CHAPTER II
Who Is Osama bin Laden?
Presented in stylized fashion by the Western media, “Osama bin
Laden” constitutes the new bogeyman. He is both the “cause” and the
“consequence” of war and social devastation. He is also held
responsible for the civilian deaths in Afghanistan resulting from
the US bombing campaign. In this regard, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld has stated that “he did not rule out the eventual use of
nuclear weapons”as part of the US Government’s campaign against
Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.1
Background of the Soviet-Afghan War
Who is Osama? The prime suspect in the New York and Washington
terrorists attacks, Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, was recruited during
the Soviet-Afghan war, “ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to
fight Soviet invaders”.2
In 1979, the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA was
launched in Afghanistan:
With the active encouragement of the
CIA and Pakistan’s ISI, 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 madrasas. Eventually,
more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly
influenced by the Afghan jihad.3
US Government support to the Mujahideen
was presented to world public opinion as a “necessary response” to
the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the
pro-Communist government of Babrak Kamal. Recent evidence suggests,
however, that the CIA’s military-intelligence operation in
Afghanistan had been launched prior rather than in response to the
Soviet invasion. Washington’s intent was to deliberately trigger a
civil war, which lasted more than 20 years.
The CIA’s role in support of the
Mujahideen is confirmed in an 1998 interview with Zbigniew
Brzezinski, who at the time was National Security Adviser to
President Jimmy Carter:
Brzezinski: According to the
official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began
during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded
Afghanistan, [on] 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly
guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July
3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for
secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I
explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to
induce a Soviet military intervention.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert
action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into
war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to
intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they
would.
Question: When the Soviets justified their intervention by
asserting that they intended to fight against a secret
involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t
believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t
regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent
idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan
trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets
officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We
now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.
Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war
unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about
the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Question: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic
fundamentalists, having given arms and advice to future
terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world?
The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some
stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the
end of the Cold War? 4
“The Islamic Jihad”
Consistent with Brzezinski’s account, a “Militant Islamic Network”
was created by the CIA. The “Islamic Jihad” (or holy war against the
Soviets) became an integral part of the CIA’s intelligence ploy. It
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 US 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.5
The Central Intelligence Agency using
Pakistan’s ISI played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In
turn, the CIA-sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the
teachings of Islam. The madrasas were set up by Wahabi
fundamentalists financed out of Saudi Arabia: “[I]t was the
government of the United States who supported Pakistani dictator
General Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious schools, from
which the germs of the Taliban emerged.”6
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.7
Pakistan’s ISI used as a ‘Go-Between’
CIA covert support to the “Islamic Jihad” operated indirectly
through the Pakistani ISI—i.e., the CIA did not channel its support
directly to the Mujahideen. For these covert operations to be
“successful”, Washington was careful not to reveal the ultimate
objective of the “Jihad”, which consisted of not only destabilizing
the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan, but also destroying the
Soviet Union.
In the words of the CIA’s Milton Beardman, “We didn’t train Arabs.”
Yet, according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram Centre 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”.8
The CIA’s Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Osama bin Laden
was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington.
According to bin Laden (as quoted by Beardman): “Neither I, nor my
brothers, saw evidence of American help.”9
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 theater 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”.10 The ISI
had a staff composed of military and intelligence officers,
bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated at
150,000.11
Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani military
regime led by General Zia-ul Haq:
Relations between the CIA and the
ISI 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.12
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.13
Researcher 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 per cent of US 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”.14
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 US Drug
Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures
or arrests. …
US officials had refused to investigate
charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies “because US 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.”15
After the Cold War, the Central Asian
region became not only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, but
also produced, in Afghanistan alone, 75 per cent of the world’s
heroin, representing multi-billion dollar revenues to business
syndicates, financial institutions, intelligence agencies and
organized crime. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new
surge in opium production had unfolded.
The annual proceeds of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100
and 200 billion dollars) represented approximately one third of the
worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United
Nations to be of the order of $500 billion.16 According to the US
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Afghanistan produced more than 70 per
cent of the world’s opium in 2000, and about 80 per cent of the
opiate products in Europe.17
Powerful business syndicates in the West, and in the former Soviet
Union, allied with organized crime, were competing for the strategic
control over the heroin routes. According to UN estimates, the
production of opium in Afghanistan in 1998-99—coinciding with the
buildup of armed insurgencies in the former Soviet republics—reached
a record high of 4,600 metric tons.18 In other words, control over
“the drug routes” is strategic.
