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Friends of uncle Sam
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Visits
10
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Visits
10
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Visits
10
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May 13, 2011
Osama bin Laden, who was included in FBI top ten most-wanted list, also remained a close associate of CIA till the disintegration of USSR. FBI included his name in the list in June 1999 with the allegation that “Osama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar-es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. Those attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.”
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In his book “IN THE ARENA”, former US President Richard Nixon says: “My saddest experience in traveling abroad was the funeral of the Shah of Iran in Cairo, in July 1980. No one was sent from Washington to represent the United States at a funeral for a leader who had been one of our staunchest and most loyal friends. I was reminded of a haunting remark president Ayub Khan of Pakistan made to me in 1964. In commenting on US complicity in the assassination of president Diem of South Vietnam, he said that event proved ‘that it is dangerous to be a friend of the United States; that it pays to be neutral; and that sometimes it helps to be an enemy’. It was an observation that again came to mind when I was informed of the mysterious death, in an airplane crash apparently caused by sabotage, of another staunch friend of the United States, president Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan.”
Former minister for information and broadcasting and current central secretary information of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), during an International Sufi Conference held in Islamabad, said there was a time when CIA chief was teaching us the Holy War (Jihad) in Peshawar, and recruited thousands of radical people for their motives. He said the US introduced arms culture during the Afghan-Soviet war, and once it won that war, it left us alone to deal with the remnants. He said after the killing of Osama bin Laden, Pakistan has become a victim of harsh criticism and everybody has started blaming us.
Osama bin Laden, who was included in FBI top ten most-wanted list, also remained a close associate of CIA till the disintegration of USSR. FBI included his name in the list in June 1999 with the allegation that “Osama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar-es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. Those attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.”
FBI also set a reward for his arrest and stated that “the Rewards For Justice Program, United States Department of State, is offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Osama Bin Laden. An additional $2 million was offered through a program developed and funded by the Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association.
Indeed, there was a time when US wholeheartedly supported Osama. A compilation of Afghan-Soviet war by Matt, Paul, KJF, blackmax revealed that Osama bin Laden and Pakistan’s ISI, helped by the CIA, built the Khost tunnel complex in Afghanistan; bin Laden (also) worked closely with Saudi, Pakistani, and US intelligence services to recruit mujaheddin from many Muslim countries.” It has been claimed that the CIA also funds Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) (also known as Al-Kifah), bin Laden’s main charity front in the 1980s.
Regarding formulation of Al-Qaeda, the compilation said that during 1988, Bin Laden conducts two meetings to discuss “the establishment of a new military group,” according to notes that are found later. Notes reveal the group is initially called al-Qaeda al-Askariya, which roughly translates into “the military base.” But the name soon shortens to just al-Qaeda, meaning “the base” or “the foundation.” With the Soviets in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan, it is proposed to create the new group to keep military jihad, or holy war, alive after the Soviets are gone. The notes don’t specify what the group will do exactly, but it concludes, “Initial estimate, within six months of al-Qaeda (founding), 314 brothers will be trained and ready.” In fact, al-Qaeda will remain smaller than that for years to come. Fifteen people attend these two initial meetings in addition to bin Laden.
Following the first Gulf War, Al Qaeda shifted its focus to fighting the growing U.S. presence in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s most sacred shrines. Al Qaeda vociferously opposed the stationing of U.S. troops on what it considered the holiest of Islamic lands and waged an extended campaign of terrorism against the Saudi rulers, whom bin Laden deemed to be false Muslims.
The ultimate goal of this campaign was to depose the Saudi royal family and install an Islamic regime on the Arabian Peninsula. The Saudi regime subsequently deported bin Laden in 1992 and revoked his citizenship in 1994.
In 1991, bin Laden moved to Sudan, where he operated until 1996. During this period, Al Qaeda established connections with other terror organizations with the help of its Sudanese hosts and Iran. While in Sudan, Al Qaeda was involved in several terror attacks and guerrilla actions carried out by other organizations. In May 1996, following U.S. pressure on the Sudanese government, bin Laden moved to Afghanistan where he allied with the ruling Taliban.
Between 1991 and 1996, Al Qaeda took part in several major terror attacks. Al Qaeda was involved in the bombing of two hotels in Aden, Yemen, which targeted American troops en route to Somalia on a humanitarian and peacekeeping mission. It also gave massive assistance to Somali militias, whose efforts brought the eventual withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1994. Bin Laden was also involved in an assassination attempt against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in June 1995. Two major terrorist actions against the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia, a November 1995 attack in Riyadh and the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, also fit Al Qaeda’s strategy at the time, but their connection to Al Qaeda is not entirely clear. There is little evidence to suggest a significant connection between bin Laden and the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
After moving to Afghanistan, bin Laden escalated his anti-American rhetoric. In an interview with the Independent in July 1996, bin Laden praised the Riyadh and Dhahram attacks on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, saying it marked “the beginning of war between Muslims and the United States.” He did not take responsibility for the attacks, but said that “not long ago, I gave advice to the Americans to withdraw their troops from Saudi Arabia.” On August 23, 1996, bin Laden issued Al Qaeda’s first “declaration of war” against America. “Message from Osama bin Laden to his Muslim brothers in the whole world and especially in the Arabian Peninsula: declaration of jihad against the Americans occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques; expel the heretics from the Arabian Peninsula.”
In February 1998 bin Laden and several leading Muslim militants declared the formation of a coalition called the International Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and crusaders to fight the U.S. Member organizations included Al Qaeda, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad led by Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian Islamic Group, and organizations engaged in Kashmir and Bangladesh. Bin Laden was appointed to head the Front’s council (shura). The militants signed a fatwa (religious opinion) outlining the Front’s ideology and goals.
The fatwa was published in a London-based Arabic paper, Al Quds Al Arabi; it called on all Muslims to “kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military,” wherever they may be.
Al Qaeda was blamed to escalate war against the U.S. In August 1998, Al Qaeda bombed two U.S. embassies in East Africa (Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es Salaam, Tanzania), killing more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. In retaliation, the U.S. attacked targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. In October 2000, Al Qaeda bombed the U.S.S. Cole, an American guided-missile destroyer at Aden, Yemen, killing 17 American servicemen. It committed its most devastating attack on September 11, 2001, when 19 Al Qaeda operatives hijacked four passenger planes and drove two into the Twin Towers in New York City and one into the Pentagon; a fourth plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attack.
During 1980sm Osama had fought a US war in Afghanistan, and certainly he was a dear one for the Americans at that time. But for the US, Islamic radicals are also the same threat what once the communism was. The genius security advisors of former US president Jimmy Carter managed to bring both their enemies eye-ball to eye-ball. After almost two decades of the fall of Soviet Union, finally the American eliminated the icon of radical Islamism. The question is whether the Uncle Sam has reached its destination or killing Osama was just a tip of an ice-berg.
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