alternatehistory.com

hey, all. this idea just occurred to me, so i don't have many thoughts on it right now, nor will i be trying to come up with any for a while--i'm supposed to be studying for my final in the morning :p

anyway, suppose that, sometime after he joins the mujahadeen in 1979 during the Soviet invasion, Osama bin Laden is killed as many as nine years before al-Qaeda was founded IOTL, just a basic casualty of the fighting. nothing dark or sinister or preordained by some CIA operative who can see into the future, he happens to get hit by a stray bullet during a skirmish he may have happened to be involved in during the invasion

what does everyone think the repercussions of this would be? obviously, al-Qaeda isn't founded, but would some other terrorist organization rise up and (more or less) take its place?
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