The multi-billion dollar revenues of narcotics are deposited in the
Western banking system. Most of the large international
banks—together with their affiliates in the offshore banking
havens—launder large amounts of narco-dollars. Therefore, the
international trade in narcotics constitutes a multi-billion dollar
business of the same order of magnitude as the international trade
in oil.
From this standpoint, geopolitical
control over “the drug routes” is as strategic as oil pipelines. (On
the post-Taliban narcotics economy, see Chapter XVI).
In the Wake of the Soviet Withdrawal
Despite the demise of the Soviet Union, Pakistan’s extensive
military-intelligence apparatus (the ISI) 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 ISI
essentially “served as a catalyst for the disintegration of the
Soviet Union and the emergence of six new Muslim republics in
Central Asia”.19
Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahabi 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, the JUI entered Pakistan’s
government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between
the JUI, the Army and the ISI were established. In 1996, 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 the training camps in Afghanistan over to JUI
factions … ”.20
The JUI, with the support of the Saudi Wahabi movement, played a key
role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans and the former
Soviet Union.
Jane Defense Weekly confirms, that “half of Taliban manpower and
equipment originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI”.21 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.22
Backed by Pakistan’s military intelligence, which in turn was
controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving
American geopolitical interests. No doubt this explains why
Washington had 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”.23
The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and
equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and
later the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In fact, at the time of the
September 11 attacks, CIA-sponsored Mujahideen mercenaries were
fighting within the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults
into Macedonia. (See Chapter III.)
The War in Chechnya
In Chechnya, the renegade autonomous region of the Russian
Federation, 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 US
Congress’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.24 The summit was
attended by none other than Osama bin Laden, as well as 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.” 25
Russia’s main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan.
Despite Washington’s condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect
beneficiaries of the wars in Chechnya are the British and American
oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and
pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin. (See map page 2.)
The two main Chechen rebel armies (led by Commanders 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 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.26
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 KLA. In 1997-1998, 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.”27
Basayev’s organization had 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.28 Alongside the extensive laundering of drug money, the
proceeds of various illicit activities were funnelled 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 (in 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 Organization,
a militant religious organization, funded by mosques and rich
individuals who channeled funds into Chechnya”.29
Dismantling Secular Institutions in the
former Soviet Union
The enforcement of Islamic law in the largely secular Muslim
societies of the former Soviet Union has served America’s strategic
interests in the region. Previously, a strong secular tradition
based on a rejection of Islamic law prevailed throughout the Central
Asian republics and the Caucasus, including Chechnya and Dagestan
(which are part of the Russian Federation).
The 1994-1996 Chechen war, instigated by the main rebel movements
against Moscow, has served to undermine secular state institutions.
A parallel system of local government, controlled by the Islamic
militia, was implanted in many localities in Chechnya. In some of
the small towns and villages, Islamic Sharia courts were established
under a reign of political terror.
Financial aid from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to the rebel
armies was conditional upon the installation of the Sharia courts,
despite strong opposition of the civilian population. The Principal
Judge and Ameer of the Sharia courts in Chechnya is Sheikh Abu Umar,
who,
“came to Chechnya in 1995 and joined
the ranks of the Mujahideen there under the leadership of
Ibn-ul-Khattab …. He set about teaching Islam with the correct
Aqeedah to the Chechen Mujahideen, many of whom held incorrect
and distorted beliefs about Islam.”30
Meanwhile, state institutions of the
Russian Federation in Chechnya were crumbling under the brunt of the
IMF-sponsored austerity measures imposed under the Presidency of
Boris Yeltsin. In contrast, the Sharia courts, financed and equipped
out of Saudi Arabia, were gradually displacing existing State
institutions of the Russian Federation and the Chechnya autonomous
region.
The Wahabi movement from Saudi Arabia was not only attempting to
overrun civilian State institutions in Dagestan and Chechnya, it was
also seeking to displace the traditional Sufi Muslim leaders. In
fact, the resistance to the Islamic rebels in Dagestan was based on
the alliance of the (secular) local governments with the Sufi
sheiks:
These [Wahabi] groups consist of a
very tiny but well-financed and well-armed minority. They
propose with these attacks the creation of terror in the hearts
of the masses … . By creating anarchy and lawlessness, these
groups can enforce their own harsh, intolerant brand of Islam ….
Such groups do not represent the common view of Islam, held by
the vast majority of Muslims and Islamic scholars, for whom
Islam exemplifies the paragon of civilization and perfected
morality. They represent what is nothing less than a movement to
anarchy under an Islamic label …. Their intention is not so much
to create an Islamic state, but to create a state of confusion
in which they are able to thrive.31
Promoting Secessionist Movements in
India
In parallel with its covert operations in the Balkans and the former
Soviet Union, Pakistan’s ISI has provided, since the 1980s, support
to several secessionist Islamic insurgencies in India’s Kashmir.
