How long from the moment afganistan
beat the russians in 1983 till al
quaeda was formed?
was it financed with money left
over that we had given them?
did us indirectly create it or was
the spirit always there they just
needed money and got it in 1979
eith the war?
The radical Islamist movement in general and al-Qaeda in particular developed during the Islamic revival and Islamist movement of the last three decades of the 20th century along with less extreme movements.
Some have argued that "without the writings"
of Islamic author and thinker Sayyid Qutb "al-Qaeda would not have existed."[39] Qutb preached that because of the lack of sharia law the Muslim world was no longer Muslim,
having reverted to pre-Islamic ignorance known as jahiliyyah.
To restore Islam,
a vanguard movement of righteous Muslims was needed to implement Sharia and rid the Muslim world of any non-Muslim influences,
such as concepts like socialism or nationalism.
Enemies of Islam included "treacherous Orientalists!"
[40] and "world Jewry",
who plotted "conspiracies"
and "wicked[ly]"
opposed Islam.
In the words of Mohammed Jamal Khalia,
a close college friend of Osama bin Laden:
Islam is different from any other religion;
it's a way of life.
We [Khalia and bin Laden] were trying to understand what Islam has to say about how we eat,
who we marry,
how we talk.
We read Sayyid Qutb.
He was the one who most affected our generation.[41]
Qutb had an even greater influence on Osama bin Laden's mentor and another leading member of al-Qaeda,[42] Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Zawahiri's uncle and maternal family patriarch,
Mafouz Azzam,
was Qutb's student,
then protégé,
then personal lawyer and finally executor of his estate - one of the last people to see Qutb before his execution.
"Young Ayman al-Zawahiri heard again and again from his beloved uncle Mahfouz about the purity of Qutb's character and the torment he had endured in prison."[43] Zawahiri paid homage to Qutb in his work Knights under the Prophet's Banner.
[44]
One of the most powerful effects of Qutb's ideas was the idea that many who said they were Muslims were not,
i.e.
they were apostates.
These included leaders of Muslims countries since they failed to enforce sharia law.[45]
The origins of the group can be traced to the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
The United States viewed the conflict in Afghanistan,
with the Afghan Marxists and allied Soviet troops on one side and the native Afghan mujahedeen on the other,
as a blatant case of Soviet expansionism and aggression.
The U.S.
channelled funds through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to the native Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation in a CIA program called Operation Cyclone.[46][47]
At the same time,
a growing number of foreign Arab mujahedeen (also called Afghan Arabs)
joined the jihad against the Afghan Marxist regime,
facilitated by international Muslim organizations,
particularly the Maktab al-Khidamat,[48] whose funds came from some of the $600 million a year donated to the jihad by the Saudi Arabia government and individual Muslims - particularly wealthy Saudis who were approached by Osama bin Laden.[49]
The Afghan mujahideen of the 1980s have been alleged to be the inspiration for terrorist groups in nations such as Indonesia,
the Philippines,
Egypt,
Saudi Arabia,
Algeria,
Chechnya,
and the former Yugoslavia.[50] According to Russian sources,
the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 allegedly used a manual allegedly written by the CIA for the mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan on how to make explosives.[51]
Whether the al-Qaeda attacks are "blowback"
from the American CIA's Operation Cyclone to help the Afghan mujahideen is a matter of some debate.
Robin Cook,
former member of the British House of Commons and Foreign Secretary from 1997-2001,
has written that al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were,
"a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies"
and that the mujahideen that formed al-Qaeda were "originally
...
recruited and trained with help from the CIA".[52]
However,
CNN journalist Peter Bergen,
known for conducting the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997,
calls the idea "that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden
...
a folk myth.
There's no evidence of this.
...
Bin Laden had his own money,
he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently.
...
The real story here is the CIA didn't really have a clue about who this guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking him."[53] Bergen and others maintain the U.S.
aid was given out by the Pakistan government,
that it went to Afghan not foreign mujahideen,
and that there was no contact between the Afghan Arabs (foreign mujahideen)
and the CIA or other American officials,
let alone,
arming,
training,
coaching or indoctrination.
Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan,
Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia.
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 had put the country of Saudi Arabia and its ruling House of Saud at risk as Saudi's most valuable oil fields (Hama)
were within easy striking distance of Iraqi forces in Kuwait,[61] and Saddam's call to pan-Arab/Islamism could potentially rally internal dissent.
In the face of a seemingly massive Iraqi military presence,
Saudi Arabia's own forces were well armed but far outnumbered.
Bin Laden offered the services of his mujahedeen to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi army.
The Saudi monarch refused bin Laden's offer,
opting instead to allow U.S.
and allied forces to deploy on Saudi territory[62].
The deployment angered Bin Laden,
as he believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques"
(Mecca and Medina)
profaned sacred soil.
After speaking publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops,
he was quickly forced into exile to Sudan and on April 9,
1994 his Saudi citizenship was revoked.[63] His family publicly disowned him.
