{"id":342,"date":"2022-10-14T22:45:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T22:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/?post_type=chapter&p=342"},"modified":"2022-11-29T14:32:47","modified_gmt":"2022-11-29T14:32:47","slug":"from-taliban-to-al-qaeda","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/chapter\/from-taliban-to-al-qaeda\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 14. From Mujahidin to Al-Qaeda"},"content":{"raw":"Afghanistan became one of the last sites of the Cold War competition at the end of the 1970s.\u00a0 A pro-Soviet government took power in Afghanistan in 1978, but by late 1979 it was in danger of losing control of the country.\u00a0 The Soviets invaded on December 24 to prop up the sagging regime.\r\n\r\nIn response to the invasion, the Organization of Islamic Nations and the UN General Assembly passed resolution condemning Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.\u00a0 Within months, the United States and United Kingdom began funneling financial aid, weapons, and military training to Afghan insurgents through neighboring Pakistan.\u00a0 Over the course of nine years, the U.S. sent billions of dollars in weapons to the Mujahidin (Afghan resistance movement) via Pakistan\u2019s secret service.\u00a0 The term mujahidin <\/em>means \u201cfighters of holy war\u201d which reflects the religious identity that the Afghans chose to emphasize in their struggle against the Soviets.\u00a0 They also received funding from China and the Gulf Arab monarchies.\r\n\r\nDespite possessing an overwhelming military advantage, the Soviets could only maintain control over major cities in Afghanistan.\u00a0 The Mujahidin, aided by Western military assistance and their guerilla tactics, controlled most mountain passes and rural areas.\u00a0 Heavy Soviet bombing flattened villages and caused considerable destruction to the landscape and infrastructure of Afghanistan.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Finally, in 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced the beginning of troops withdrawals and the final Soviet forces left the country in February 1989.\r\n\r\nBetween 5-6 million refugees fled Afghanistan during the war, with the majority going to Pakistan and Iran.\u00a0 Afghan refugees fleeing to Pakistan later laid the foundation for the Taliban.\u00a0 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.\r\n\r\nOsama bin Laden and al-Qaeda<\/strong><\/span>\r\n\r\nAlong 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 \u201cgodless\u201d Soviet invaders.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\r\n\r\nTraveling to Afghanistan in 1980, Bin Laden coordinated funds and volunteers for the Jihad.\u00a0 He worked with the Pakistani army and security services to train the Arab recruits and get them involved in the war.\u00a0 In 1984, Bin Laden and his former teacher, Abdullah Azzam, established a training base for volunteers in Peshawar, Pakistan.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He is credited with being an early Islamist promoter of the ideology of a civilizational war between Islam and the West.\u00a0 Although he profoundly influenced the world view of Bin Laden, the two parted ways following the departure of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.\u00a0 In November 1989, Azzam and his sons were assassinated by a car bomb.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1991 and was stripped of his citizenship in 1994 for continuing to criticize Saudi leadership.\r\n\r\nIn 1992, Al Qaeda took up residence in Sudan.\u00a0 Bin Laden helped improve the infrastructure and agricultural practices in Sudan, but he also used country as a base to sponsor terrorist attacks.\u00a0 For example, his allies from Egyptian Islamic Jihad attempted to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 1995. \u00a0Under heavy pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United States, the Sudanese government expelled Bin Laden in 1996, after which he returned to Afghanistan.\r\n\r\nBack in Afghanistan, Bin Laden established a close relationship with Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.\u00a0 Beginning in 1996, Bin Laden issued a series of fatwas <\/em>against the United States, including one in 1998 in which he called upon all Muslims to kill Americans and their allies wherever possible.\u00a0 He recruited and trained further jihadists.\u00a0 In the late 90s, al-Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks against Americans and other enemies in East Africa, Saudi Arabia and other locations.\u00a0 Jihadis supported wars in Bosnia and Afghanistan.\r\n\r\nThe Taliban takes over Afghanistan<\/strong><\/span>\r\n\r\nFollowing 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.\u00a0 It was replaced by a coalition government established on April 24.\u00a0 But civil war continued in the country.\u00a0 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.\r\n\r\nThe 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.\u00a0 The group was originally made up of students from Islamic religious schools (madrasas)<\/em>, which taught an Islamist world view based on Wahhabi and Deobandi religious ideology.\u00a0 The Taliban was established in 1991 and gained support from the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence).\u00a0 In 1994, the Taliban took over Kandahar and expanded their political power into provinces not under central government control.\r\n\r\nAfter 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Men were required to wear beards and women to wear burqas, and offenders were beaten by the religious police.\u00a0 Enemies, including religious and ethnic minorities, were massacred and buried in mass graves.\u00a0 In their zeal to eliminate idolatry, they blew up two ancient Buddhist statues carved into the cliffside in Bamiyan.\u00a0 Taliban atrocities meant that only three countries recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE).\u00a0 The Pakistanis supported the Taliban as a way to continue to exert influence in neighboring Afghanistan.\u00a0 There was also a sizeable branch of the Taliban within Pakistan itself.","rendered":"

