Terrorism and the Illuminati

Al Qaeda

Abdullah Azzam

The Muslim Brotherhood has acted as a clever technique to recruit agent-provocateurs for the Iluminati. The lowest ranks may sincerely believe they are defending Islam, and confronting “Western imperialism”. However, these various terrorist groups, through representing different factions, are part of a single network serving the same Illuminati cause. When we explore the political and financial connections of the terrorists, we find that these are not merely wayward fanatics, operating in isolation, but that their channels penetrate to the upper reaches of power, in the British and American governments, and outward into the nether regions of the occult and criminal underworlds.

According to Svali, a former member of the cult, the Illuminati “…. are truly an international group, and the group’s agenda supersedes any nationalistic feelings.”^[1] That members of this network could share a common goal, despite adhering to apparently conflicting ideologies and religious creeds, is explained by the fact that the Illuminati believe there is no truth. This reality, according to them, is too difficult to handle for all but the “elite”. As for the masses, however, they require religion. It is therefore perceived as necessary by the Illuminati to don the façade of religion to lead them. As Robert Dreyfuss clarifies:

The real Muslim Brothers are those whose hands are never dirtied with the business of killing and burning. They are the secretive bankers and financiers who stand behind the curtain, the members of the old Arab, Turkish, or Persian families whose genealogy places them in the oligarchical elite, with smooth business and intelligence associations to the European black nobility and, especially, to the British oligarchy.

And the Muslim Brotherhood is money. Together, the Brotherhood probably controls several tens of billions of dollars in immediate liquid assets, and controls billions more in day-to-day business operations in everything from oil trade and banking to drug-running, illegal arms merchandising, and gold and diamond smuggling. By allying with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Anglo-Americans are not merely buying into a terrorists-for-hire racket; they are partners in a powerful and worldwide financial empire that extends from numbered Swiss bank accounts to offshore havens in Dubai, Kuwait and Hong Kong.^[2]

Ronald Reagan

So, when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President in January 1981, and the U.S. objective in Afghanistan shifted, because it was estimated that a Mujahideen fighting force of no less than 150,000 trained and well-equipped troops would have to be created, William Casey endorsed a worldwide recruitment effort, to be organized through the CIA. Exercised through the Muslim Brotherhood, it would reach to the Afghan exile communities in Europe, North Africa, other parts of the Islamic world, and America. The recruitment drive to attract Muslims from all parts of the world was of course a pretext. The Mujahideen were able to attract but a few thousand volunteers. In reality, the recruitment effort was aimed at indoctrinating an international pool of terrorists to serve beyond the war in Afghanistan, to be later used to instigate the phony War on Terror.

For the meantime, these would be regarded as “Freedom Fighters”, but the war in Afghanistan provided the Illuminati the opportunity to mobilize an international army of terrorist recruits, whose directives would later be changed to attack the US. The prime recruiting ground for these dupes, of course, was the bastion of that fanatical version of Islam created by the British in the eighteenth century, Saudi Arabia, a country now which, following the orchestration of the oil crisis, was in a financial position to fund these covert operations on behalf of their co-conspirators in London and Washingston.

To solicit Saudi Arabia’s support, Casey contacted Bandar, who arranged a meeting with King Fahd, as a result of which the Saudis, funneled through the BCCI, would match “America dollar for dollar supporting the Mujahideen,” according to Prince Turki al Faisal, longtime head of Saudi intelligence.^[3] Besides ridding themselves of an increasingly volatile section of the population, according to Craig Unger, the war in Afghanistan was:

…a mission that could be embraced by the gamut of Saudi society, from the wealthy merchant families and the House of Saud to the militant clerics and the fundamentalist masses. For the royal family, the war was not just part of the cornerstone of the burgeoning Saudi alliance with the United States, but served other purposes as well. Contributing to the war effort placated the militant clerics and helped accommodate the growing unrest and the more radical elements of society.^[4]

The ISI requested the presence of a Saudi prince to lead the “Jihad” in Afghanistan. While no volunteers were forthcoming, the Saudi leaders recommended the scion of a wealthy family that was close to the monarchy, Osama bin Laden. He was dispatched to the Pakistan border, arriving there just in time to hear Brzezinski, donning a turban, shout “Allah is on your side”.

Sayed Qutb

But, while Osama was responsible for the organization and training of new recruits, it was Sheikh Abdullah Azzam who formulated the ideological argument, according to Islamic law, in order to justify the war in Afghanistan as “Jihad”, by which recruits were to be motivated to serve American interests against the Soviets.

Barnett R Rubin, a Columbia University associate professor, and senior fellow at the C.F.R, says sources have told him that Abdullah Azzam was “enlisted” by the CIA.^[5] Unrelated to the Egyptian Azzams, Azzam was a Palestinian-born teacher of religion, and an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West Bank. Later, he pursued an education in Jordan and Damascus before receiving his doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence from Cairo’s Al Azhar University in 1973. While in Cairo, Azzam met the family of Sayed Qutb.^[6] Thereafter, he moved to Saudi Arabia, after being invited to teach at King Abdul Aziz University, where he linked up with Sayed Qutb’s brother Mohammed.

Mohammed Qutb, like many in the Muslim Brotherhood, had emigrated under CIA sponsorship to Saudi Arabia during Nasser’s crackdown.^[7] He was given different official positions at Saudi universities to teach and to carry out the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood. While in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Qutb conceived of the organization now known as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), which was established in 1972, thanks to large donations from the bin Laden family. Osama’s brother Omar was at one time its executive director, and another brother, Abdullah, who also served as a director, was being investigated as a source of terrorist funding until the Bush administration halted the FBI’s investigation at the beginning of his term in 2001.^[8]

Thereafter, Azzam moved to Saudi Arabia, after being invited to teach at King Abdul Aziz University, where he linked up with Sayed Qutb’s brother Mohammed. Mohammed Qutb, like many in the Muslim Brotherhood, had emigrated under CIA sponsorship to Saudi Arabia during Nasser’s crackdown. He was given different official positions at Saudi universities to teach and to carry out the mission of the Muslim Brotherhood. While in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Qutb conceived of the organization now known as the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), which was established in 1972, thanks to large donations from the bin Laden family. Osama’s brother Omar was at one time its executive director, and another brother, Abdullah, who also served as a director, was being investigated as a source of terrorist funding until the Bush administration halted the FBI’s investigation at the beginning of his term in 2001.

Like Abdul Wahhab, and typical of all Muslim Brotherhood ideology, Azzam depended on an interpretation of Islamic law derived from Ibn Taymiyyah. In Ibn Taymiyyah’s time, the Islamic world had come under the sway of the Mongols. Despite the fact that the Mongol invaders had accepted Islam, Ibn Taymiyyah insisted that their religion was tainted, and therefore that they were unbelievers. By categorizing the Mongol rulers as infidel invaders, Ibn Taymiyyah argued that it was obligatory for the Muslims to fight them. Azzam employed similar arguments, claiming that once a Muslim land is invaded, the Muslims of the world must unite the defend it. Ultimately, what Azzam did was to convince his Muslim brethren that, despite the rampant corruption in their own countries, it was incumbent upon them to fight the unholy infidels in Afghanistan, omitting the fact that it was not a Muslim country, but had already been subjected to Communism.

Azzam, however, was finally assassinated in a car bomb attack in late 1989. Some US intelligence officials believe bin Laden ordered the killing.^[9]

Osama Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden’s father, Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, emigrated from Yemen to Saudi Arabia as a bricklayer, and slowly built the largest Saudi construction firm. He established a close relationship with Ibn Saud, who asked him to rebuild the sacred city of Mecca. Ever since, the bin Ladens have been responsible for construction in Mecca and Medina.

After Mohammed’s death in a plane crash in 1967, his sons built the Saudi BinLaden Group into a multibillion-dollar enterprise. Recent ventures have included building a freeway around Riyadh, expanding King Khaled Airport, and constructing a base for U.S. troops. By the late 70s, Osama was running the business. As points out John K. Cooley, an ABC News correspondent, and Middle East specialist:

Through his own personal reputation as a pious Muslim who favoured the cause of Wahabi Islamism, and through involvement of the bin Laden companies in construction and renovation at the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina, he seemed to both Saudi Intelligence and the CIA an ideal choice for the leading role he began to play. Bin Laden began to pay, with his own company and funds, for recruitment, transportation and training of the Arab volunteers who flocked, first to Peshawar, and to Afghanistan… By 1895 bin Laden had collected enough millions from his family and company wealth… to orgnize al Qaida.^[10]

Bin Laden headquarters in Dubai

While attending King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Osama bin Laden also became close to Mohammed Qutb, and was initiated into the Muslim Brotherhood.^[11] Osama had also attended Azzam’s classes and was caught up into his militant ideology. In 1979, Azzam left Saudi Arabia, being one of the first Arabs to join the Afghan jihad, and Osama, at just twenty-two years of age, followed soon after, leading them to found the MAK, or “Maktab al-Khidamat”, or the Mujahideen Services Bureau, based in Peshawar, Pakistan. According to John Loftus, however, it was George Bush Sr., as vice president, who was in charge of the covert operations that supported the MAK.^[12]The MAK was nurtured by Pakistan’s ISI, and linked up with Pakistan’s Muslim Brotherhood organization, the Jamaat-e Islami, founded by Abul Ala Maududi, to recruit fighters.

Ted Gunderson

Michael Riconosciuto

By the late 1980s, there were branches of the MAK in fifty countries around the world, by means of which unsuspecting dupes from around the globe poured in to fight “Jihad” in Afghanistan. Azzam and bin Laden then recognized that many of the prospective Mujahideen lacked training, and established the Bayt Al-Ansar in Peshawar, as a central training base, or Al Qaeda, founded with the assistance of the resident CIA chief in Peshawar.^[13] Bin Laden had made the first of many contacts with the CIA in 1979, after graduating from university in Jeddah, when he went to Istanbul, which the American intelligence center had chosen as a way station for the volunteers.^[14]

When the Americans decided to change the tide of the war, Osama was brought to the US under the false name of “Tim Osman”. Osama then met with three men in Sherman Oaks, California. Among them was Ted Gunderson, a retired FBI agent, who had been approached by a high-level official in the administration of President Ronald Reagan to provide, outside of government channels, assistance to the Afghan Mujahideen. In 1986, Gunderson then arranged a meeting between himself, Riconosciuto, and Ralph Olberg. Michael Riconosciuto was architect of the Promis software who was closely involved with Hubbell’s Park-on-Meter operation. Olberg covertly represented the State Department where he served on its Middle East desk.^[15]

Gunderson’s role was to put the key players in contact with Sir Dennis Kendall, a former member of the British parliament, and a double agent during World War II, who had worked for both the Germans and the British. After leaving Gunderson in California, Riconosciuto, bin Laden, Olberg and Kendall traveled to Boston, where they met with Abdullah Azzam, and details of the aid plan were further formulated. Interpol provided secure communications and kept the operation, formalized with a number of unnamed congressmen, from being compromised or discovered.^[16]

Mujahideen fighter aims US-made Stinger missle

The project ultimately provided the Afghani resistance with 600 stinger surface-to-air, shoulder-fired missiles, which had been modified so they could not be used against American aircraft if captured. Gunderson confirmed that these weapons turned the tide of battle in Afghanistan against the Soviets, whose aircraft, and particularly attack helicopters, fell victim to the missiles.^[17]

America’s support of the Mujahideen, even included, as revealed by John Cooley, a former journalist with the US ABC, and author of Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, training inside the US. Training included rifle shooting at the High Rock gun club in Naugtuck, Connecticut. More technical training took place at the CIA’s Camp Peary, nicknamed “The Farm,” in Virginia. Among the topics that were covered were surveillance and counter surveillance, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics and paramilitary operations.