Although officially condemned by Washington, these covert ISI
operations were undertaken with the tacit approval of the US
Government. Coinciding with the 1989 Geneva Peace Agreement and the
Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the ISI was instrumental in the
creation of the militant Jammu and Kashmir Hizbul Mujahideen (JKHM).32
The December 2001 terrorist attacks on the Indian Parliament— which
contributed to pushing India and Pakistan to the brink of war—were
conducted by two Pakistan-based rebel groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army
of the Pure) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Mohammed), both of which
are covertly supported by Pakistan’s ISI.33
The timely attack on the Indian Parliament, followed by the ethnic
riots in Gujarat in early 2002, were the culmination of a process
initiated in the 1980s, financed by drug money and abetted by
Pakistan’s military intelligence.34
Needless to say, these ISI-supported terrorist attacks serve the
geopolitical interests of the US They not only contribute to
weakening and fracturing the Indian Union, they also create
conditions which favor the outbreak of a regional war between
Pakistan and India.
The powerful Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which plays a
behind-the-scenes role in the formulation of US foreign policy,
confirms that the Lashkar and Jaish rebel groups are supported by
the ISI:
Through its Inter-Service
Intelligence Agency (ISI), Pakistan has provided funding, arms,
training facilities, and aid in crossing borders to Lashkar and
Jaish. This assistance—an attempt to replicate in Kashmir the
international Islamist brigade’s “holy war” against the Soviet
Union in Afghanistan—helped introduce radical Islam into the
long-standing conflict over the fate of Kashmir ….
Have these groups received funding from
sources other than the Pakistani government?
Yes. Members of the Pakistani and Kashmiri communities in England
send millions of dollars a year, and Wahabi sympathizers in the
Persian Gulf also provide support.
Do Islamist terrorists in Kashmir have ties to Al Qaeda?
Yes. In 1998, the leader of Harakat, Farooq Kashmiri Khalil, signed
Osama bin Laden’s declaration calling for attacks on Americans,
including civilians, and their allies. Bin Laden is also suspected
of funding Jaish, according to US and Indian officials. And Maulana
Massoud Azhar, who founded Jaish, traveled to Afghanistan several
times to meet bin Laden.
Where were these Islamist militants trained?
Many were given ideological training in the same madrasas, or Muslim
seminaries, that taught the Taliban and foreign fighters in
Afghanistan. They received military training at camps in Afghanistan
or in villages in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Extremist groups have
recently opened several new madrasas in Azad Kashmir.35
What the CFR fails to mention are the links between the ISI and the
CIA. Confirmed by the writings of Zbigniew Brzezinski (who also
happens to be a member of the CFR), the “international Islamic
brigade” was a creation of the CIA.
US-Sponsored Insurgencies in China
Also of significance in understanding America’s “War on Terrorism”
is the existence of ISI-supported Islamic insurgencies on China’s
Western border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. In fact, several of
the Islamic movements in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet
Union are integrated with the Turkestan and Uigur movements in
China’s Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region.
These separatist groups—which include the East Turkestan Terrorist
Force, the Islamic Reformist Party, the East Turkestan National
Unity Alliance, the Uigur Liberation Organization and the Central
Asian Uigur Jihad Party—have all received support and training from
Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.36 The declared objective of these
Chinese-based Islamic insurgencies is the “establishment of an
Islamic caliphate in the region”.37
The caliphate would integrate Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan
(West Turkestan) and the Uigur autonomous region of China (East
Turkestan) into a single political entity.
The “caliphate project” encroaches upon Chinese territorial
sovereignty. Supported by various Wahabi “foundations” from the Gulf
States, secessionism on China’s Western frontier is, once again,
consistent with US strategic interests in Central Asia. Meanwhile, a
powerful US-based lobby is channelling support to separatist forces
in Tibet.
By tacitly promoting the secession of the Xinjiang-Uigur region
(using Pakistan’s ISI as a “go-between”), Washington is attempting
to trigger a broader process of political destabilization and
fracturing of the People’s Republic of China. In addition to these
various covert operations, the US has established military bases in
Afghanistan and in several of the former Soviet republics, directly
on China’s Western border.
The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits
is also an integral part of this strategy. (See Chapter VII.)
