In 1989, following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, where he was initially welcomed as a hero, but he soon came to be regarded by the government as a radical and a potential threat. In 1990 the government denied his requests for permission to use his network of fighters to defend Saudi Arabia against the threat of invasion posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Bin Laden was outraged when Saudi Arabia relied instead on U.S. troops for protection during the Persian Gulf War, leading to a growing rift between bin Laden and the country’s leaders, and in 1991 he left Saudi Arabia, settling in Sudan at the end of the year.