Michael Springman, the head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah from 1987 to 1989, told the BBC:

In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. People who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained there. I complained here in Washington to Main Street, to the inspector general, and to Diplomatic Security, and I was ignored. What I was doing was giving visas to terrorists  recruited by the CIA and Osama bin Laden to come back to the United States for training to be used in the war in Afghanistan against the then Soviets.^[18]

Ali Mohammed

A former U.S. Army Sergeant, Ali Mohamed, testified in a New York court that he helped train members of Al Qaeda after he left the army in 1989. An Egyptian, Ali Mohamed rose to the rank of major his country’s Special Forces. In 1984, he was expelled from Egypt’s military as a religious extremist. He contacted the CIA, offering to act as a spy, but the CIA judged him unreliable. He was later placed on a U.S. government watch list, and yet was able to obtain a U.S. visa, marry an American woman, and become an American citizen. Until 1989, he was lecturing on the Middle East at the U.S. Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. In 2000, he admitted involvement in the bombing of the embassies in Africa.

Though his relationship with the FBI and the CIA remain shrouded in secrecy, a close friend of his, obstetrician Ali Zaki, stated, “everyone in the community knew he was working as a liaison between the CIA and the Afghan cause.”^[19]In 1988, while still on active duty, he visited Afghanistan on leave, where he fought the Soviets and made contact with Osama bin Laden, apparently with CIA sponsorship. After Mohamed was honorably discharged in 1989, he joined the Reserves for another five years. Documents from U.S. court cases demonstrate that while either on active duty or a member of the Reserves, he continued to travel abroad to meet with Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, as well as training al Qaeda members within the U.S. Retired Lt. Col. Robert Anderson, who was at Fort Bragg testified that, as nothing was done after he had advised his superiors of

Ayman al Zawahiri

Mohamed’s activities, he was forced to conclude that Mohamed was “sponsored” by U.S. intelligence.

^[20]

Mohamed Ali returned to California in the mid 1990s, where he helped Zawahiri raise money for the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

^[21]

Finally, even Ayman al Zawahiri, the alleged “number two man” in Al Qaeda, was part of several dubious associagtions. Zawahiri is a member of another Muslim Brotherhood organization, Islamic Jihad, founded in 1977, which had been discovered responsible for the assassination of Sadat. Zawahiri was one of the men charged in the plot. Zawahiri is also related to the family of the Azzams. His grandmother was the sister of the renowned Abdul Rahman Azzam, while his uncle was Salem Azzam. After he fled Egypt, he based his operations in Geneva, working under the cover of the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Islamic Center, led by Said Ramadan.

The Sudan, Bosnia and the Philipines

Hassan al-Turabi

At the end of 1989, Osama bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. Although, when the Gulf War broke out in 1990, he became an outspoken critic of the setting up of US bases in the country, which had been permitted by the Saudi family. Bin Laden decided to leave Saudi Arabia in 1991, going first to Pakistan and back to Afghanistan, before finally settling in Sudan, when General Omar Hassan al-Bashir took power in a military coup. Just a few months later, at the Muslim Brotherhood meeting in London in 1989, it was decided that Sudan would be a new base for the Islamist movement, and a Muslim Brotherhood leadership council of nineteen members was subsequently established in Khartoum under Turabi, who would emerge as the real power in the Sudanese regime.^[22]

Hassan al-Turabi, born in 1932, joined the Muslim Brotherhood while studying law at the British-run Gordon College in Khartoum. He received a master’s degree from the University of London, and then attended the Sorbonne University in France, receiving his doctorate in 1964. According to bin Laden biographer Roland Jacquard, Turabi visited London in 1992 and was a guest at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In addition, Turabi seems to have Masonic connections. When their relationship had broken down, and after Turabi had foiled an attempted coup by he and his party, Bashir denounced him as being sponsored by “Zionists and freemasons”.^[23]

According to several authoritative sources, as the war was winding down in Afghanistan, leaders of the CIA in Peshawar held secret meetings with bin Laden, at the end of 1991, at Green’s Hotel, under the authority of Prince Turki al Faisal, the head of Saudi intelligence. It was agreed to maintain the valuable collaboration of the “Afghan” Mujahideen, though the exact substance of the meeting is not known.^[24] Consequently, many of the fighters who had trained and volunteered in Afghanistan were removed to Sudan. With support from his family, Osama extended large loans to the Islamic regime, in exchange for which the Binladen Group launched a great infrastructure construction project, including the building of highways, bridges, airports, and luxury residences.

Bin Laden also continued to finance training camps, for which he often returned to Afghanistan. On each of these visits he met with the CIA experts.^[25] Together with weapons shipments to Sudan, bin Laden also managed an opium supply chain that was established before he departed for Afghanistan with Hekmatyar.^[26] The DEA confirms having received multi-source information that Bin Laden has been involved in the financing and facilitation of heroin trafficking activities.^[27] Al Qaeda reportedly earns as much as six billion a year from drug-trafficking.^[28]

Edwin Angele, aka “Ibrahim Yakub”

fromIn Bosnia, where al Qaeda Mujahideen collaborated with the US, the militants established connections with Bosnian organized crime figures. The officials said al Qaeda and the Taliban found a route for the trafficking of heroin Afghanistan into Europe through the Balkans.

^[29]

Followers also have been tied to bank robberies, holdups, credit card fraud and other crimes.

^[30]

Bin Laden had also pushed early funding through the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), as arranged in meetings between al Qaeda’s inner-circle and the charity’s directors. Al-Zawahiri was employed by the IIRO in Albania. The Philippine branch office was run by Osama’s brother-in-law, who made a hand-off of cash to the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf, an al Qaeda offshoot. The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), was co-founded by Edwin Angeles, who also went by the Muslim name of “Ibrahim Yakub”, an undercover agent for the Defense Intelligence Group, who, as the ASG’s operations officer and chief recruiter, was largely responsible for the spread and criminalization of the group. Filipina television news reporter, Arlyn de la Cruz, in her history of the ASG, wrote that Angeles/Yakub “holds the key to the deep intricacies of how some government agencies manipulated the rawness of the Abu Sayyaf during its early years.”^[31]

WTC Bombing

On November 5, 1990, in New York City, Meir Kahane, the founder of the terroristic Jewish Defense League (JDL), was assassinated by an Arab assailant. Kahane had been elected to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in 1884, by advocating the expulsion of all Arabs from Israel, but was subsequently barred from office after a new law banned parties that had racist platforms. Essentially, the history of the JDL and its founder indicates that the JDL functioned as an arm of the Mossad. Kahane’s biographer, Robert Friedman, revealed that “high-ranking members of Mossad” were directing Kahane, and that the “central player” was former Mossad operations chief, Yitzhak Shamir.^[32]

Meir Kahane

Kahane had also been an asset of the FBI and the CIA, including a stint for the CIA in Africa, as a “news correspondent.” In 1965, under the name “Michael King,” Kahane and Joseph Churba formed a group to mobilize campus support for the Vietnam War, as part of a CIA operation “working both sides” of the Vietnam War issue, simultaneously funding anti-war groups. In 1968, Michael King became Rabbi Meir Kahane. His colleague, Churba, also a rabbi, was a key liaison between the Likudnik right-wing in Israel and neo-conservatives in Washington.^[33] Churba became an influential asset for Israeli intelligence in U.S. foreign policy-making circles, having been promoted by the John Birch Society, and funded by CIA-backed Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon.^[34]

The man accused of assassinating Kahane was El Sayed Nosair, one of dozens of Arabs who had spent time at the Al Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, where the CIA had once recruited prospects to join the Afghan Jihad in the eighties. According to the February 1993 issue of the newsletter, Inside Israel, Kahane’s son claimed that “both the FBI and Mossad had infiltrated the group to which Nosair belonged.” As reported by Jane Hunter, for the Middle East International, “Benyamin Kahane says he was told by an FBI informant he identifies as Mustafa Shalabi that Nosair’s brother worked for the FBI.”^[35] Shalabi, a former colleague of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, later turned up dead.

El Sayed Nosair

Files found in Nosair’s possession gave details of a terrorist cell, mention al Qaeda, and discuss the destruction of tall US buildings, but were not translated until years later. Instead, within twelve hours of the assassination, New York police declared the assassination was the work of a “lone gunman”, and stuck with that story. At Nosair’s trial, to which Bin Laden contributed for the defense, prosecutors chose nevertheless not to introduce his incriminating possessions as evidence, nor was his confession even mentioned, and a supposedly “open-and-shut case” ended with an acquittal. However, Nosair was sentenced to twenty-two years on other lesser charges.^[36] Many of those involved in Kahane’s assassination later planned the 1993 WTC. As one FBI agent put it, “the fact is that in 1990, myself and my detectives, we had in our office in handcuffs, the people who blew up the World Trade Center in ‘93. We were told to release them.”^[37]

Omar Abdur Rahman
the “blind Sheikh”

Evidence found in Nosair’s apartment linked him to the “Blind Sheikh”, Omar Abdur Rahman. Curiously, despite Sheikh Omar’s link to Nosair, a formal investigation was not undertaken. During the war in Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman had made frequent trips to Peshawar in Pakistan, where he was a friend of Abdullah Azzam. Sheikh Omar was known to have befriended bin Laden while in Afghanistan, and bin Laden secretly paid Abdul-Rahman’s US living expenses.^[38] Though he had been tied to the assassination of Anwar Sadat, the CIA nevertheless regarded him as a valuable asset, because they saw his anti-Western polemics as successful in uniting the Mujahideen forces. According to Peter Bergen’s Holy War, Inc., even though the Blind Sheikh was known to be the leader of the Gamat al Islamiyya, the radical offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, he had been issued a visa in 1987 and 1990.^[39] As one FBI agent said in 1993, he is “hands-off…. It was no accident that the sheikh got a visa and that he’s still in the country. He’s here under the banner of national security, the State Department, the NSA, and the CIA.”^[40]

The charge that Sheik Omar Abdur Rahman operated with CIA sanction has come from a number of sources, including an anonymous government official, who leaked that it was a CIA officer assigned as a consular official that approved the Sheik’s visa from the Sudan after the consulate approved it, according to the New York Times on July 14, 1993. Egyptian President Mubarak suggested that the visa had been issued to Rahman as a payoff for “services” rendered. “The sheikh has been a CIA agent since his days in Afghanistan,” Mubarak told Egypt’s al-Gomhuria newspaper. “He still earns a salary.”^[41]

Specifically, according to Barnett R Rubin, a Columbia University associate professor, and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Abdur Rahman received the visa for having gone to Peshawar on behalf of the CIA, soon after Azzam was killed, “to preach to the Afghans about the necessity of unity to overthrow the Kabul regime.”^[42] Also according to Rubin, not long after the sheikh was arrested, a source asked Robert Oakley, former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, how the U.S. would respond if the sheikh disclosed he had worked for the CIA. Oakley laughed, saying it would never happen, because the admission would ruin the sheikh’s credibility with his militant followers.^[43]

In the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, thousands of suspected terrorists were rounded up and jailed, among them were Omar Abdul Rahman, who was eventually convicted of a conspiracy to blow up New York City landmarks. Emad Salem, the Egyptian bodyguard for Sheikh Rahman, and the key witness in the trial, was an FBI informant. It was eventually revealed under questioning that Mr. Salem had received a quarter million to one million dollars for his services as an FBI informant. Salem testified that the FBI knew about the attack beforehand and told him they would thwart it by substituting a harmless powder for the explosives. However, this plan was called off by an FBI supervisor, and the bombing was not stopped.^[44]Defense attorney William Kunstler investigated and discovered that not only was Salem a lieutenant colonel in the Egyptian army, he never stopped working for the Egyptian government. Apart from the FBI, Salem was also funded, according to Kunstler, by other sources linked to foreign governments, including money from an organization founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane.^[45]

Renegade Mossad agent, Victor Ostrovsky, who left Israel’s secret police agency and wrote his best-selling book, By Way of Deception, told the Village Voice that Israeli intelligence may have been behind the World Trade Center bombing. Mossad had motive and opportunity, says Ostrovsky, though he readily admits he doesn’t have “a shred of evidence” to support his theory. Ostrovsky says that the Mossad would have infiltrated the radical mosques in New Jersey and Brooklyn, where Abdul Rahman preached and disciples like El Sayyid Nosair prayed, and almost certainly recruited a close associate of the Blind Sheikh. The insider is recruited in what Ostrovsky calls a “false flag operation.” The Arab “thinks he is being recruited by an Iranian agent or a Libyan,” says Ostrovsky. He never suspects he is actually being “run” by Mossad.^[46]

Ostrovsky points out that in the past the Mossad has effectively used this modus operandi. In the early 1950s, Mossad recruited agents to bomb American buildings in Cairo, hoping to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Nasser. When the facts became known in Israel, the scandal brought down the government. According to Ostrovsky, in 1984 Mossad detonated bombs outside of the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital city, claiming credit in the name of an unknown radical Saudi resistance group. A member of Mossad at the time, Ostrovsky says the purpose was to weaken U.S./Saudi relations, by demonstrating to the U.S. that the regime was fragile and about to fall.^[47]

As reported by Robert Friedman, Ahmad Ajaj, of the men accused of conspiring to bomb the World Trade Center, may have been a Mossad mole, according to Israeli intelligence sources. The FBI had identified Ajaj as a senior Intifada activist in the occupied territories, having close ties to both El Fatah, a constituent group of the PLO, and Hamas. According to federal sources and the Israeli National Police, the Israeli military expelled him to Jordan in 1991, for conspiring to smuggle weapons to El Fatah on the West Bank.

