Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
john adams
by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal
Posted 12 September 2001
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration
concluded without supporting evidence, that "Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime
suspects". CIA Director George Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan ``multiple attacks with
little or no warning.'' Secretary of State Colin Powell called the attacks "an act of war" and President Bush
confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation that he would "make no distinction between the
terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". Former CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his
finger at "state sponsorship," implying the complicity of one or more foreign governments. In the words of
former National Security Adviser, Lawrence Eagleburger, "I think we will show when we get attacked like this,
we are terrible in our strength and in our retribution."
Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media mantra has approved the launching of "punitive
actions" directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the words of William Saffire writing in the
New York Times: "When we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we must pulverize them --
minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral damage" -- and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror's
national hosts".
The following text outlines the history of Osama Bin Laden and the links of the Islamic "Jihad" to the
formulation of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks, branded by the FBI as an "international
terrorist" for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born Osama bin Laden was recruited during
the Soviet-Afghan war "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet invaders". 1
In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA" was launched in response to the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal.2:
With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn
the Afghan jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim
radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more
came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly
influenced by the Afghan jihad.3
The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding
generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:
In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,...[which] authorize[d]
stepped-up covert military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal:
to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert
U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by
1987, ... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret
headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with
Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels.4
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key
role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the
teachings of Islam:
Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political ideology, that holy Islam was being violated
by the atheistic Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should reassert their independence
by overthrowing the leftist Afghan regime propped up by Moscow.5
Pakistan's Intelligence Apparatus
Pakistan's ISI was used as a "go-between". The CIA covert support to the "jihad" operated indirectly through
the Pakistani ISI, --i.e. the CIA did not channel its support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for
these covert operations to be "successful", Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the
"jihad", which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.
In the words of CIA's Milton Beardman "We didn't train Arabs". Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the
Al-aram Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan Arabs" had been imparted "with very
sophisticated types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA" 6
CIA's Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden was not aware of the role he was playing on
behalf of Washington. In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither I, nor my brothers saw evidence
of American help". 7
Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were fighting the
Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence
hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.
With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into
a "parallel structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government". 8 The ISI had a staff composed
of military and intelligence officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at 150,000. 9
Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:
'Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan's military intelligence] had grown increasingly warm
following [General] Zia's ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,'... During most of the
Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet
military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian
states. The CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984.... `the CIA was more cautious than the Pakistanis.'
Both Pakistan and the United States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public posture of
negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing that military escalation was the best course.10
The Golden Crescent Drug Triangle
The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA's covert operations. Prior to
the Soviet-Afghan war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets.
There was no local production of heroin. 11 In this regard, Alfred McCoy's study confirms that within two
years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, "the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the
world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population
went from near zero in 1979... to 1.2 million by 1985 -- a much steeper rise than in any other nation":12
CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside
Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan,
Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin
laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad
failed to instigate major seizures or arrests ... U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin
dealing by its Afghan allies `because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war
against Soviet influence there.' In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan,
admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. `Our main mission was to do as much
damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an
investigation of the drug trade,'... `I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has
its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets
left Afghanistan.'13
In the Wake of the Cold War
In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it
also produces three quarters of the World's opium representing multibillion dollar revenues to business
syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds of the
Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion dollars) represents approximately one third of the
Worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $500 billion.14
With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in opium production has unfolded. (According to UN
estimates, the production of opium in Afghanistan in 1998-99 -- coinciding with the build up of armed
insurgencies in the former Soviet republics-- reached a record high of 4600 metric tons.15 Powerful business
syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied with organized crime are competing for the strategic control over
the heroin routes.
The ISI's extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled in the wake of the Cold War. The CIA
continued to support the Islamic "jihad" out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives were set in motion in
Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus essentially "served
as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in
Central Asia." 16.
Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim
republics as well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions of the secular State.
Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic fundamentalism was largely serving Washington's strategic
interests in the former Soviet Union.
Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan continued unabated. The
Taliban were being supported by the Pakistani Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam
(JUI). In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the
Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul,
the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also "handed control of training camps in
Afghanistan over to JUI factions..." 17
And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements played a key role in recruiting volunteers to
fight in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.
Jane Defense Weekly confirms in this regard that "half of Taliban manpower and equipment originate[d] in
Pakistan under the ISI" 18
In fact, it would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides in the Afghan civil war continued to
receive covert support through Pakistan's ISI. 19
In other words, backed by Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the
Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was
also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the
ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.
