Part 14. From Mujahidin to Al-Qaeda

Afghanistan became one of the last sites of the Cold War competition at the end of the 1970s.  A pro-Soviet government took power in Afghanistan in 1978, but by late 1979 it was in danger of losing control of the country.  The Soviets invaded on December 24 to prop up the sagging regime.

In response to the invasion, the Organization of Islamic Nations and the UN General Assembly passed resolution condemning Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.  Within months, the United States and United Kingdom began funneling financial aid, weapons, and military training to Afghan insurgents through neighboring Pakistan.  Over the course of nine years, the U.S. sent billions of dollars in weapons to the Mujahidin (Afghan resistance movement) via Pakistan’s secret service.  The term mujahidin means “fighters of holy war” which reflects the religious identity that the Afghans chose to emphasize in their struggle against the Soviets.  They also received funding from China and the Gulf Arab monarchies.

Despite possessing an overwhelming military advantage, the Soviets could only maintain control over major cities in Afghanistan.  The Mujahidin, aided by Western military assistance and their guerilla tactics, controlled most mountain passes and rural areas.  Heavy Soviet bombing flattened villages and caused considerable destruction to the landscape and infrastructure of Afghanistan.  By the mid-1980s, the Soviets increased their military force to over 100,000 soldiers, but they were still unable to bring the country under control.  During the conflict, Soviet soldiers carried out massacres of multiple communities, destroyed irrigation and livestock, and are accused of multiple atrocities and the use of chemical weapons.  Finally, in 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced the beginning of troops withdrawals and the final Soviet forces left the country in February 1989.

Between 5-6 million refugees fled Afghanistan during the war, with the majority going to Pakistan and Iran.  Afghan refugees fleeing to Pakistan later laid the foundation for the Taliban.  Refugee children studying in extremist madrasas near the Afghan border later became foot soldiers for the Taliban after imbibing their ideology of unending holy war between true Muslims and the godless global powers.

Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda

Along with the funding sent by the Gulf Arab states in support of the Mujahidin, a number of pious Arabs traveled to Afghanistan as well, with the intention of supporting the Afghan resistance against the “godless” Soviet invaders.  One of these recruits was Osama bin Laden, the 17th son of wealthy Yemeni engineer who had made his money constructing mosques and religious buildings within Saudi Arabia.  The Bin Laden family had close ties with Saudi elite and Osama used these connections to recruit Arab holy warriors and funding to support the Mujahidin in Afghanistan.

Traveling to Afghanistan in 1980, Bin Laden coordinated funds and volunteers for the Jihad.  He worked with the Pakistani army and security services to train the Arab recruits and get them involved in the war.  In 1984, Bin Laden and his former teacher, Abdullah Azzam, established a training base for volunteers in Peshawar, Pakistan.  Azzam, a Palestinian scholar and theologian, is identified by historians as one of the seminal thinkers to advocate armed Islamic struggle against imperialist powers active in the Muslim world.  He is credited with being an early Islamist promoter of the ideology of a civilizational war between Islam and the West.  Although he profoundly influenced the world view of Bin Laden, the two parted ways following the departure of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.  In November 1989, Azzam and his sons were assassinated by a car bomb.  Although the identity of his killers is unknown, Bin Laden and his colleague Ayman al-Zawahiri, from the Egyptian Al-Jihad group, have been suspected.  Following the death of Azzam, Bin Laden and Zawahiri then formed Al-Qaeda to coordinate further jihad activity in other theaters of the global war between Islam and Western powers.  Returning to Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden offered to mobilize his Arab recruits to defend the country from the aggression of Saddam Husayn, who had invaded Kuwait in August 1990.  When the Saudis chose to rely on American help instead, Bin Laden publicly denounced Saudi leadership for depending upon the help of infidels during the Gulf War and for allowing non-Muslim soldiers to defile the holy land of Arabia.  He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1991 and was stripped of his citizenship in 1994 for continuing to criticize Saudi leadership.

In 1992, Al Qaeda took up residence in Sudan.  Bin Laden helped improve the infrastructure and agricultural practices in Sudan, but he also used country as a base to sponsor terrorist attacks.  For example, his allies from Egyptian Islamic Jihad attempted to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 1995.  Under heavy pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United States, the Sudanese government expelled Bin Laden in 1996, after which he returned to Afghanistan.

Back in Afghanistan, Bin Laden established a close relationship with Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.  Beginning in 1996, Bin Laden issued a series of fatwas against the United States, including one in 1998 in which he called upon all Muslims to kill Americans and their allies wherever possible.  He recruited and trained further jihadists.  In the late 90s, al-Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks against Americans and other enemies in East Africa, Saudi Arabia and other locations.  Jihadis supported wars in Bosnia and Afghanistan.

The Taliban takes over Afghanistan

Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the Mujahidin continued to war against the Soviet-backed regime of Mohammad Najibullah, which fell in early 1992.  It was replaced by a coalition government established on April 24.  But civil war continued in the country.  Believing that US aid had accomplished its goal of defeating the Soviet Union, America withdrew its support of the Mujahidin and left Afghanistan to sort itself out.

The Afghan civil war was won by the Taliban, which established control over most of the country by September 1996, when they conquered the capital city of Kabul.  The group was originally made up of students from Islamic religious schools (madrasas), which taught an Islamist world view based on Wahhabi and Deobandi religious ideology.  The Taliban was established in 1991 and gained support from the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence).  In 1994, the Taliban took over Kandahar and expanded their political power into provinces not under central government control.

After capturing Kabul in 1996, with support from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda, the Taliban began to massacre enemy tribes and any Shiites they could find.  Within regions that they controlled, the Taliban began to implement a particularly harsh interpretation of shari`a, outlawing employment, education and sports for women, as well as movies, television, music, dancing and other such activities.  Men were required to wear beards and women to wear burqas, and offenders were beaten by the religious police.  Enemies, including religious and ethnic minorities, were massacred and buried in mass graves.  In their zeal to eliminate idolatry, they blew up two ancient Buddhist statues carved into the cliffside in Bamiyan.  Taliban atrocities meant that only three countries recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE).  The Pakistanis supported the Taliban as a way to continue to exert influence in neighboring Afghanistan.  There was also a sizeable branch of the Taliban within Pakistan itself.