Afghanistan became one of the last sites of the Cold War competition at the end of the 1970s.\u00a0 A pro-Soviet government took power in Afghanistan in 1978, but by late 1979 it was in danger of losing control of the country.\u00a0 The Soviets invaded on December 24 to prop up the sagging regime.<\/p>\n

In response to the invasion, the Organization of Islamic Nations and the UN General Assembly passed resolution condemning Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.\u00a0 Within months, the United States and United Kingdom began funneling financial aid, weapons, and military training to Afghan insurgents through neighboring Pakistan.\u00a0 Over the course of nine years, the U.S. sent billions of dollars in weapons to the Mujahidin (Afghan resistance movement) via Pakistan\u2019s secret service.\u00a0 The term mujahidin <\/em>means \u201cfighters of holy war\u201d which reflects the religious identity that the Afghans chose to emphasize in their struggle against the Soviets.\u00a0 They also received funding from China and the Gulf Arab monarchies.<\/p>\n

Despite possessing an overwhelming military advantage, the Soviets could only maintain control over major cities in Afghanistan.\u00a0 The Mujahidin, aided by Western military assistance and their guerilla tactics, controlled most mountain passes and rural areas.\u00a0 Heavy Soviet bombing flattened villages and caused considerable destruction to the landscape and infrastructure of Afghanistan.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Finally, in 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced the beginning of troops withdrawals and the final Soviet forces left the country in February 1989.<\/p>\n

Between 5-6 million refugees fled Afghanistan during the war, with the majority going to Pakistan and Iran.\u00a0 Afghan refugees fleeing to Pakistan later laid the foundation for the Taliban.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cgodless\u201d Soviet invaders.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Traveling to Afghanistan in 1980, Bin Laden coordinated funds and volunteers for the Jihad.\u00a0 He worked with the Pakistani army and security services to train the Arab recruits and get them involved in the war.\u00a0 In 1984, Bin Laden and his former teacher, Abdullah Azzam, established a training base for volunteers in Peshawar, Pakistan.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He is credited with being an early Islamist promoter of the ideology of a civilizational war between Islam and the West.\u00a0 Although he profoundly influenced the world view of Bin Laden, the two parted ways following the departure of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.\u00a0 In November 1989, Azzam and his sons were assassinated by a car bomb.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1991 and was stripped of his citizenship in 1994 for continuing to criticize Saudi leadership.<\/p>\n

In 1992, Al Qaeda took up residence in Sudan.\u00a0 Bin Laden helped improve the infrastructure and agricultural practices in Sudan, but he also used country as a base to sponsor terrorist attacks.\u00a0 For example, his allies from Egyptian Islamic Jihad attempted to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 1995. \u00a0Under heavy pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United States, the Sudanese government expelled Bin Laden in 1996, after which he returned to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Back in Afghanistan, Bin Laden established a close relationship with Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.\u00a0 Beginning in 1996, Bin Laden issued a series of fatwas <\/em>against the United States, including one in 1998 in which he called upon all Muslims to kill Americans and their allies wherever possible.\u00a0 He recruited and trained further jihadists.\u00a0 In the late 90s, al-Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks against Americans and other enemies in East Africa, Saudi Arabia and other locations.\u00a0 Jihadis supported wars in Bosnia and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The Taliban takes over Afghanistan<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 It was replaced by a coalition government established on April 24.\u00a0 But civil war continued in the country.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 The group was originally made up of students from Islamic religious schools (madrasas)<\/em>, which taught an Islamist world view based on Wahhabi and Deobandi religious ideology.\u00a0 The Taliban was established in 1991 and gained support from the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence).\u00a0 In 1994, the Taliban took over Kandahar and expanded their political power into provinces not under central government control.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Men were required to wear beards and women to wear burqas, and offenders were beaten by the religious police.\u00a0 Enemies, including religious and ethnic minorities, were massacred and buried in mass graves.\u00a0 In their zeal to eliminate idolatry, they blew up two ancient Buddhist statues carved into the cliffside in Bamiyan.\u00a0 Taliban atrocities meant that only three countries recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE).\u00a0 The Pakistanis supported the Taliban as a way to continue to exert influence in neighboring Afghanistan.\u00a0 There was also a sizeable branch of the Taliban within Pakistan itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"menu_order":14,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-342","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":107,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/342\/revisions\/447"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/107"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/342\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/religionsofmiddleeast1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}