The key ally of Osama bin Laden, and author of a book Knights under the Prophet's Banner, published in Arabic in 2001.

You don't hear much about this book in the West but basically he says that attacks on civilians are OK because they live in democracies and are directly responsible for government policies which anger Arabs, according to an Associated Press report.

Of course, the purpose of his jihad is well-known, to drive the United States military out of Saudi Arabia and to force it to stop supporting Israel.

His entire immediate family was killed in December 2001, but he is apparently still running around somewhere in the Middle East (February 1, 2002).

September 17, 2002 We haven't heard anything from this guy for months and months, and he's written lots of books. Seems likely he's kicked the bucket along with Osama bin Laden. Whereas Mullah Omar is very much alive, but the problem is nobody recognizes him! According to an interview with Hamid Karzai anyway. There's an article in this week's New Yorker quoting al-Hayat that he got married recently, though "the annoucement ... seems to have been timed to appear on the first anniversary of September 11th."