However, according to Kol Ha’ir, a highly regarded weekly in Jerusalem, Ajaj was never involved in Intifada activities, or with the PLO, or Hamas. Citing court papers and other sources, Kol Ha’ir related that Ajaj was actually a small-time crook, and that during his prison stay, after having been sentenced in 1988 for counterfeiting U.S. dollars, he was apparently recruited by Mossad. Curiously, following his release, only a year later, he had seemingly undergone a radical transformation, and became a devout Muslim.^[48]

It was soon after that when he was arrested for smuggling weapons into the West Bank, allegedly for El Fatah. However, Israeli intelligence sources say that the arrest for weapons smuggling, and Ajaj’s supposed torture and deportation, were staged by Mossad to establish his credentials as an intifada activist. Mossad allegedly “tasked” Ajaj to infiltrate radical Palestinian groups operating outside Israel. Israeli intelligence sources say that it is no unusual for Mossad to recruit from the ranks of common criminals.^[49]

Footnotes:

^[1] Svali. “The Illuminati: How the Cult Programs People“.
^[2] Dreyfuss, Hostage to Khomeini, p. 113. [pdf]
^[3] Craig Unger. House of Bush, House of Saud, p. 98.
^[4] ibid.
^[5] Friedman, Robert. “The CIA’s Jihad“. March 1995.
^[6] Hizmet Books, “Answer to an Enemy of Islam“.
^[7] Mark Erikson. “Islamism, fascism and terrorism (Part 3)”. Asia Times, Dec 4, 2002.
^[8] Joe Trento, “FBI Shut Down Bin Laden Investigation”.
^[9] Peter Lance. Thousand Years of Revenge. p. 40-41
^[10] Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, American and International Terrorism, p. 119.
^[11] Peter Goodgame. “Globalists and Islamists“.
^[12] Interview with John Loftus About the Muslim Brotherhood.
^[13] Labeviere, Richard. Dollars for Terror: The United States and Islam, p. 103.
^[14] ibid, p. 103.
^[15] Mike Blair. “U.S. Armed, Promoted Accused September 11 Terrorist Mastermind“.
^[16] ibid.
^[17] ibid.
^[18] Interview with Franck Anderson, quoted from Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, p. 109-110
^[19] Ahmed, Nafeez Mossadeq. The War on Freedom: US Complicity in 9-11 and the New Imperialism, p. 199.
^[20] ibid.
^[21] Ton Hays and Sharon Theimer. “Egyptian Agent Worked with Green Berets, bin Laden”. Jerusalem Post, December 31, 2001.
^[22] Peter Goodgame. “Globalists and Islamists“.
^[23] “Darfur governor links Khartoum plot with rebels”, World News, Sep 27, 2004.
^[24] RichardcLabeviere. Dollars for Terror. p. 104.
^[25] ibid, p. 106.
^[26] ibid, p. 105.
^[27] Asa Hutchinson, DEA Administrator. “International Drug Trafficking and Terrorism”. Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information. Washington, DC. March 13, 2002.
^[28] London Daily Telegraph, 9/15/01, 9/16/01; Montreal Gazette, 9/15/01; Le Monde, 9/14/01
^[29] New York Times, December 10, 2001.
^[30] Los Angeles Times, September, 15, 200.
^[31] Alex Constantine. “Adnan Khashoggi Linked to 911 Terrorists”. PART 7: The Brother-Bruder-Akh Axis.
^[32] Michael Collins Piper. “Was Irv Rubin Killed in 9-11 Mop Up?”. Exclusive to American Free Press.
^[33] Steinberg, Jeffrey. “LaRouche: Moonies Are Target Too Big To Be Missed”. EIR, November 1, 2002.
^[34] Michael Collins Piper. “Was Irv Rubin Killed in 9-11 Mop Up?”.
^[35] Jane Hunter, Middle East International, March 19, p. 6
^[36] Robert Friedman, “The CIA and the Sheikh”, The Village Voice. March 30, 1993.
^[37] ABC News, July 16, 2002.
^[38] Atlantic Monthly, May 1996, ABC News, July 16, 2002.
^[39] p. 67.
^[40] Freidman, “The CIA and the Sheikh”.
^[41] ibid.
^[42] Friedman. “The CIA’s Jihad“.
^[43] ibid.
^[44] Blumenthal, Ralph. “Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast”. The New York Times. October 28, 1993.
^[45] Transcript of Paul DeRienzo’s interview with William Kunstler, Broadcast on WBAI in New York on August 3, 1993.
^[46] Friedman, Robert. “By Way of Deception?”. The Village Voice, April 6, 1993.
^[47] ibid.
^[48] Robert I. Friedman, “Mossad Linked To WTC Bomb Suspect” The Village Voice, August 3, 1993.
^[49] ibid.

The Muslim Brotherhood

Interview with John Loftus about the Muslim Brotherhood FTR #514

REALAUDIO

The American Counterterrorist Myth–JULY/AUGUST 2001 ATLANTIC

The Counterterrorist Myth

JULY/AUGUST 2001 ATLANTIC

A former CIA operative explains why the terrorist Usama bin Ladin has little to fear from American intelligence

by Reuel Marc Gerecht

The United States has spent billions of dollars on counterterrorism since the U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, in August of 1998. Tens of millions have been spent on covert operations specifically targeting Usama bin Ladin and his terrorist organization, al-Qa’ida. Senior U.S. officials boldly claim—even after the suicide attack last October on the USS Cole, in the port of Aden—that the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are clandestinely “picking apart” bin Ladin’s organization “limb by limb.” But having worked for the CIA for nearly nine years on Middle Eastern matters (I left the Directorate of Operations because of frustration with the Agency’s many problems), I would argue that America’s counterterrorism program in the Middle East and its environs is a myth.

Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier, is on the cultural periphery of the Middle East. It is just down the Grand Trunk Road from the legendary Khyber Pass, the gateway to Afghanistan. Peshawar is where bin Ladin cut his teeth in the Islamic jihad, when, in the mid-1980s, he became the financier and logistics man for the Maktab al-Khidamat, The Office of Services, an overt organization trying to recruit and aid Muslim, chiefly Arab, volunteers for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The friendships and associations made in The Office of Services gave birth to the clandestine al-Qa’ida, The Base, whose explicit aim is to wage a jihad against the West, especially the United States.

According to Afghan contacts and Pakistani officials, bin Ladin’s men regularly move through Peshawar and use it as a hub for phone, fax, and modem communication with the outside world. Members of the embassy-bombing teams in Africa probably planned to flee back to Pakistan. Once there they would likely have made their way into bin Ladin’s open arms through al-Qa’ida’s numerous friends in Peshawar. Every tribe and region of Afghanistan is represented in this city, which is dominated by the Pathans, the pre-eminent tribe in the Northwest Frontier and southern Afghanistan. Peshawar is also a power base of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s fundamentalist rulers. Knowing the city’s ins and outs would be indispensable to any U.S. effort to capture or kill bin Ladin and his closest associates. Intelligence collection on al-Qa’ida can’t be of much real value unless the agent network covers Peshawar.

During a recent visit, at sunset, when the city’s cloistered alleys go black except for an occasional flashing neon sign, I would walk through Afghan neighborhoods. Even in the darkness I had a case officer’s worst sensation—eyes following me everywhere. To escape the crowds I would pop into carpet, copper, and jewelry shops and every cybercafé I could find. These were poorly lit one- or two-room walk-ups where young men surfed Western porn. No matter where I went, the feeling never left me. I couldn’t see how the CIA as it is today had any chance of running a successful counterterrorist operation against bin Ladin in Peshawar, the Dodge City of Central Asia.

Westerners cannot visit the cinder-block, mud-brick side of the Muslim world—whence bin Ladin’s foot soldiers mostly come—without announcing who they are. No case officer stationed in Pakistan can penetrate either the Afghan communities in Peshawar or the Northwest Frontier’s numerous religious schools, which feed manpower and ideas to bin Ladin and the Taliban, and seriously expect to gather useful information about radical Islamic terrorism—let alone recruit foreign agents.

Even a Muslim CIA officer with native-language abilities (and the Agency, according to several active-duty case officers, has very few operatives from Middle Eastern backgrounds) could do little more in this environment than a blond, blue-eyed all-American. Case officers cannot long escape the embassies and consulates in which they serve. A U.S. official overseas, photographed and registered with the local intelligence and security services, can’t travel much, particularly in a police-rich country like Pakistan, without the “host” services’ knowing about it. An officer who tries to go native, pretending to be a true-believing radical Muslim searching for brothers in the cause, will make a fool of himself quickly.

In Pakistan, where the government’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency and the ruling army are competent and tough, the CIA can do little if these institutions are against it. And they are against it. Where the Taliban and Usama bin Ladin are concerned, Pakistan and the United States aren’t allies. Relations between the two countries have been poor for years, owing to American opposition to Pakistan’s successful nuclear-weapons program and, more recently, Islamabad’s backing of Muslim Kashmiri separatists. Bin Ladin’s presence in Afghanistan as a “guest” of the Pakistani-backed Taliban has injected even more distrust and suspicion into the relationship.

In other words, American intelligence has not gained and will not gain Pakistan’s assistance in its pursuit of bin Ladin. The only effective way to run offensive counterterrorist operations against Islamic radicals in more or less hostile territory is with “non-official-cover” officers—operatives who are in no way openly attached to the U.S. government. Imagine James Bond minus the gadgets, the women, the Walther PPK, and the Aston Martin. But as of late 1999 no program to insert NOCs into an Islamic fundamentalist organization abroad had been implemented, according to one such officer who has served in the Middle East. “NOCs haven’t really changed at all since the Cold War,” he told me recently. “We’re still a group of fake businessmen who live in big houses overseas. We don’t go to mosques and pray.”

A former senior Near East Division operative says, “The CIA probably doesn’t have a single truly qualified Arabic-speaking officer of Middle Eastern background who can play a believable Muslim fundamentalist who would volunteer to spend years of his life with shitty food and no women in the mountains of Afghanistan. For Christ’s sake, most case officers live in the suburbs of Virginia. We don’t do that kind of thing.” A younger case officer boils the problem down even further: “Operations that include diarrhea as a way of life don’t happen.”

Behind-the-lines counterterrorism operations are just too dangerous for CIA officers to participate in directly. When I was in the Directorate of Operations, the Agency would deploy a small army of officers for a meeting with a possibly dangerous foreigner if he couldn’t be met in the safety of a U.S. embassy or consulate. Officers still in the clandestine service say that the Agency’s risk-averse, bureaucratic nature—which mirrors, of course, the growing physical risk-aversion of American society—has only gotten worse.

Afew miles from Peshawar’s central bazaar, near the old Cantonment, where redcoats once drilled and where the U.S. consulate can be found, is the American Club, a traditional hangout for international-aid workers, diplomats, journalists, and spooks. Worn-out Western travelers often stop here on the way from Afghanistan to decompress; one can buy a drink, watch videos, order a steak. Security warnings from the American embassy are posted on the club’s hallway bulletin board.

