America's Gift to the World: the Afghan Terrorist Alumni sama bin Laden—alleged to have been the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the bombing of two US embassies in Africa in 1998—was not always on Washington's hate list. He, and many other Islamic fundamentalists, were supremely useful during the 1980s in Washington's war which quashed the last chance the Afghan people had for desperately needed social and economic reform and a secular society. Because of their battle against the government and its Soviet military allies in Afghanistan, the fundamentalists the moujahedeen (Muslim holy warriors)— were good terrorists. They were our terrorists. After the success of their jihad, these forces roamed afar, carrying out grisly actions in numerous comers of the world, metamorphosing into really bad Forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan truly went to the heads of the moujahedeen. They thought they were invincible and had a god-given mission. Allah Akbar! They seemed to place little weight upon the fact that it had been the United States, bringing its military, political, and financial weight to bear, that had been the sine qua non of the victory. In 1992, after 12 years of battle, the various factions of the moujahedeen could claim Afghanistan as all their own, albeit now fighting each other. The war had been a rallying point for Muslim zealots from throughout the world—an Islamic Abraham Lincoln Brigade—and laid the groundwork for their future collaboration
zealots from throughout the world—an Islamic Abraham Lincoln Brigade—and laid the groundwork for their future collaboration and support. Tens of thousands of veterans of the war—young men 44 ROGUE STATE from every Muslim nation, battle-hardened and armed—dispersed to many lands to carry out other jihads against the infidels and to inflame and train a new generation of militant Islamists and terrorists, ready to drink the cup of martyrdom; a virtual Islamic Foreign Legion.
In the midst of a wave of assault weapons—a "Kalashnikov culture,"—left over from the Afghanistan wars, Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto complained in 1996 that her country had gotten stuck with this air of frenzy as a direct result of cooperation with the United States in forcing Soviet troops from Afghanistan. "We are left on our own to cope with the remnants of the Afghan war, which include arms smuggling...drugs and... [religious] zealots who were leaders at the time of the Afghan war."l "Your government participated in creating a monster," complained an Algerian sociologist to a Los Angeles Times correspondent in Algiers. "Now it has turned against you and the world—16,000 Arabs were trained in Afghanistan, made into a veritable killing machine."2 His figure may be low inasmuch as there were an estimated 15,000 veterans of the Afghanistan war— or "Afghans" as they came to be known all over, whether from Afghanistan or not—in Saudi Arabia alone in 1996.3 Professor of Middle East Studies, Eqbal Ahmad, has
observed: The propaganda in the West suggests that violence and holy war are inherent in Islam. The reality is that as a worldwide movement, Jihad international, Inc. is a recent phenomenon.. Without significant exception during the 20th century, jihad was used in a national, secular and political context until, that is, the advent of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. 4 Following are some of the highlights of the bloodletting of the "Afghans"; the list is confined to the 1990s, although their international jihad has continued into the new century.
