Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda and mastermind and financier of terrorist attacks on Western targets, was the object of an intense American manhunt for more than 13 years. It began in mid-1998 after the deadly bombing of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The search intensified in fall 2000 after the Navy ship Cole was attacked in Yemen, killing 17 sailors, but it was the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that put bin Laden atop the United States' most-wanted list. This esingle is a selection of some of the best journalism from The New York Times following the bin Laden story.??