The bulletins I saw last December advised U.S. officials and their families to stay away from crowds, mosques, and anyplace else devout Pakistanis and Afghans might gather. The U.S. embassy in Islamabad, a fortress surrounded by roadblocks, Pakistani soldiers, and walls topped with security cameras and razor wire, strongly recommended a low profile—essentially life within the Westernized, high-walled Cantonment area or other spots where diplomats are unlikely to bump into fundamentalists.

Such warnings accurately reflect the mentality inside both the Department of State and the CIA. Individual officers may venture out, but their curiosity isn’t encouraged or rewarded. Unless one of bin Ladin’s foot soldiers walks through the door of a U.S. consulate or embassy, the odds that a CIA counterterrorist officer will ever see one are extremely poor.

The Directorate of Operations’ history of success has done little to prepare the CIA for its confrontation with radical Islamic terrorism. Perhaps the DO’s most memorable victory was against militant Palestinian groups in the 1970s and 1980s. The CIA could find common ground with Palestinian militants, who often drink, womanize, and spend time in nice hotels in pleasant, comfortable countries. Still, its “penetrations” of the PLO—delightfully and kindly rendered in David Ignatius’s novel Agents of Innocence (1987)—were essentially emissaries from Yasir Arafat to the U.S. government.

Difficulties with fundamentalism and mud-brick neighborhoods aside, the CIA has stubbornly refused to develop cadres of operatives specializing in one or two countries. Throughout the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-1989) the DO never developed a team of Afghan experts. The first case officer in Afghanistan to have some proficiency in an Afghan language didn’t arrive until 1987, just a year and a half before the war’s end. Robert Baer, one of the most talented Middle East case officers of the past twenty years (and the only operative in the 1980s to collect consistently first-rate intelligence on the Lebanese Hizbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad), suggested to headquarters in the early 1990s that the CIA might want to collect intelligence on Afghanistan from the neighboring Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union.

Headquarters’ reply: Too dangerous, and why bother? The Cold War there was over with the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. Afghanistan was too far away, internecine warfare was seen as endemic, and radical Islam was an abstract idea. Afghanistan has since become the brain center and training ground for Islamic terrorism against the United States, yet the CIA’s clandestine service still usually keeps officers on the Afghan account no more than two or three years.

Until October of 1999 no CIA official visited Ahmad Shah Mas’ud in Afghanistan. Mas’ud is the ruler of northeastern Afghanistan and the leader of the only force still fighting the Taliban. He was the most accomplished commander of the anti-Soviet mujahideen guerrillas; his army now daily confronts Arab military units that are under the banner of bin Ladin, yet no CIA case officer has yet debriefed Mas’ud’s soldiers on the front lines or the Pakistani, Afghan, Chinese-Turkoman, and Arab holy warriors they’ve captured.

The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, which now has hundreds of employees from numerous government agencies, was the creation of Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, an extraordinarily energetic bureaucrat-spook. In less than a year in the mid-1980s Clarridge converted a three-man operation confined to one room with one TV set broadcasting CNN into a staff that rivaled the clandestine service’s Near East Division for primacy in counterterrorist operations. Yet the Counterterrorism Center didn’t alter the CIA’s methods overseas at all. “We didn’t really think about the details of operations—how we would penetrate this or that group,” a former senior counterterrorist official says. “Victory for us meant that we stopped [Thomas] Twetten [the chief of the clandestine service’s Near East Division] from walking all over us.” In my years inside the CIA, I never once heard case officers overseas or back at headquarters discuss the ABCs of a recruitment operation against any Middle Eastern target that took a case officer far off the diplomatic and business-conference circuits. Long-term seeding operations simply didn’t occur.

George Tenet, who became the director of the CIA in 1997, has repeatedly described America’s counterterrorist program as “robust” and in most cases successful at keeping bin Ladin’s terrorists “off-balance” and anxious about their own security. The Clinton Administration’s senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council, Richard Clarke, who has continued as the counterterrorist czar in the Bush Administration, is sure that bin Ladin and his men stay awake at night “around the campfire” in Afghanistan, “worried stiff about who we’re going to get next.”

If we are going to defeat Usama bin Ladin, we need to openly side with Ahmad Shah Mas’ud, who still has a decent chance of fracturing the tribal coalition behind Taliban power. That, more effectively than any clandestine counterterrorist program in the Middle East, might eventually force al-Qa’ida’s leader to flee Afghanistan, where U.S. and allied intelligence and military forces cannot reach him.

Until then, I don’t think Usama bin Ladin and his allies will be losing much sleep around the campfire.

PELOSI–Fearless Leader of the Lunatic Center

PELOSI

Fearless Leader of the Lunatic Center

Predator Retribution–Hakeemullah Dead

Pakistan Taliban Chief Reportedly Killed in U.S. Drone Strike

Reuters

Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, is seen with CIA homicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal Al-Balawi in a video released Jan. 9.

BREAKING NEWS —  The head of the Taliban in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone attack, Pakistan state television reported Sunday.

The report stated Mehsud had been injured in a drone attack in the Shaktoi area January 14 and died three days later.

The Pakistani army said it was investigating the reports.

Pakistani army spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas says the army is using its agents in Pakistan’s northwest where the death is reported to have occurred to try to confirm or deny the reports.

Pakistani state TV reported earlier Sunday that Mehsud died in Orakzai tribal area, where he was reportedly being treated for his injuries. It cited “official sources.”

Pakistani intelligence officials have said that Mehsud was targeted in a U.S. drone strike in South Waziristan on Jan. 14, triggering rumors he had been injured or killed.

Mehsud issued two audio tapes after the strike denying the rumors.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

The New Great Game: Part-2; Global Islamic Jihad

[The New ‘Great Game’:Part 1-Birth of Radical Islamist Militancy]

A Strategic Asset Of The USA?

Hassan Rizvi , Lahore

Pakistan :

This is a rather lengthy article, and I was delaying publishing it on Instablog for this reason. Yet I see that terrorism is on the rise in India too. Unfortunately my frequent predictions that after Afghanistan and Pakistan, India because of it again getting involved in Afghanistan would soon itself become a hot bed of terrorism appear to be coming true. This article is therefore being published to give a bird eyes view of the issues to the general public who blame Islam and Pakistan for the rise of global terrorism. Unfortunately the subject is such that despite my best efforts I could not make it any shorter.

In Part-1 we studied the background to the US involvement in Afghanistan. Essentially Curzon’s great game of containment of Russia had been turned on its head by the India. It decided that it’s interests would best be served by allying with the Russian. The resulting rise in Afghan militancy against Pakistan supported both by Russia and India, invited the ire of the Shah of Iran as well as the Saudi’s who viewed Russian interference as an attempt to reach the warm waters and oilfields of the Persian gulf.

We also saw how Alexandre de Marenches head of French Intelligence exercised central influence on development of events in this region. His creations the Safari Club along with the BCCI, took on the load of containment of world wide Soviet penetration at a time when CIA was ‘castrated’ due to Congressional inquiries. He too was convinced Russia wanted access to the warm waters of the Gulf through Afghanistan. Just three weeks before the Russian Invasion of Afghanistan when Arnaud De Bochgrave of Newsweek asked for advise where to go to in order to get the best breaking news story he replied,” If I were you, I would go to Kabul’!

Finally we saw how building up on this Brzezinski conceived the idea of trapping and ‘bleeding’ the Russians in a Vietnam of their own – using Islamic militants. In this article we will see exactly how – after having drawn the USSR into Afghanistan – the USA went about achieving this objective.

It is important to note here that till the time of this US involvement suicide bomber was an unknown phenomena in Pakistan but had been discovered and first used by the Tamil rebels of Sri Lanka. Also the rest of the Muslim world, specially the Arabs had not been involved in Pakistan’s war with Afghanistan – hence global Radical Islamic Jehadi was an un invented commodity.

From ‘Cold War’ to ‘Détente’ to ‘Global Jihad’.

Even in the early stages of the cold war the US had realized that religion was the most potent foe of the atheistic communist doctrine; and that the dynamic and fast growing religion of Islam was much more anti-communistic then even Christianity. Since WW2 it sought to contain communism using Muslim allies.

Nevertheless the division of US ally Pakistan into two by Russian backed ally India in 1971 – made US helplessness apparent world wide. The perception gained ground – within US government itself as well as – around the world, that the USSR had achieved nuclear parity while the US had been seriously weaken by Vietnam. To counter this the US decided to use it’s relations with Pakistan as a bridge to improved relations with China and thus contain the USSR.

Following on the heels of a secret visit to China by Kissinger, in February 1972 Richard Nixon met with Mao Zedong and Chou En-Lai at Beijing to announce a stunning rapprochement. A fear of encirclement by adversaries lead the Soviets towards détente. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks started in May 1972, resulting in the signing of the SALT II treaty, on June 18, 1979. With this the ‘cold war’ came to an end.

But the post Watergate functioning of the Safari Club awakened the Americans to the possibility of re-energizing their fading dreams for a Pax-Americana. The work already done by The Safari Club in Afghanistan; Pakistan’s visible determination to avenge their recent defeat in East Pakistan (1971) through a defeat of the Russo/Indian axis in Afghanistan; as well as Carters keenness to avoid the stigma of direct US involvement; enamored Brzezinski with plans of drowning the USSR in a flood of Jehadi fighters drawn from around and within the USSR.He started taking just enough interest to provoke a Soviet Invasion.

The successful enticement of Soviet troops into Afghanistan raised the love affair another notch into a marriage of convenience. US President Jimmy Carter withdrew the SALT II treaty from the Senate, describing the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as “the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War”. In 1980, Ronald Reagan went further vowing to increase military spending and confront the Soviets everywhere. After getting elected he revived the B-1 bomber program, installed US cruise missiles in Europe, and announced his experimental Strategic Defense Initiative, i.e. “Star Wars”. Also he dramatically increased support for Afghan War,while Richard Pipes the head of the NWG at the time, predicted that with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will “explode into genocidal fury” against Moscow.

It would turn out to be a marriage in which the willing bride ‘Pakistan’ –as well as other Muslim in-laws – would be wooed with all sorts of enticing visions, heedless of the consequences! Meanwhile much had to be done before the marriage could be consummated-and so Brzezinski set about the task of arranging the party.

The guests would include China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia –and but for the fiasco of the Shah having been allowed permission for medical treatment in USA –even Khomeini’s Iran. The plan involved their co-operation with the west in assembling, training, equipping and raising against Russia; the largest, most efficient and most motivated guerilla force the world had ever seen.

The Outline Plan. Brzezinski came up with a plan to recruit Muslim fighters not only from Islamic countries around the globe, but also from Muslim minorities in other countries including the west. They would be motivated by the concept of Islamic Jihad; believing that God had ordered them to defeat the Godless Russians invaders. Their earthly reward would be glory, good pay and massive earnings through drug trade for the leaders; while in case of death they would be Shaheeds (mytrs) and would gain paradise!

The CIA would co-ordinate the global effort and provide special forces(green berets and SEALs/SAS) to train Islamic Jehadi leaders and instructors all over the globe; and along with Saudi and Egyptian help recruit and dispatch these Islamic fighters to Pakistan’s ISI .The USA and Saudi Arabia would also finance and equip the entire war effort. Pakistan’s ISI (along with its special forces SSG) would be responsible for the recruitment and training of local Jehadi fighters, as well as the training of those arriving from outside. More over Pakistan would serve as the sole pipeline for the operational control, re-supply and logistics including payments to all fighters within the theatre of operations.

It will be revealing at this stage to see which particular countries were relevant to this US plan; and why?

