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Origin of Al Qaeda - (from Al Qaeda Without Al Qaeda)
hat tip to GlennAl Qaeda sort of evolved in Pakistan, where Arab money (mostly from Saudi Arabia), American weapons and Pakistani permission and organization, came together to form a support base for the "jihad" (holy war) against the Godless Soviet communists in Afghanistan. When the Russians got tired of fighting Afghans, and left in 1987, the Arab money and American weapons disappeared as well. Afghanistan quickly degenerated into civil war, and most of the Islamic radicals went home. There they found a hostile reception. Strong Islamic radical groups in Egypt were crushed. Osama bin Laden was driven out of Saudi Arabia. Islamic radicals were not welcome in any Islamic country. Then things turned around in Afghanistan, when Pakistan had decided to use Islamic radicalism for their own ends. First Pakistan backed Islamic radicals intent on driving India out of Kashmir. Then Pakistan decided to end the Afghan civil war by getting behind a movement by Islamic conservatives. This was the Taliban. First formed in Pakistani refugee camps, and armed by Pakistan, the Taliban swept into Afghanistan and defeated all the other factions. The Afghan people were fed up with the warlords fighting over who would control the country, and saw the Taliban as heavily armed religious fanatics who were at least honest (in an Islamic way.) Snipped from a great article by Jim Dunnigan (see source). It sets out as clearly as possible how important Pakistan has been to the development of Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism in general (hat tip to Paul Moloney for making this clear to me a while ago). Know your enemy: the ISI. Posted by: Spot 2004-10-19 |
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