In the United States Mir Aimal Kansi (AKA Kasi)—the Pakistani who slew two CIA employees and wounded two other CIA employees and an employee of a CIA contractor outside CIA headquarters in Virginia in 1993—came of age in the Pakistani province that borders Afghanistan, which was used as a key staging area for the moujahedeen. His father and other relatives had ties to the CIA- Pakistani intelligence operations of the war. Kansi, those who knew him said, was "one of the children of the C.I.A.'s jihad."5 Most of those involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York—which killed six people, wounded more than 1,000, and caused half a billion dollars in damage— were veterans of the Afghan war.6 In October, 1995, 10 men were convicted for a plot to bomb New York targets, including the UN building, an FBI Offce, and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. The spiritual leader of the group, and one of the defendants, was Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman who
In October, 1995, 10 men were convicted for a plot to bomb New York targets, including the UN building, an FBI offce, and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. The spiritual leader of the group, and one of the defendants, was Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, who had worked with the moujahedeen in the war in Afghanistan. He had obtained a US visa in 1990 from a CIA undercover agent7, leading to speculation that at that time he (still) had CIA links. At least one of the other defendants—who came mainly from Egypt and Sudan—had fought in Afghanistan. Three men were convicted in New York in 1996 ofplotting to bomb 12 US jumbo jets and 4,000 passengers out of the sky over the Pacific Ocean. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, who had been a fugitive, was one of the three defendants. He had been trained in explosives by the moujahedeen. Investigators found in his computer a manifesto pledging terror to punish Americans for their government's support of Israel.8
Elsewhere Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was also convicted in the Philippines in 1994, in absentia, ofbombing a Philippine Airlines jet, killing one passenger. He reportedly was involved in training activities with the radical Muslim Abu Sayyaf Organization of the Philippines.9 March 1995, Karachi, Pakistan: Two US diplomats were killed and a third wounded in an assault upon the car they were driving in. The FBI, which arrived in Pakistan to investigate the crime, announced that it was treating the attack as a possible retaliation for the arrest of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef the previous month in Pakistan by US and Pakistani agents and his extradition to the United States. 10 In November 1995, five Americans and two Indians died when a pickup truck stuffed with explosives detonated outside a US Army building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Three of the four Saudis who confessed to the attack admitted to having received firearms and explosives training in Afghanistan and to having fought in combat there. The following June, 19 US airmen died in the bombing of their housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The same groups claimed credit for both attacks. I I In summer 1995, France underwent a series of eight bomb
The same groups claimed credit for both attacks. I I In summer 1995, France underwent a series of eight bomb attacks beginning with a blast in a train station which killed eight and wounded 160. "Almost all of the leaders of the people we have arrested for terrorism have passed by Afghanistan or Pakistan," said a French law enforcement offcial.12 The Chechnyan guerrillas, who have bedeviled the Russians for years with their insurrection to create a Muslim society, have had their ranks swelled by Middle East and African "Afghans", as well as their own people who received military instruction in Afghanistan. 13 Russian offcials estimate that 4,000 to 5,000 Muslim militants from Tajikistan alone passed through camps in northem
Afghanistan, then returned to the former Soviet Central Asian republic in 1993 to do battle against the secular government.14 Another former Soviet republic, Azerbaijan, has experienced a similar fate. 15 In western provinces of China, Afghan veterans have armed and trained Chinese Muslims and fought alongside them against the Chinese authorities. 16 Since 1992, Egypt has been swept by a wave of anti- government terrorism in which graduates of the military training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan have played a major role. They are believed to have also been behind the attempted assassination of President Hosni Mubarak while he was visiting Ethiopia. 17 In August 1994, three "Afghans" robbed a hotel in Morocco, killing tourists in an effort to destabilize Morocco's vital tourism industry. 18 Throughout much of the 1990s, Kashmiris and other nationals trained in Afghanistan, have been fighting against India in the mountains of Kashmir, waging "holy war" for secession from New Delhi. 19 Since Algeria's cancellation of the 1992 election, Algerian
veterans of the Afghanistan conflict have played a key role in the rise of the Armed Islamic Group, responsible for many thousands of gory murders in their crusade for an Islamic state.20 In Bosnia, beginning in 1992, Afghans fought ferociously alongside the predominantly Muslim Bosnian army for two years, attacking Serbian positions to liberate Muslim villages.21 One of those who confessed to the November 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia, referred to above, said that he had fought with the Bosnian Muslims. 22 In a 1999 interview, Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi told a London-based Arabic newspaper that his government had crushed an Islamic militant movement of "Afghans". "They returned desperate and destructive," he said, "and adopted killing
and explosives as their profession, according to the training they received from the American intelligence. "23 And more of the same in other places, from the men Ronald Reagan fancied as "freedom fighters". 'This is an insane instance of the chickens coming home to roost," said a US diplomat in Pakistan in 1996. "You can't plug billions of dollars into an anti-Communist jihad, accept participation from all over the world and ignore the consequences. But we did. Our objectives weren't peace and grooviness in Afghanistan. Our objective was killing Commies and getting the Russians out. "24 Yet more chickens will come home to roost as a result of the American occupation of Afghanistan beginning in 2001 and Iraq beginning in 2003. Thousands more "Afghans" and "Iraqis," from all over the Middle East and South Asia, have acquired skills of urban warfare under American occupation—car bombing, suicide bombing, all manner of improvised explosive devices, assassination, kidnapping, and the use of rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. Americans and all those who work with them in much of the world are in greater peril than ever.