Egypt. Anwer Sadat a close ally of the Americans had been isolated in the Muslim world ever since he made his peace treaty with Israel. The Al Azhar University at Cairo was recognized through out the Muslim world as the fore most religious institution. The Muslim Brotherhood also had branches through out the world, and like Pakistan’s Jamat e Islami advocated the establishment of an ideal Islamic state based on the teachings of The Holy Quran.The support of Anwer Sadat was vital for gaining access to Egyptian bases as regional collection and dispatch points of arms and equipment to Mujahideen in Afghanistan; while the support of two above mentioned institutions was the key to raising a huge army of Egyptian fighters for the envisioned global Jihad. In addition it was hoped that Anwer Sadat’s identification with the Global Jihad might serve to end his isolation in the Muslim world.

Pakistan. It was the bride Brzezinski must woo at all costs if his global Jihad was to succeed. Already engaged in covert operations against Afghanistan for the last five years, it had the required intelligence already in place. Moreover being the country most jeopardized by the Russian invasion, it could be counted on to be the most zealous in the fight. The Jamat e Islami founded by Maulana Mahdoodi had a wide following in Pakistan –and also branches world wide. It also advocated the use of militancy for the achievements of its aims if necessary, and had prepared many of its followers to fight in Afghanistan as well as Kashmir. Enlisting its support would greatly facilitate the recruitment drive both in Pakistan as well as globally.

Saudi Arabia. We have already discussed the important role it played in the Safari Club both with regards to spreading of the teachings of Wahabi radicalism world wide, as well as the financing of covert operations. It enjoyed enormous respect as an ally amongst all sections of Pakistanis. More over as the custodians of the Holy Kaaba it commanded respect through out the Muslim world. Its importance both as financers as well as enablers of massive recruitment world wide, in support of global Jihad could never be under estimated.

China. Both as a regional power, as well as a country with which Pakistan had close ties, getting China on board for any major undertaking was unavoidable. More over its large Muslim population and Russian origin weaponry would be invaluable in provision of both recruits and equipment which could not be pinned on the Americans
.

But US relations with Pakistan were at low ebb because of a US anti-nuclear proliferation embargo. So Assistant secretary of State Warren Christopher was sent on a mission to woo the bride, soon Brzezinski would follow with the formal proposal. He would go first to Egypt then Pakistan; while US Defense secretary Harold Brown would go to China.

The Initial US Effort. Soon after Warren Christopher’s wooing mission to Pakistan; in January 1980 Brzezinski visited Egypt .From that date the airbase at Qena- already in US use for reconnaissance flights against Iran – was also made available for airlifting supplies to Pakistan. Later Aswan was also made available, and Egypt started sending it’s own out of date surplus Russian equipment for use by the Mujahideen.An old arms factory near Halwan was converted to produce copies of Russian weapons for dispatch. Later Representative Charlie Wilson would travel to Israel to meet w Zvi Rafiah; and Israel would also feed captured Egyptian, Syrian and PLO equipment-including T-55 tanks- into this supply route .Over time much useful equipment including artillery and mortar shells and even Strela missiles were sent. By summer of 1980 Cairo west airbase was also made available; and by end of 1980 US special warfare troops (SEALs) were based in Egypt to impart training to Egyptian instructors-including Al-Zawari- who in turn would train the Egyptian recruits.

From Egypt Brzezinski flew straight to Pakistan. Pakistan viewed the Russian invasion of Afghanistan as a God sent opportunity to strike a tough bargaining position. The ISI chief Akhtar A. Rehman was keenly in favor of using Afghanistan as a Vietnam for the Russians, yet Zia was determined to strike a tough deal. He asked for and got the US to turn a blind eye to Pakistan’s perusal of its nuclear ambitions. He also got the US to accept that all arms, supplies, finance and training must be provided through Pakistan and not directly by CIA.

Later when US coordinated aid started flowing Zia insisted on absolute adherence to this condition. He further specified that the countries supporting must maintain absolute secrecy and repeatedly deny if necessary any shipment. Second the arms were to start immediately and be sent to Pakistan by fastest means available, but not less then two plane loads per week. Third the remaining supplies must be regular, and could come overland (China and Iran) or via sea from others (USA, UK, France, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia etc)

Henry Kissinger had already used the close ties between Pentagon and Pakistan military to build a link with China. Now after Brzezinski’s visit to Pakistan, US defense secretary Harold Brown flew to China where he secured Chinese assent and active help for the global Jihad.

Osama Bin Laden. It will be worthwhile at this stage to focus on the role of Osama bin Laden-the man who was to be painted post 9/11 as the maniacal leader of Al-Qaeda Islamic terrorist network.

In his book CIA’s Beardman claims that Osama bin Laden was never aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington. This is likely an attempt at distancing the CIA from Osama as a result of 9/11,for enough evidence is available to prove that not only was Osama aware of US effort in support of the Afghan war, but also that he was closely involved in routing it to the Arab fighters.

What is certain is that Osama Bin Laden appeared on the scene immediately after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Leaving Saudi Arabia together with a group of supporters and heavy engineering equipment he arrived in Pakistan in 1979. According to Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Osama was 22 years old in 1979, when he was trained in an ISI sponsored guerilla training camp near Peshawar, Pakistan. It is said that the ISI wanted a Saudi prince to head the Saudi contingent as proof of the Saudi commitment for the anti-Soviet effort. They failed to get royalty, but a person from the influential bin Laden clan was considered good enough.

Richard Clarke, counter terrorism head during the Clinton and Bush administrations, believes Osama was handpicked for the job by the head of Saudi intelligence (Turki) .The Saudis deny he was ever their agent, but it is known that he regularly met with Prince Turki and Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif. Turki’s chief of staff Ahmed Badeeb one of bin Laden’s teachers in high school even said: “I loved Osama and considered him a good citizen of Saudi Arabia.” Badeeb will later say bin Laden developed “strong relations with the Saudi intelligence and with our embassy in Pakistan. We were happy with him. He was our man”.

It seems clear therefore that Osama was hand picked soon after the Soviet invasion to play a middleman’s role between Saudi intelligence and ISI. More over the status of his relations with the CIA though cloudy, are also thus clearly established. The truth is that although Osama was neither recruited by the CIA, nor was their agent; once the US had decided to come in a big way; as the middleman between Saudi intelligence and ISI it was inevitable that he would get closely involved with the CIA too.

Numerous charities and foundations coordinated by Saudi intelligence in close liaison with Safari Club were already in existence and financing covert operations world wide. In addition as per Indian claims Pakistan had already set up 37 training camps in Pakistan ,49 in Azad Kashmir, and 22 camps in Afghanistan to supply fighters for Afghanistan and Kashmir. Now that the USA had also committed the CIA to globalization of the covert fight in a big way, it too would have to set up front organizations for undertaking the required financial and recruitment drive.

The CIA would be the main coordinator globally and the ISI would co-ordinate everything within Pakistan. Staying within this arrangement, Osama was possibly placed in charge of co-coordinating and marrying up the existing Arab global effort with the one to be set up by the CIA/ISI.

Soon after his training in Pakistan Osama left for a visit to the USA in 1980, and also reportedly was seen in the UK in 1981.Nothing is certain about the reasons for the visit. Barnett Rubin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations claims that about this time in the USA, – a man “enlisted” by the CIA who had “close connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi intelligence, and the Muslim World League.” – was given the role of looking after the financing and recruitment of foreign Jehadi. Slate writes, “Azzam trotted the globe during the 1980s to promote the Afghan jihad against the Soviets”.

Now this Azzam also later became known as Osama’s mentor. Was Osama also trotting alongside him on the same mission? It would appear to be so, for in 1984 Azzam set up the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), also known as Al-Kifah in Peshawar, a Pakistani town bordering Afghanistan.Osama bin Laden soon took it over from him.Azzam moved back to the US to set up its first American branch in New York – known as the Al-Kifah Refugee Center. As we shall see in a later part of the article Azzam then enlarged the network to 30 branches! All US branches were CIA backed, and served both as financial as well as recruitment centers.

It becomes obvious that the office at Peshawar was a set up for tying in the CIA effort with the effort already in place in Pakistan. Thus the MAK center at Peshawar is in a position to receive –through Pakistan’s ISI- not only the money of private Arab charities, but also all CIA funds and equipment for Arab fighters. It would become the main center for funneling foreign funds and fighters from all over the globe into the Afghan war.

In fact back in 1982 the CIA had become unhappy with the ‘Afghan native’ fighters due to rivalry ridden infighting, and wants more Arab fighters as Arab were easier to ‘read’ and also ‘one-dimensionally anti-Soviet ’.CIA Director William Casey visited Pakistan to sign an agreement committing CIA’s support for recruitment of Muslim from around the world. In addition to the Gulf States, this would include Turkey, the Philippines, USA, UK and China.

Azzam and Osama were probably tasked after this by their respective handlers to set up a suitable funnel for the purpose. They came up with the MAK center at Peshawar. From here Osama could keep a tab on and control the financing and feeding of all foreign fighters into the Afghan Jihad. The entire initial data base was initially also held by him. Researcher Kurt Nimmo writes:” This database of Islamic fighters was labeled in Arabic, ‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’, which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word ‘Al Qaeda” which is the Arabic word for ‘base.’” Robin Cook, British Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2003, also confirms this: “al-Qaeda was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujaheddin who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”

Thus starting soon after the Russian Invasion in 1979, US efforts had by 1984 laid the foundations for converting the discordant Pakistani covert war against the Soviets, into a global Jihad- code named ‘Operation Cyclone’. Even by end of 1982 the rate of flow of equipment would rise to 10,000 ton annually, and the flow of foreign fighters also increases.
Operation Cyclone-The US led Global Jihad Against Russia

Afghan Mujahideen Leaders Meet US president Regan in America
NSDD 166.In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166, (NSDD 166). William Casey director of CIA described it as the largest covert operation in history. It authorized stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and laid down a new goal for the Afghan war: Total defeat of Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action leading to a Soviet withdrawal.

The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies — a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987.”In addition to arms, it provided very specialized training, state of the art military equipment including surface to air missiles, military satellite maps and latest communications equipment
The U.S. supplied support package had three essential components-organization and logistics, military technology, and ideological support for sustaining and encouraging the Afghan resistance. The ISI increased its staff to over 150,000 military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers. In the final stages U.S. counter insurgency experts worked closely with the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) even in organizing Mujahideen groups and in planning operations inside Afghanistan.

Eventually the entire Afghan nation, supported by tens of thousands of PakistaniJihadis and some 35,000 Muslim radical Jehadis from 40 countries would join the fight. Most of the funding would be from the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade.

MAK offices in the US in the late 1980s. [Source: National Geographic]
Recruitment. We have already seen how Abdullah Azzam ,a CIA agent mentored Osama in setting up his financial and recruitment fronts ;and also the main funnel at Peshawer.Azzam also followed this up by expanding the US net work to 30 branches. For this reason Slate calls him “the Lenin of international jihad.”

The war lords in Afghanistan recruited their own followers. These were reinforced by fighters from all over the world. In Pakistan the Jamat i Islami set up recruitment centers all over the country-including Kashmir. Recruitment centers were also opened in many other countries including the Middle East, Turkey, UK, Philippines and China. These were funded by MAK (through CIA and ISI) but operated and run through mosques and Islamic centers in respective countries.

Training. Initially key Pakistani officers and some Afghan mujaheddin leaders were trained by Navy Seals and Green Beret officers at Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia, which is said to be the CIA’s main location for training spies and assets. Other training took place at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Harvey Point, North Carolina, and Fort A. P. Hill, Virginia. US consular official Michael Springmann reports fighters from many Middle Eastern nations getting US visas, apparently to train in the US for the Afghan war.

Training was imparted in how to detect explosives, surveillance, how to recruit new agents, how to run paramilitary operations, and more. They are taught to use different weapons, including rockets, mortars, missiles, remote-controlled mines and bombs, and sophisticated timers and explosives.

Guerrilla training was integrated with inspirational Jihad lectures, featuring CIA sponsored speakers. They could be CIA-trained Afghan fighters traveling on a CIA-issued visa; or clean-cut Arabic-speaking Green Beret lecturing on the glory of being ‘warriors of the Lord.’ People like Azzam, Abdul-Rahman, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, could often turn up as star guest speakers to deliver fiery sermons on themes like ‘Blood and martyrdom are the only way to create a Muslim society’ or ‘the world opposes our objectives, because it is the enemy of Muslims.’ Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, and that this was being violated by the atheistic Soviet invaders who must be killed, and that the Islamic people in Afghanistan are warriors of Allah through Jihad.

