What is Al Qaeda

During the 1980s, when Russian troops occupied Afghanistan, the USA's Central Intelligence Agency was sending arms and war material to the Afghani Mujahideen. The CIA also provided military training and logistical support to the Afghani Mujahideen. US arms dealers, CIA agents, and covert US military Special Operations troops were deeply involved in assisting the Afghan resistance to Russian occupation. The Stinger shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles which the USA gave to the Mujahideen enabled the Mujahideen to turn the tide of battle and to eventually defeat and expel the Russian Army from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is a major opium-growing center, and during the Russian/Afghan conflict, heroin trafficking out of Afghanistan became a major enterprise for the CIA, which used its own fleet of difficult-to- trace aircraft to ship the drug into Europe. When I was in New Delhi in 1980, I met young Afghans who were eager to sell heroin and AK-47 automatic assault rifles to almost anyone, including random tourists.

War material from the USA for the Afghani Mujahideen was channeled through Pakistan, and during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan the US government and the Pakistani government formed a deep alliance. The arms, training, and logistical support that the USA provided to the Afghan Mujahideen was also channeled to Terrorists who are trained and supported by the Pakistani government and military to infiltrate into Indian Kashmir in an ongoing effort to destabilize the Indian control of Kashmir.

After the Russians left Afghanistan, the Pakistani-based Taleban, which had always received its primary support from the Pakistani government, seized power in Afghanistan and formed the ruling government there until the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. The Pakistani government and military abandoned their open support for the Taleban when the USA bribed Pakistan with many billions of dollars in US military and economic aid just prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda, which in Arabic means 'the Base', was originally the name that the CIA station chiefs in Saudi Arabia gave to the database that they created to keep track of the individuals and groups to which the US government was providing funds for the Afghani Mujahideen during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.