Who
Is Osama
Bin Laden?
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
1.Hugh
Davies, International: 'Informers' point the finger at bin
Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily
Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.
2.See Fred Halliday, "The Un-great game: the Country that
lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March
1996):
3.Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign
Affairs, November-December 1999.
4.Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.
5.Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press
Services, 21 November 1995.
6.Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August
1998.
7.Ibid.
8.Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug
Industry, India Abroad, 2 December 1994.
9.Ibid
10.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
11.Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA's Forty Year
Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August
1997.
12.Ibid
13.Ibid.
14.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.
15.Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op
cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.
16.International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
17.Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign
Affairs, November- December, 1999, p. 22.
18.Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September
1998)
19.Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded
conquerors, The Independent, London, 6 November1996.
20.See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals,
India Abroad, 3 November 1995.
21.Levon Sevunts, Who's calling the shots?: Chechen conflict
finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 23 The
Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999.
22.Ibid.
23.Ibid.
24.See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front
Moves To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.
25.The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5
January 2000.
26.BBC, 29 September 1999).
The
original URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html
Copyright Michel Chossudovsky, Montreal, September 2001. All
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Emanzipation
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version 9.2001, Criticism, suggestions as to form and
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