No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban
including the blatant derogation of women's rights, the closing down of schools for girls, the dismissal of
women employees from government offices and the enforcement of "the Sharia laws of punishment".20
The War in Chechnya
With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated
in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Yossef Bodansky, director of the U.S.
Congress's Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned during a
secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996 in Mogadishu, Somalia. 21 The summit, was attended by
Osama bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence officers. In this regard, the involvement
of Pakistan's ISI in Chechnya "goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with weapons and expertise: the ISI and
its radical Islamic proxies are actually calling the shots in this war". 22
Russia's main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. Despite Washington's perfunctory
condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil
conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea
basin.
The two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at
35,000 strong were supported by Pakistan's ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training the
Chechen rebel army:
[In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to
undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of
Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani
warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to
Markaz-i-Dawar camp in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev met
the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers: Minister of Defense General Aftab Shahban
Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting
Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level connections soon proved very useful to
Basayev.23
Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was assigned to lead the assault against Russian
federal troops in the first Chechen war in 1995. His organization had also developed extensive links to
criminal syndicates in Moscow as well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) "Chechen warlords started buying up
real estate in Kosovo... through several real estate firms registered as a cover in Yugoslavia" 24
Basayev's organisation has also been involved in a number of rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and
sabotage of Russia's oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit dollars and the smuggling
of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked to Albania's collapsed pyramids, 25 Alongside the extensive laundering
of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities have been funneled towards the recruitment of
mercenaries and the purchase of weapons.
During his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander "Al
Khattab" who had fought as a volunteer in Afghanistan. Barely a few months after Basayev's return to Grozny,
Khattab was invited (early 1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahideen fighters.
According to the BBC, Khattab's posting to Chechnya had been "arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based
[International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich
individuals which channeled funds into Chechnya".26
Concluding Remarks
Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported Osama bin Laden, while at same time placing him
on the FBI's "most wanted list" as the World's foremost terrorist.
While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America's war in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the
FBI --operating as a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism, operating in some
respects independently of the CIA which has --since the Soviet-Afghan war-- supported international terrorism
through its covert operations.
In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad --featured by the Bush Adminstration as "a threat to America"-- is
blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations
constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush
Adminstration together with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure which threatens the
future of humanity.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Endnotes
Hugh Davies, International: `Informers' point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide
bombers, The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.
See Fred Halliday, "The Un-great game: the Country that lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March
1996):
Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999.
Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.
Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services, 21 November 1995.
Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998.
Ibid.
Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994.
Ibid
See Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford
university Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison in International Press
Services, 22 August 1995.
Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA's Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August
1997.
Ibid
Ibid.
Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also
Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations Publication, Vienna
1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000.
Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.
International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22.
Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998)
Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996.
See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals, India Abroad, 3 November 1995.
Levon Sevunts, Who's calling the shots?: Chechen conflict finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 23
The Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999..
Ibid
Ibid.
See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.
The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January 2000.
BBC, 29 September 1999).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The URL of this article is:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html
Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal, September 2001. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to post
this text on non-commercial community internet sites, provided the source and the URL are indicated, the essay
remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To publish this text in printed and/or other forms,
including commercial internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at chossu...@videotron.ca, fax:
1-514-4256224.
Morpheal
> Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
Who else is on your suspect list ?
Mohamar Khadafy ?
Saddam Hussein ?
Yasar Arafat ?
Ayatollah ? (any ayatollah anywhere)
Anyone else ?
I am sure you could find a few more.
Now, granted, it might be bin Ladin. But... is it bin Ladin ?
M.
john adams
"Morpheal" <morp...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:3BA7EC36...@sympatico.ca...
> john adams wrote:
>
> > Who Is Osama Bin Laden?
>
> Who else is on your suspect list ?
>
> Mohamar Khadafy ?
> Saddam Hussein ?
> Yasar Arafat ?
> Ayatollah ? (any ayatollah anywhere)
>
> Anyone else ?
>
>
> I am sure you could find a few more.
The Lion's Club?
> Now, granted, it might be bin Ladin. But... is it bin Ladin ?
>
> M.
I never said it was Bin Laden though. The content of the article
isn't merely to single him out - like the media has already - rather
it gives an insight into a bit of the history leading up to this poimt.
Or, is it not pertinent to know the details about who is being charged
as the prime suspect?
Personally, it seems unlikely Arafat would have had this attack ordered.
He probably has a few other things to worry about right now.