B. 1998. It was in this year that Osama bin Laden co-signed a fatwa (a non-binding legal pronunciation made by a religious authority) with Ayman al-Zawahiri, stating that the killing of North American and their allies was an "individual duty for every Muslim", to "liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and Mecca from their grip". In the same year a series of U.S. embassies bombings (by terrorist cells linked or incited by al-Qaeda), thorough East African countries killed hundreds of people.