zealots from throughout the world—an Islamic Abraham Lincoln Brigade—and laid the groundwork for their future collaboration and support. Tens of thousands of veterans of the war—young men 44 ROGUE STATE from every Muslim nation, battle-hardened and armed—dispersed to many lands to carry out other jihads against the infidels and to inflame and train a new generation of militant Islamists and terrorists, ready to drink the cup of martyrdom; a virtual Islamic Foreign Legion.
In the midst of a wave of assault weapons—a "Kalashnikov culture,"—left over from the Afghanistan wars, Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto complained in 1996 that her country had gotten stuck with this air of frenzy as a direct result of cooperation with the United States in forcing Soviet troops from Afghanistan. "We are left on our own to cope with the remnants of the Afghan war, which include arms smuggling...drugs and... [religious] zealots who were leaders at the time of the Afghan war."l "Your government participated in creating a monster," complained an Algerian sociologist to a Los Angeles Times correspondent in Algiers. "Now it has turned against you and the world—16,000 Arabs were trained in Afghanistan, made into a veritable killing machine."2 His figure may be low inasmuch as there were an estimated 15,000 veterans of the Afghanistan war— or "Afghans" as they came to be known all over, whether from Afghanistan or not—in Saudi Arabia alone in 1996.3 Professor of Middle East Studies, Eqbal Ahmad, has
observed: The propaganda in the West suggests that violence and holy war are inherent in Islam. The reality is that as a worldwide movement, Jihad international, Inc. is a recent phenomenon.. Without significant exception during the 20th century, jihad was used in a national, secular and political context until, that is, the advent of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. 4 Following are some of the highlights of the bloodletting of the "Afghans"; the list is confined to the 1990s, although their international jihad has continued into the new century.
In the United States Mir Aimal Kansi (AKA Kasi)—the Pakistani who slew two CIA employees and wounded two other CIA employees and an employee of a CIA contractor outside CIA headquarters in Virginia in 1993—came of age in the Pakistani province that borders Afghanistan, which was used as a key staging area for the moujahedeen. His father and other relatives had ties to the CIA- Pakistani intelligence operations of the war. Kansi, those who knew him said, was "one of the children of the C.I.A.'s jihad."5 Most of those involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York—which killed six people, wounded more than 1,000, and caused half a billion dollars in damage— were veterans of the Afghan war.6 In October, 1995, 10 men were convicted for a plot to bomb New York targets, including the UN building, an FBI Offce, and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. The spiritual leader of the group, and one of the defendants, was Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman who
In October, 1995, 10 men were convicted for a plot to bomb New York targets, including the UN building, an FBI offce, and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. The spiritual leader of the group, and one of the defendants, was Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, who had worked with the moujahedeen in the war in Afghanistan. He had obtained a US visa in 1990 from a CIA undercover agent7, leading to speculation that at that time he (still) had CIA links. At least one of the other defendants—who came mainly from Egypt and Sudan—had fought in Afghanistan. Three men were convicted in New York in 1996 ofplotting to bomb 12 US jumbo jets and 4,000 passengers out of the sky over the Pacific Ocean. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, who had been a fugitive, was one of the three defendants. He had been trained in explosives by the moujahedeen. Investigators found in his computer a manifesto pledging terror to punish Americans for their government's support of Israel.8