Instructor’s training centers staffed by Green Berets and SEALs were set up in 1980 both in Egypt and Pakistan. Fearing a diplomatic incident, US and British troops rarely ventured into Afghanistan, but up to 1982 the British SAS did provide weapons training even in Afghanistan. After Russian soldiers found the passports of two British instructors in a training camp this was discontinued; and UK enrolled mujaheddin were trained in secret camps in remote parts of Scotland.

The instructors thus trained were used in turn to train tens of thousands more in camps set up by ISI in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Radical Indoctrination. Under NSDD 166, Washington also supported and financed the process of religious indoctrination. The CIA spent $ 51million to create and supply Afghan school children with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to breed radicalism from the grass roots. Nebraska academic Thomas Gouttierre led the textbook project.

These were filled with talk of Jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, violent images and militant Wahabi teachings. Children are even taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles, and land mines.Mathmatics involved posing the children with problems like how many second would it take for a bullet aimed by a Jehadi to crack open the head of an infidel Russian, given the velocity. The primers are so radical that even the Taliban regime would continue using these American-produced books!

Financing The Jihad Through Drug Trade. The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is closely connected to the CIA’s operations. Prior to the covert operations opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was small- and directed to regional markets. There was no local production of heroin, but within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, “the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer.” (Alfred McCoy, Drug Fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive, 1 August 1997).

CIA involvement started with a small suggestion in1981. Alexandre de Marenches head of the Safari Club met President Reagan at the White House. He proposed ‘Operation Mosquito’ a joint French-American-ISI operation to produce fake Russian newspapers with articles designed to demoralize Soviet troops. He also suggested US supply of drugs to Soviet soldiers. It is claimed that the idea was rejected, but soon after fake issues of the Soviet army newspaper did appear in Kabul; and also large qualities of cocaine, hashish, opium, and heroin become available to Soviet troops. At that time cocaine was only grown in South America!

In 1982, a secret memo will exempt the CIA from reporting on drug smuggling conducted by CIA officers or assets. Obviously the CIA wished to use the proceeds of the Afghan drug trade to finance its operations. Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that” Under CIA and ISI protection, Afghan resistance opened heroin labs on the Afghan and Pakistani border. Among the leading heroin manufacturers were Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan leader who received about half of the covert arms that the CIA shipped to Pakistan. In 1995 the former CIA Director of this Afghan operation, Mr. Charles Cogan, admitted sacrificing the drug war to fight the Cold War. “Our main mission was to do as much damage to the Soviets. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes, but the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.” (Alfred McCoy, Testimony before the Special Seminar focusing on allegations linking CIA secret operations and drug trafficking-convened February 13, 1997, by Rep. John Conyers, Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus)

The Pakistan backed Taliban government which came to power in 1996 virtually eliminated this trade, with opium production declining by more than 90 percent. But in the immediate wake of the US led invasion of Afghanistan, opium production has again increased 33 fold from 185 tons in 2001 under the Taliban to 6100 tons in 2006. In 2007, this was approximately 93% of the global supply of heroin, and valued in excess of 190 billion dollars a year. (Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 6 January 2006)

The Operational Structure Of Jehadi Groups.The entire Jehadi fighting force was united under the banner of Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen which was an alliance of seven Afghan parties fighting against the Soviets : Islamic Party (Khalis), Islamic Party (Hekmatyar), Islamic Society (Rabbani), Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan (Sayyaf), National Islamic Front for Afghanistan (Gailani), Afghanistan National Liberation Front (Mojaddedi), and Revolutionary Islamic Movement (Mohammadi).Although the alliance took its formal shape in the 1985, it had de facto existed as a political bloc since May 1979, when the Pakistani government decided to limit the flow of foreign financial aid, mainly from USA and Saudi Arabia, to the said seven organizations, thus limiting infighting amongst numerous smaller groups-while simultaneously cutting of the flow to doubtful and undesirable groups.

The seven parties between themselves controlled a number of affliated commanders –the highest operational rank amongst the Jihadis. Significant commanders typically led 300 or more men,but there were many commanders with lesser number of fighters.Each commander controlled several bases to dominate a district or a sub-division of a province.Some of the legendary commanders of the Afghan war were:

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar the favored warlord of the ISI and CIA. Casey was said to be particularly fond of him as both shared a goal of extending the fighting beyond Afghanistan into the Soviet Union itself. He was a ruthless fighter, who also led several raids into USSR territory. He was also a major drug trafficker. Almost half of all the covert weapons directed at Afghanistan were sent to his group.

Another ISI and CIA favorite was Jalaluddin Haqqani. In the 1980s, he was cultivated as a “unilateral” asset of the CIA, helping to protect Osama bin Laden, who was building his own militia to fight the Soviet forces. Originally a member of the Hezb-i Islami ,he was the first resistance leader to capture a city, Khost, from the Najibullah government. After the fall of Kabul to the Mujahideen in 1992, he was appointed justice minister in the first Mujahideen government. He attracted generous support from prosperous Arab countries compared to other resistance leaders. Haqqani was not originally a member of the Taliban. In 1995, just prior to the Taliban’s occupation of Kabul, he switched his allegiance to them. In 1996-97, he served as a Taliban military commander north of Kabul, and was accused of ethnic cleansing against local Tajik populations. During the Taliban years in power, he served as the Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs and governor of Paktia Province.

The GID’s (Saudi Intelligence Agency) favorite was Abdul Rasul Sayyaf a Pashtun warlord .He was a member of Akhwan-ul-Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood), founded in 1969 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Dr. Syed Burhanuddin Rabbani, which had strong links to TheMuslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Fluent in Arabic. His tenure as an Ustad (Professor) at the Shariat in Kabul ended in 1973 when he fled to Pakistan after an unsuccessful plot to overthrow President Daoud Khan . Sayyaf then headed the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan, and fought against Soviet occupying forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s, forming a close relationship with Osama bin Laden . Together in the Jalalabad area they established a training camp network, later used by Al-Qaeda personnel, with bunkers and emplacements. In 2001 he was the only Pashtun leader allied with the United Front (Northern Alliance) –and therefore the US – in its war against the governing Taliban prior to the fall of Kabul. In this period though wielding little clout as a military leader, he was able to maintain a small army paying men under his command with donations he received from his Arab benefactors. He is also the one who trained the dreaded Abu Sayyaf terrorist group of the Philippines.

Ahmed Shah Massoud of the Panjshir valley north of Kabul,one of the most independent,charismatic and effective of Mujahideen commanders.He was also the most well read and certainly the most militarily proficient amongst them all.His tragedy was that in a land over which all sorts of powers vied for control he dreamed of a democratic and free Afghanistan.With the result that he was always relatively poorly supplied.Opposed to both Russian as well as Pushtun domination,he is credited by some western writers of having caused over 60% of the Russian losses-but found little favour with the ISI or Saudis. By the end of the war he was leading at least 10,000 trained troops-the only semblence to an army amongst mujahideen commanders- and had expanded his political control of Tajik dominated areas to Afghanistan’s northeastern provinces.His Northern alliance later also provided the base for the US invasion of Afghanistan.After the Russian withdrawl he remained the lone obstacle preventing Taliban and Pakistani domination of the country.However in this final stage he was being supported by the Russians,the Iranians and the Indians-and perhaps covertly even by the US.

The fighters under the warlords operated through over 4000 bases spread all over Afghanistan.The bases served as sources of supply and control.

Hierarchies of organization above the base level were attempted,but the results varied depending on regional, ethnic and sectarian considerations. In the Pashtun areas of the east, south and southwest; tribal structure, with its many rival sub-divisions, provided the basis for military organization and leadership. Mobilization depended on the traditional fighting allegiances to quickly raise a tribal lashkar (fighting force). In favorable circumstances such formations could quickly reach more than 10,000. Normally they could be formed to besiege towns,but because of the independent nature of Pashtun ,the Lashkar durability was necessarily short-and most seiges ended in failures.Despite the proven ability to cause fearfully unacceptable attrition in hit and run missions,such troops were woefully inadequate for purposes of capturing or holding any major cities and bases in operations against trained troops.

Mujahideen mobilization in non-Pashtun regions was very different. The Persian and Turkish speaking regions of Afghanistan lacked strong political representation in a state dominated by Pashtuns. Prior to the invasion, non-Pashtuns possessed very few firearms and little military tradition upon which to build an armed resistance. Here the leadership for mobilization was found from amongst pious learned or charismatically revered pirs (saints).The military leadership being closely tied to Islam helped avoid the infighting common amongst the Pashtun and led to some of the most effective mobilization during the war.

Thus Ahmed Shah Massoud of the Panjshir valley north of Kabul,one of the most charismatic and effective commanders rose from within their ranks.By the end of the war he was leading at least 10,000 trained troops-the only semblence to an army amongst mujahideen commanders- and had expanded his political control of Tajik dominated areas to Afghanistan’s northeastern provinces.His Northern alliance later also provided the base for the US invasion of Afghanistan.

The mujahideen leaders were skilled at sabotage operations. They concentrated on both civilian and military targets, knocking out bridges, closing major roads, blowing up power lines, pipelines, radio stations, government office buildings, air terminals, hotels, cinemas,ambushing patrols, attacking convoys, disrupting the electric power system and industrial production, and attacking police stations and Soviet military installations and air bases. From 1985 through 1987, an average of over 600 “sabotage acts” a year were recorded. The mujahideen would often launch 800 rockets per day. Between April 1985 and January 1987, they carried out over 23,500 shelling attacks on government targets. They also made heavy use of land mines .

Mujahideen Attacks Within The USSR.In 1985, the CIA, MI6 (Britain’s intelligence agency), and the Pakistani ISI agreed to launch guerrilla attacks from Afghanistan into then Soviet-controlled Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, attacking military installations, factories, and storage depots within Soviet territory. The task was given to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.According to, Mohammad Yousaf, a high-ranking ISI officer at the time the attacks on the Soviet Union actually began in 1985:“These cross-border strikes were at their peak in 1986. Scores of attacks were made across the Amu (River)… Sometimes Soviet citizens joined in these operations, or came back into Afghanistan to join the mujaheddin. That we were hitting a sore spot was confirmed by the ferocity of the Soviets’ reaction. Virtually every incursion provoked massive aerial bombing and gunship attacks on all villages south of the river in the vicinity of our strike.”

The Soviet Withdrawl.By 1987 the USSR decided it has had enough! Its Politburo decided that the Soviet-Afghan War must end “within a year”and by November 1987 both the CIA and the ISI are aware of this. As a result of an agreement signed in Geneva, between Afghanistan and Pakistan the Soviet Union pledged to withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan by February15, 1989. On that exact date the last of its soldiers were out of Afghanistan.

But they left a Soviet backed Communist regime holding the fort at Kabul. None of the players – including the USSR – expected this regime to survive for more then three months. Yet even though it was acceptable to neither the mujahideen fighters or even their principle backers – it would survive for three years!

Conclusion. This article conclusively proves that ‘Global Islamic Jihad’ was forged as an instrument for the pursuit of US strategic interests ,and that it proved itself as a worthwhile CIA asset in Afghanistan. It’s very first operation – “Operation Cyclone” – the organizing and launching of the biggest covert operations the world had ever seen; proved a remarkable success; enabling the USA and it’s Jehadi allies to attain the stated goal of defeating and forcing the Soviet troops out of Afghanistan.

Yet as we have seen in some of the remarks of US officials it was an instrument forged to pursue goal stretching far beyond the immediate objective of defeating the Russian in Afghanistan. It is here that except for some success in Yugoslavia –Bosnia and Kosovo-and Chechnya; the idea back fired very badly.

In the first place the unexpected resistance of the Najeeb government upset US planning and forced the ISI as well as the CIA to continue funding the Mujaheddin for another three years. In the process the conflicting tactical and strategical compulsions of the many strange bed fellows in ‘Global Jihad’ started to surface. Leadership at all levels –US, Pakistani, Afghan as well as Arab – failed to rise to the occasion.Obsessed by their own objectives -now that the common enemy was removed- each group would fail to show any unity of purpose, or even the flexibility and accommodation required to attain the fruits of their massive effort. This in turn would propel the war uncontrollably into unexpected and unchartered territory!