There is controversy over whether and to what extent he continued to garner support from members
of his family and/or the Saudi government.[64] April 1995 In a never-published interview with a French journalist,
Osama bin Laden says that his decision to fight alongside Afghan mujahedeen dated from "the time when the Americans decided to help the Afghans fight the Russians."
"To counter these atheist Russians,
the Saudis chose me as their representative in Afghanistan...
I did not fight against the communist threat while forgetting the peril from the West."
"For us,
the idea was not to get involved more than necessary in the fight against the Russians,
which was the business of the Americans,
but rather to show our solidarity with our Islamist brothers.
I discovered that it was not enough to fight in Afghanistan,
but that we had to fight on all fronts against communist or Western oppression.
The urgent thing was communism,
but the next target was America...
This is an open war up to the end,
until victory."
August 3,
1995
Bin Laden issues a communiqué called "an Open Letter to King Fahd."
He outlines major grievances against the Saudi regime:
lack of commitment to Sunni Islam,
inability to conduct viable defense policy,
the squandering of public funds and oil money,
and the dependence on non-Muslims for protection.
He calls for a campaign of guerilla attacks to drive U.S.
forces out of the Saudi Kingdom.
July 10,
1996
The British newspaper The Independent quotes bin Laden as saying:
"The ordinary man knows that [Saudi Arabia] is the largest oil producer in the world,
yet at the same time he is suffering from taxes and bad services.
Now the people understand the speeches of the ulemas in the mosques--that our country has become an American colony.
They act decisively with every action to kick the Americans out of Saudi Arabia.
What happened in Riyadh and [Dhahran] when 24 Americans were killed in two bombings is clear evidence of the huge anger of Saudi people against America.
The Saudis now know their real enemy is America."
[From The Washington Post 8/23/98]
August 23,
1996
Several months after being expelled from the Sudan,
bin Laden issues his "Declaration of War Against the Americans Who Occupy the Land of the Two Holy Mosques."
It reads,
in part:
"Muslims burn with anger at America.
For its own good,
America should leave [Saudi Arabia.]
...
There is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the holy land.
...
The presence of the USA Crusader military forces on land,
sea and air of the states of the Islamic Gulf is the greatest danger threatening the largest oil reserve in the world.
The existence of these forces in the area will provoke the people of the country and induces aggression on their religion,
feelings and prides and pushes them to take up armed struggle against the invaders occupying the land.
...
Due to the imbalance of power between our armed forces and the enemy forces,
a suitable means of fighting must be adopted,
i.e.
using fast-moving,
light forces that work under complete secrecy.
In other words,
to initiate a guerrilla war,
where the sons of the nation,
and not the military forces,
take part in it."
October - November 1996
Bin Laden is quoted in October/November issue of Nida'ul Islam magazine as saying:
"As for their accusations of terrorizing the innocent,
the children,
and the women,
these are in the category of 'accusing others with their own affliction in order to fool the masses.'
The evidence overwhelmingly shows America and Israel killing the weaker men,
women and children in the Muslim world and elsewhere.
A few examples of this are seen in the recent Qana massacre in Lebanon,
and the death of more than 600,000 Iraqi children because of the shortage of food and medicine which resulted from the boycotts and sanctions against the Muslim Iraqi people,
also their withholding of arms from the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina leaving them prey to the Christian Serbians who massacred and raped in a manner not seen in contemporary history.
Not to forget the dropping of the H-bombs on cities with their entire populations of children,
elderly,
and women,
on purpose,
and in a premeditated manner as was the case with Hiroshima and Nagasaki."[From The Washington Post 8/23/98]
March 1997
In a CNN interview with Osama bin Laden,
he says:
"We declared jihad against the US government,
because the US government is unjust,
criminal and tyrannical.
It has committed acts that are extremely unjust,
hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation."
"For this and other acts of aggression and injustice,
we have declared jihad against the US,
because in our religion it is our duty to make jihad so that God's word is the one exalted to the heights and so that we drive the Americans away from all Muslim countries.As for what you asked whether jihad is directed against US soldiers,
the civilians in the land of the Two Holy Places (Saudi Arabia,
Mecca and Medina)
or against the civilians in America,
we have focused our declaration on striking at the soldiers in the country of The Two Holy Places."
"The country of the Two Holy Places has in our religion a peculiarity of its own over the other Muslim countries.
In our religion,
it is not permissible for any non-Muslim to stay in our country.
Therefore,
even though American civilians are not targeted in our plan,
they must leave.
We do not guarantee their safety,
because we are in a society of more than a billion Muslims."
"I have benefited so greatly from the jihad in Afghanistan that it would have been impossible for me to gain such a benefit from any other chance and this cannot be measured by tens of years but rather more than that.
...
Our experience in this jihad was great,
by the grace of God,
praise and glory be to Him,
and the most of what we benefited from was that the myth of the superpower was destroyed not only in my mind but also in the minds of all Muslims.
Slumber and fatigue vanished and so was the terror which the U.S.
would use in its media by attributing itself superpower status or which the Soviet Union used by attributing itself as a superpower."
[As quoted in The Washington Post 8/23/98]
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