Washington’s Hidden Agenda
US foreign policy is not geared towards curbing the tide of Islamic
fundamentalism. In fact, it is quite the opposite. The significant
development of “radical Islam”, in the wake of September 11, in the
Middle East and Central Asia is consistent with Washington’s hidden
agenda. The latter consists of sustaining rather than combatting
international terrorism, with a view to destabilizing national
societies and preventing the articulation of genuine social
movements directed against the American Empire.
Washington continues to support—through
CIA covert operations—the development of Islamic fundamentalism,
particularly in China and India.
Throughout the developing world, the growth of sectarian,
fundamentalist and other such organizations tends to serve US
interests. These various organizations and armed insurgents have
been developed, particularly in countries where state institutions
have collapsed under the brunt of the IMF-sponsored economic
reforms.
The application of IMF economic medicine often breeds an atmosphere
of ethnic and social strife, which in turn favors the development of
fundamentalism and communal violence.
These fundamentalist organizations contribute by destroying and
displacing secular institutions.
In the short term, fundamentalism creates social and ethnic
divisions. It undermines the capacity of people to organize against
the American Empire. These organizations or movements, such as the
Taliban, often foment “opposition to Uncle Sam” in a way which does
not constitute any real threat to America’s broader geopolitical and
economic interests. Meanwhile, Washington has supported their
development as a means of disarming social movements, which it fears
may threaten US economic and political hegemony.
Notes
1. Quoted in The Houston Chronicle,
20 October 2001. See also Michel Chossudovsky, “Tactical Nuclear
Weapons” against Afghanistan? Centre
for Research on Globalization (CRG),
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO112C.html, 5 December
2001.
2. Hugh Davies,“Informers point the finger at bin Laden;
Washington on alert for suicide bombers.” The Daily Telegraph,
London, 24 August 1998, emphasis added.
3. Ahmed Rashid,“The Taliban: Exporting Extremism”, Foreign
Affairs, November-December 1999.
4. “The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan, Interview with
Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security
Adviser”, Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998,
published in English, Centre for Research on Globalization,
emphasis added in italics,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html, 5
October 2001, italics added.
5. Steve Coll, The Washington Post, July 19, 1992.
6. Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA),
“RAWA Statement on the Terrorist Attacks in the US”, Centre for
Research on Globalization (CRG),
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RAW109A.html, 16 September
2001
7. Dilip Hiro,“Fallout from the Afghan Jihad”, Inter Press
Services, 21 November 1995.
8. National Public Radio, Weekend Sunday (NPR) with Eric Weiner
and Ted Clark, 16 August 1998.
9. Ibid.
10. Dipankar Banerjee, “Possible Connection of ISI With Drug
Industry”, India Abroad, 2 December 1994.
11. Ibid.
12. 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 (IPS), 22 August 1995.
13. Alfred McCoy,“Drug Fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity
in the Narcotics Tr a d e ”, The Progressive, 1 August 1997.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a Changing World, Technical
document No. 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also United
Nations Drug Control Program, Report of the International
Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations,
Vienna 1999, p. 49-51, and Richard Lapper, “UN Fears Growth of
Heroin Trade”, Financial Times, 24 February 2000.
17. BBC,“Afghanistan’s Opium Industry”, 9 April 2002.
18. Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op cit,
p. 49-51; see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.
19. International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
20. Ahmed Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism”, Foreign
Affairs, November-December, 1999, p. 22.
21. Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998.
22. Tim McGirk, “Kabul Learns to Live with its Bearded
Conquerors”, The Independent, London, 6 November 1996.
23. See K. Subrahmanyam, “Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals”,
India Abroad, 3 November 1995.
24. Levon Sevunts, “Who’s Calling The Shots? Chechen conflict
finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan”, The Gazette,
Montreal, 26 October 1999.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, “Chechen Front Moves
To Kosovo”, Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.
28. See,“Mafia linked to Albania’s Collapsed Pyramids”, The
European, 13 February 1997. See also Itar-Tass, 4-5 January
2000.
29. BBC, 29 September 1999.
30. See Global Muslim News,
http://www.islam.org.au/articles/21/news.htm, December 1997.
31. Mateen Siddiqui,“Differentiating Islam from Militant
‘Islamists’” San Francisco Chronicle, 21 September 1999.
32. See K. Subrahmanyam, “Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals”,
India Abroad, 3 November 1995.
33. Council on Foreign Relations,“Terrorism: Questions and
Answers, Harakat ul-Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad”,
http://www.terrorism-answers.com/groups/harakat2.html,
Washington 2002.
34. See Murali Ranganathan,“Human Rights Report Draws Flak”,
News India, 16 September 1994.
35. Ibid.
36. According to official Chinese sources quoted in UPI, 20
November 2001.
37. Defense and Security, 30 May 2001.
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