To begin with –amongst the various Afghan mujahideen groups – the concept of ‘holy war’ seemed to give way immediately to an ethnic based struggle for leadership and control of the Afghan capital. Pakistan having a huge Pashtun population in it’s tribal area, and, also interested in retaining control over Afghanistan as a means of strategic depth as well as access to Central Asia; was increasingly drawn in on the side of Gulbadin Hikmatyar and the Pashtuns.

The USA aiming for quick stability in order to implement it’s greater game in Central Asian Republics and Yugoslavia – and also perhaps to lessen Pakistani and Pakhtun influence on Afghan issues – supported the concept of a more broad based government. This brought it in conflict with the issue of Pakhtuns domination- an issue the US never seemed to be inclined to support. Never the less because of Pakistani hold on Pakhtun commanders, the US had little choice but to appear to go along with what Pakistan was doing, while continuing to do what ever was needed to pursue its own objectives.

The death of General Zia in a mysterious plane crash tended to sabotage Pakistani influence on Pashtun commanders; how ever even if-as some say- engineered by CIA the crash proved counter productive, as for some time thereafter neither the US nor Pakistan had much control over the war lords in Afghanistan.

The uncontrolled mujahideen parties now committed enormous atrocities on their own citizens, and, destroyed whatever infrastructure was left as they battled each other for control of Kabul and the major cities. The country was politically divided with warlords holding sway on ethnic basis; ruthlessly suppressing their own citizens-and eliminating their opponents. The rise of the Pashtun Taliban in 1994 – a Pakistani attempt to re assert control – was therefore tolerated for a while even by the US, in the hope that this would bring the required peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Similar differences also developed between Bin Laden and his mentor Azzam. We have already noted that Azzam was a CIA man, while bin Laden was an ISI/GID man; Bin Laden sided with the “Islamic Party” lead by the Pashtun Hekmatyar, while Azzam tried to impose the US option of peace between the Mujahideen faction and the Jama’a Al Islamiya faction under the leadership of Rabani and Masuod. Azzam even issued a Fatwa forbidding Jehadi fighters from participating in the power struggle in Afghanistan. These differences thus appear to be an early reflection of the differences between the outlook of the US and pro Pashtun parties to the conflict.

One early effect of this on the set up of Arab fighters within Afghanistan was that Bin Laden disengaged from Azzam and was forced to move to Sudan to begin ‘independent’ operations. In November 1989 Azzam was murdered in New York under mysterious circumstances and Bin laden became the sole ideological leader of the organization of Arab fighters- Al-Qaeda. In 1990 Al-Zawahiri the leader of the Egyptian fighters in Afghanistan also moved to Sudan to join Bin Laden. But even at this stage both The ISI as well as Osama seems to have been part of the US operations involving the use of Al-Qaeda Jehadis in Chechnya and Yugoslavia.

Peace did not come even after the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan; Osama would return to Afghanistan-and Hikmatyar the CIA and ISI’s blue eyed boy would flee to Iran! Ahmed Shah Masud would form the Northern alliance and continue battling the Taliban.Osama allied with Al-Zawahiri would announce that peace is not possible until Masud is killed. Musud in turn would speak to the EU parliament warning against terrorism and an imminent major terrorist attack in the near future. Soon Masud would be assassinated by men posing as press photographers. Two days later 9/11 would occur. The USA would embark on its invasion of Afghanistan using the deceased Masud’s Northern alliance as a base.

What are we to make of all this? Did the creation of an instrument of global Jihad have unforeseen and undesirable ramifications for the USA? Did Osama at some stage along the line develop major differences with the CIA – leading to 9/11 and his subsequent vilification as the leader of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda? Was the difference much deeper and involved a gradually widening chasm between the CIA and ISI itself?

In the next article God willing I propose to wind up the subject in the light of the events relating to the rise and fall of the Taliban – and culminating in 9/11 and the presence of US troops in Afghanistan.

