that includes many Sunni Islamic extremist groups, such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad, some members of al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and the Harakat ul-Mujahidin.
COMMENTS: Bin Laden is the son of a wealthy Saudi family, and uses his inheritance to finance the group. Al Qaeda also operates moneymaking front organizations, solicits donations, and illicitly siphons funds from donations to Muslim charitable organizations.