Elsewhere Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was also convicted in the Philippines in 1994, in absentia, ofbombing a Philippine Airlines jet, killing one passenger. He reportedly was involved in training activities with the radical Muslim Abu Sayyaf Organization of the Philippines.9 March 1995, Karachi, Pakistan: Two US diplomats were killed and a third wounded in an assault upon the car they were driving in. The FBI, which arrived in Pakistan to investigate the crime, announced that it was treating the attack as a possible retaliation for the arrest of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef the previous month in Pakistan by US and Pakistani agents and his extradition to the United States. 10 In November 1995, five Americans and two Indians died when a pickup truck stuffed with explosives detonated outside a US Army building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Three of the four Saudis who confessed to the attack admitted to having received firearms and explosives training in Afghanistan and to having fought in combat there. The following June, 19 US airmen died in the bombing of their housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The same groups claimed credit for both attacks. I I In summer 1995, France underwent a series of eight bomb
The same groups claimed credit for both attacks. I I In summer 1995, France underwent a series of eight bomb attacks beginning with a blast in a train station which killed eight and wounded 160. "Almost all of the leaders of the people we have arrested for terrorism have passed by Afghanistan or Pakistan," said a French law enforcement offcial.12 The Chechnyan guerrillas, who have bedeviled the Russians for years with their insurrection to create a Muslim society, have had their ranks swelled by Middle East and African "Afghans", as well as their own people who received military instruction in Afghanistan. 13 Russian offcials estimate that 4,000 to 5,000 Muslim militants from Tajikistan alone passed through camps in northem
Afghanistan, then returned to the former Soviet Central Asian republic in 1993 to do battle against the secular government.14 Another former Soviet republic, Azerbaijan, has experienced a similar fate. 15 In western provinces of China, Afghan veterans have armed and trained Chinese Muslims and fought alongside them against the Chinese authorities. 16 Since 1992, Egypt has been swept by a wave of anti- government terrorism in which graduates of the military training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan have played a major role. They are believed to have also been behind the attempted assassination of President Hosni Mubarak while he was visiting Ethiopia. 17 In August 1994, three "Afghans" robbed a hotel in Morocco, killing tourists in an effort to destabilize Morocco's vital tourism industry. 18 Throughout much of the 1990s, Kashmiris and other nationals trained in Afghanistan, have been fighting against India in the mountains of Kashmir, waging "holy war" for secession from New Delhi. 19 Since Algeria's cancellation of the 1992 election, Algerian
veterans of the Afghanistan conflict have played a key role in the rise of the Armed Islamic Group, responsible for many thousands of gory murders in their crusade for an Islamic state.20 In Bosnia, beginning in 1992, Afghans fought ferociously alongside the predominantly Muslim Bosnian army for two years, attacking Serbian positions to liberate Muslim villages.21 One of those who confessed to the November 1995 bombing in Saudi Arabia, referred to above, said that he had fought with the Bosnian Muslims. 22 In a 1999 interview, Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi told a London-based Arabic newspaper that his government had crushed an Islamic militant movement of "Afghans". "They returned desperate and destructive," he said, "and adopted killing
and explosives as their profession, according to the training they received from the American intelligence. "23 And more of the same in other places, from the men Ronald Reagan fancied as "freedom fighters". 'This is an insane instance of the chickens coming home to roost," said a US diplomat in Pakistan in 1996. "You can't plug billions of dollars into an anti-Communist jihad, accept participation from all over the world and ignore the consequences. But we did. Our objectives weren't peace and grooviness in Afghanistan. Our objective was killing Commies and getting the Russians out. "24 Yet more chickens will come home to roost as a result of the American occupation of Afghanistan beginning in 2001 and Iraq beginning in 2003. Thousands more "Afghans" and "Iraqis," from all over the Middle East and South Asia, have acquired skills of urban warfare under American occupation—car bombing, suicide bombing, all manner of improvised explosive devices, assassination, kidnapping, and the use of rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. Americans and all those who work with them in much of the world are in greater peril than ever.
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