TERRORISM: THEIRS AND OURS

By Eqbal Ahmad (A Presentation at the University of Colorado, Boulder, October 12, 1998)
		In the 1930s and 1940s, the Jewish underground in Palestine was described as “TERRORIST.”  Then new things happened. By 1942, the Holocaust was occurring, and a certain liberal sympathy with the Jewish people had built up in the Western world. At that point, the terrorists of Palestine, who were Zionists, suddenly started to be described, by 1944-45, as “freedom fighters.” At least two Israeli Prime Ministers, including Menachem Begin, have actually, you can find in the books and posters with their pictures, saying “Terrorists, Reward This Much.” The highest reward I have noted so far was 100,000 British pounds on the head of Menachem Begin, the terrorist. Then from 1969 to 1990 the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, occupied the center stage as the terrorist organization. Yasir Arafat has been described repeatedly by the great sage of American journalism, William Safire of the New York Times, as the “Chief of Terrorism.” That’s Yasir Arafat. Now, on September 29, 1998, I was rather amused to notice a picture of Yasir Arafat to the right of President Bill Clinton. To his left is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan yahu. Clinton is looking towards Arafat and Arafat is looking literally like a meek mouse. Just a few years earlier he used to appear with this very menacing look around him, with a gun appearing menacing from his belt. You remember those pictures, and you remember the next one. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan received a group of bearded men. These bearded men I was writing about in those days in The New Yorker, actually did. They were very ferocious-looking bearded men with turbans looking like they came from another century. President Reagan received them in the White House. After receiving them he spoke to the press. He pointed towards them, I’m sure some of you will recall that moment, and said, “These are the moral equivalent of America’s founding fathers”. These were the Afghan Mujahiddin. They were at the time, guns in hand, battling the Evil Empire. They were the moral equivalent of our founding fathers! In August 1998, another American President ordered missile strikes from the American navy based in the Indian Ocean to kill Osama Bin Laden and his men in the camps in Afghanistan. I do not wish to embarrass you with the reminder that Mr. Bin Laden, whom fifteen American missiles were fired to hit in Afghanistan, was only a few years ago the moral equivalent of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson! He got angry over the fact that he has been demoted from ‘Moral Equivalent’ of your ‘Founding Fathers’. So he is taking out his anger in different ways. I’ll come back to that subject more seriously in a moment. You see, why I have recalled all these stories is to point out to you that the matter of terrorism is rather complicated. Terrorists change. The terrorist of yesterday is the hero of today, and the hero of yesterday becomes the terrorist of today. This is a serious matter of the constantly changing world of images in which we have to keep our heads straight to know what is terrorism and what is not. But more importantly, to know what causes it, and how to stop it. The next point about our terrorism is that posture of inconsistency necessarily evades definition. If you are not going to be consistent, you’re not going to define. I have examined at least twenty official documents on terrorism. Not one defines the word. All of them explain it, express it emotively, polemically, to arouse our emotions rather than exercise our intelligence. I give you only one example, which is representative. October 25, 1984. George Shultz, then Secretary of State of the U.S., is speaking at the New York Park Avenue Synagogue. It’s a long speech on terrorism. In the State Department Bulletin of seven single-spaced pages, there is not a single definition of terrorism. What we get is the following: Definition number one: “Terrorism is a modern barbarism that we call terrorism.” Definition number two is even more brilliant: “Terrorism is a form of political violence.” Aren’t you surprised? It is a form of political violence, says George Shultz, Secretary of State of the U.S. Number three: “Terrorism is a threat to Western civilization.” Number four: “Terrorism is a menace to Western moral values.” Did you notice, does it tell you anything other than arouse your emotions? This is typical. They don’t define terrorism because definitions involve a commitment to analysis, comprehension and adherence to some norms of consistency. That’s the second characteristic of the official literature on terrorism. The third characteristic is that the absence of definition does not prevent officials from being globalistic. We may not define terrorism, but it is a menace to the moral values of Western civilization. It is a menace also to mankind. It’s a menace to good order. Therefore, you must stamp it out worldwide. Our reach has to be global. You need a global reach to kill it. Anti-terrorist policies therefore have to be global. Same speech of George Shultz: “There is no question about our ability to use force where and when it is needed to counter terrorism.” There is no geographical limit. On a single day the missiles hit Afghanistan and Sudan. Those two countries are 2,300 miles apart, and they were hit by missiles belonging to a country roughly 8,000 miles away. Reach is global. A fourth characteristic: claims of power are not only globalist they are also omniscient. We know where they are; therefore we know where to hit. We have the means to know. We have the instruments of knowledge. We are omniscient. Shultz: “We know the difference between terrorists and freedom fighters, and as we look around, we have no trouble telling one from the other.” Only Osama Bin Laden doesn’t know that he was an ally one day and an enemy another. That’s very confusing for Osama Bin Laden. I’ll come back to his story towards the end. It’s a real story. Five. The official approach eschews causation. You don’t look at causes of anybody becoming terrorist. Cause? What cause? They ask us to be looking, to be sympathetic to these people. Another example. The New York Times, December 18, 1985, reported that the foreign minister of Yugoslavia, you remember the days when there was a Yugoslavia, requested the Secretary of State of the U.S. to consider the causes of Palestinian terrorism. The Secretary of State, George Shultz, and I am quoting from the New York Times, “went a bit red in the face. He pounded the table and told the visiting foreign minister, there is no connection with any cause. Period.” Why look for causes? Number six. The moral revulsion that we must feel against terrorism is selective. We are to feel the terror of those groups, which are officially disapproved. We are to applaud the terror of those groups of whom officials do approve. Hence, President Reagan, “I am a contra.” He actually said that. We know the contras of Nicaragua were anything, by any definition, but terrorists. The media, to move away from the officials, heed the dominant view of terrorism. The dominant approach also excludes from consideration, more importantly to me, the terror of friendly governments. To that question I will return because it excused among others the terror of Pinochet (who killed one of my closest friends) and Orlando Letelier; and it excused the terror of Zia ul-Haq, who killed many of my friends in Pakistan. All I want to tell you is that according to my ignorant calculations, the ratio of people killed by the state terror of Zia ul-Haq, Pino chet, Argentinian, Brazilian, Indonesian type, versus the killing of the PLO and other terrorist types is literally, conservatively, one to one hundred thousand. That’s the ratio. History unfortunately recognizes and accords visibility to power and not to weakness. Therefore, visibility has been accorded historically to dominant groups. In our time, the time that began with this day, Columbus Day. The time that begins with Columbus Day is a time of extraordinary unrecorded holocausts. Great civilizations have been wiped out. The Mayas, the Incas, the Aztecs, the American Indians, the Canadian Indians were all wiped out. Their voices have not been heard, even to this day fully. Now they are beginning to be heard, but not fully. They are heard, yes, but only when the dominant power suffers, only when resistance has a semblance of costing, of exacting a price. When a Custer is killed or when a Gordon is besieged. That’s when you know that they were Indians fighting, Arabs fighting and dying. My last point of this section – U.S. policy in the Cold War period has sponsored terrorist regimes one after another. Somoza, Batista, all kinds of tyrants have been America’s friends. You know that. There was a reason for that. I or you are not guilty. Nicaragua, contra. Afghanistan, mujahiddin. El Salvador, etc. Now the second side. You’ve suffered enough. So suffer more. There ain’t much good on the other side either. You shouldn’t imagine that I have come to praise the other side. But keep the balance in mind. Keep the imbalance in mind and first ask ourselves, What is terrorism? Our first job should be to define the damn thing, name it, give it a description of some kind, other than “moral equivalent of founding fathers” or “a moral outrage to Western civilization”. I will stay with you with Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: “Terror is an intense, overpowering fear.” He uses terrorizing, terrorism, “the use of terrorizing methods of governing or resisting a government.” This simple definition has one great virtue, that of fairness. It’s fair. It focuses on the use of coercive violence, violence that is used illegally, extra-constitutionally, to coerce. And this definition is correct because it treats terror for what it is, whether the government or private people commit it. Have you noticed something? Motivation is left out of it. We’re not talking about whether the cause is just or unjust. We’re talking about consensus, consent, absence of consent, legality, absence of legality, constitutionality, absence of constitutionality. Why do we keep motives out? Because motives differ. Motives differ and make no difference. I have identified in my work five types of terrorism. First, state terrorism. Second, religious terrorism; terrorism inspired by religion, Catholics killing Protestants, Sunnis killing Shiites, Shiites killing Sunnis, God, religion, sacred terror, you can call it if you wish. State, church. Crime. Mafia. All kinds of crimes commit terror. There is pathology. You’re pathological. You’re sick. You want the attention of the whole world. You’ve got to kill a president. You will. You terrorize. You hold up a bus. Fifth, there is political terror of the private group; be they Indian, Vietnamese, Algerian, Palestinian, Baader-Meinhof, the Red Brigade. Political terror of the private group. Oppositional terror. Keep these five in mind. Keep in mind one more thing. Sometimes these five can converge on each other. You start with protest terror. You go crazy. You become pathological. You continue. They converge. State terror can take the form of private terror. For example, we’re all familiar with the death squads in Latin America or in Pakistan. Government has employed private people to kill its opponents. It’s not quite official. It’s privatized. Convergence. Or the political terrorist who goes crazy and becomes pathological. Or the criminal who joins politics. In Afghanistan, in Central America, the CIA employed in its covert operations drug pushers. Drugs and guns often go together. Smuggling of all things often go together. Of the five types of terror, the focus is on only one, the least important in terms of cost to human lives and human property [Political Terror of those who want to be heard]. The highest cost is state terror. The second highest cost is religious terror, although in the twentieth century religious terror has, relatively speaking, declined. If you are looking historically, massive costs. The next highest cost is crime. Next highest, pathology. A Rand Corporation study by Brian Jenkins, for a ten-year period up to 1988, showed 50% of terror was committed without any political cause at all. No politics. Simply crime and pathology. So the focus is on only one, the political terrorist, the PLO, the Bin Laden, whoever you want to take. Why do they do it? What makes the terrorist tick? I would like to knock them out quickly to you. First, the need to be heard. Imagine, we are dealing with a minority group, the political, private terrorist. First, the need to be heard. Normally, and there are exceptions, there is an effort to be heard, to get your grievances heard by people. They’re not hearing it. A minority acts. The majority applauds. The Palestinians, for example, the superterrorists of our time, were dispossessed in 1948. From 1948 to 1968 they went to every court in the world. They knocked at every door in the world. They were told that they became dispossessed because some radio told them to go away – an Arab radio, which was a lie. Nobody was listening to the truth. Finally, they invented a new form of terror, literally their invention: the airplane hijacking. Between 1968 and 1975 they pulled the world up by its ears. They dragged us out and said, Listen, Listen. We listened. We still haven’t done them justice, but at least we all know. Even the Israelis acknowledge. Remember Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, saying in 1970, ‘There are no Palestinians.’ They do not exist. They damn well exist now. We are cheating them at Oslo. At least there are some people to cheat now. We can’t just push them out. The need to be heard is essential. One motivation there. Mix of anger and helplessness produces an urge to strike out. You are angry. You are feeling helpless. You want retribution. You want to wreak retributive justice. The experience of violence by a stronger party has historically turned victims into terrorists. Battered children are known to become abusive parents and violent adults. You know that. That’s what happens to peoples and nations. When they are battered, they hit back. State terror very often breeds collective terror. Do you recall the fact that the Jews were never terrorists? By and large Jews were not known to commit terror except during and after the Holocaust. Most studies show that the majority of members of the worst terrorist groups in Israel or in Palestine, the Stern and the Irgun gangs, were people who were immigrants from the most anti-Semitic countries of Eastern Europe and Germany. Similarly, the young Shiites of Lebanon or the Palestinians from the refugee camps are battered people. They become very violent. The ghettos are violent internally. They become violent externally when there is a clear, identifiable external target, an enemy where you can say, ‘Yes, this one did it to me’. Then they can strike back. Example is a bad thing. Example spreads. There was a highly publicized Beirut hijacking of the TWA plane. After that hijacking, there were hijacking attempts at nine different American airports. Pathological groups or individuals modeling on the others. Even more serious are examples set by governments. When governments engage in terror, they set very large examples. When they engage in supporting terror, they engage in other sets of examples. Absence of revolutionary ideology is central to victim terrorism. Revolutionaries do not commit unthinking terror. Those of you who are familiar with revolutionary theory know the debates, the disputes, the quarrels, the fights within revolutionary groups of Europe, the fight between anarchists and Marxists, for example. But the Marxists have always argued that revolutionary terror, if ever engaged in, must be sociologically and psychologically selective. Don’t hijack a plane. Don’t hold hostages. Don’t kill children, for God’s sake. Have you recalled also that the great revolutions, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Algerian, the Cuban, never engaged in hijacking type of terrorism? They did engage in terrorism, but it was highly selective, highly sociological, still deplorable, but there was an organized, highly limited, selective character to it. So absence of revolutionary ideology that begins more or less in the post-World War II period has been central to this phenomenon. My final question is – These conditions have existed for a long time. But why then this flurry of private political terrorism? Why now so much of it and so visible? The answer is modern technology. You have a cause. You can communicate it through radio and television. They will all come swarming if you have taken an aircraft and are holding 150 Americans hostage. They will all hear your cause. You have a modern weapon through which you can shoot a mile away. They can’t reach you. And you have the modern means of communicating. When you put together the cause, the instrument of coercion and the instrument of communication, politics is made. A new kind of politics becomes possible. To this challenge rulers from one country after another have been responding with traditional methods. The traditional method of shooting it out, whether it’s missiles or some other means. The Israelis are very proud of it. The Americans are very proud of it. The French became very proud of it. Now the Pakistanis are very proud of it. The Pakistanis say, ‘Our commandos are the best.’ Frankly, it won’t work. A central problem of our time, political minds, rooted in the past, and modern times, producing new realities. Therefore in conclusion, what is my recommendation to America? Quickly. First, avoid extremes of double standards. If you’re going to practice double standards, you will be paid with double standards. Don’t use it. Don’t condone Israeli terror, Pakistani terror, Nicaraguan terror, El Salvadoran terror, on the one hand, and then complain about Afghan terror or Palestinian terror. It doesn’t work. Try to be even-handed. A superpower cannot promote terror in one place and reasonably expect to discourage terrorism in another place. It won’t work in this shrunken world. Do not condone the terror of your allies. Condemn them. Fight them. Punish them. Please eschew, avoid covert operations and low-intensity warfare. These are breeding grounds of terror and drugs. Violence and drugs are bred there. The structure of covert operations, I’ve made a film about it, which has been very popular in Europe, called Dealing with the Demon. I have shown that wherever covert operations have been, there has been the central drug problem. That has been also the center of the drug trade. Because the structure of covert operations, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Central America, is very hospitable to drug trade. Avoid it. Give it up. It doesn’t help. Please focus on causes and help ameliorate causes. Try to look at causes and solve problems. Do not concentrate on military solutions. Do not seek military solutions. Terrorism is a political problem. Seek political solutions. Diplomacy works. Take the example of the last attack on Bin Laden. You don’t know what you’re attacking. They say they know, but they don’t know. They were trying to kill Qadaffi. They killed his four-year-old daughter. The poor baby hadn’t done anything. Qadaffi is still alive. They tried to kill Saddam Hussein. They killed Laila Bin Attar, a prominent artist, an innocent woman. They tried to kill Bin Laden and his men. Not one but twenty-five other people died. They tried to destroy a chemical factory in Sudan. Now they are admitting that they destroyed an innocent factory, one-half of the production of medicine in Sudan has been destroyed, not a chemical factory. You don’t know. You think you know. Four of your missiles fell in Pakistan. One was slightly damaged. Two were totally damaged. One was totally intact. For ten years the American government has kept an embargo on Pakistan because Pakistan is trying, stupidly, to build nuclear weapons and missiles. So we have a technology embargo on my country. One of the missiles was intact. What do you think a Pakistani official told the Washington Post? He said it was a gift from Allah. We wanted U.S. technology. Now we have got the technology, and our scientists are examining this missile very carefully. It fell into the wrong hands. So don’t do that. Look for political solutions. Do not look for military solutions. They cause more problems than they solve. Please help reinforce, strengthen the framework of international law. There was a criminal court in Rome. Why didn’t they go to it first to get their warrant against Bin Laden, if they have some evidence? Get a warrant, then go after him. Internationally. Enforce the U.N. Enforce the International Court of Justice, this unilateralism makes us look very stupid and them relatively smaller. Q&A The question here is that I mentioned that I would go somewhat into the story of Bin Laden, the Saudi in Afghanistan and didn’t do so, could I go into some detail? The point about Bin Laden would be roughly the same as the point between Sheikh Abdul Rahman, who was accused and convicted of encouraging the blowing up of the World Trade Center in New York City. The New Yorker did a long story on him. It’s the same as that of Aimal Kansi, the Pakistani Baluch who was also convicted of the murder of two CIA agents. Let me see if I can be very short on this. Jihad, which has been translated a thousand times as “holy war,” is not quite just that. Jihad is an Arabic word that means, “to struggle.” It could be struggle by violence or struggle by non-violent means. There are two forms, the smalljihad and the big jihad. The small jihad involves violence. The big jihad involves the struggles with self. Those are the concepts. The reason I mention it is that in Islamic history, jihad as an international violent phenomenon had disappeared in the last four hundred years, for all practical purposes. It was revived suddenly with American help in the 1980s. When the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator of Pakistan, which borders on Afghanistan, saw an opportunity and launched a jihad there against godless communism.  The U.S. saw a God-sent opportunity to mobilize one billion Muslims against what Reagan called the Evil Empire. Money started pouring in. CIA agents starting going all over the Muslim world recruiting people to fight in the great jihad. Bin Laden was one of the early prize recruits. He was not only an Arab. He was also a Saudi. He was not only a Saudi. He was also a multimillionaire, willing to put his own money into the matter. Bin Laden went around recruiting people for the jihad against communism. I first met him in 1986. He was recommended to me by an American official of whom I do not know whether he was or was not an agent. I was talking to him and said, ‘Who are the Arabs here who would be very interesting?’ By here I meant in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said, ‘You must meet Osama.’ I went to see Osama. There he was, rich, bringing in recruits from Algeria, from Sudan, from Egypt, just like Sheikh Abdul Rahman. This fellow was an ally. He remained an ally. He turns at a particular moment. In 1990 the U.S. goes into Saudi Arabia with forces. Saudi Arabia is the holy place of Muslims, Mecca and Medina. There had never been foreign troops there. In 1990, during the Gulf War, they went in, in the name of helping Saudi Arabia defeat Saddam Hussein. Osama Bin Laden remained quiet. Saddam was defeated, but the American troops stayed on in the land of the kaba (the sacred site of Islam in Mecca), foreign troops. He wrote letter after letter saying, Why are you here? Get out! You came to help but you have stayed on. Finally he started a jihad against the other occupiers. His mission is to get American troops out of Saudi Arabia. His earlier mission was to get Russian troops out of Afghanistan. See what I was saying earlier about covert operations? A second point to be made about him is these are tribal people, people who are really tribal. Being a millionaire doesn’t matter. Their code of ethics is tribal. The tribal code of ethics consists of two words: loyalty and revenge. You are my friend. You keep your word. I am loyal to you. You break your word, I go on my path of revenge. For him, America has broken its word. The loyal friend has betrayed. The one to whom you swore blood loyalty has betrayed you. They’re going to go for you. They’re going to do a lot more. These are the chickens of the Afghanistan war coming home to roost. This is why I said to stop covert operations. There is a price attached to those that the American people cannot calculate and Kissinger type of people do not know, don’t have the history to know.
		Eqbal Ahmad, Professor Emeritus of International Relations and Middle Eastern Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, also served as a managing editor of the quarterly Race and Class. A prolific writer, his articles and essays have been published in The Nation, Dawn (Pakistan), among several other journals throughout the world. He died in 1999.