Editing Al-Qaeda (section)

==Late 1970s–1980s: Origins in the Afghan-Soviet War==
The roots of al Qaeda lie in the Afghan-Soviet War (1979–1989), where the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies supported mujahideen fighters against the Soviet Union. Ghost Wars by Steve Coll (2004) provides a detailed account of this period, noting that the CIA funneled billions of dollars through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to arm and train Afghan and Arab fighters, including those who would later form al Qaeda. Coll explains, “The CIA’s covert role in Afghanistan… helped create the conditions for the rise of Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network” (Coll, 2004, p. 66). 

The influx of Arab volunteers, inspired by anti-Soviet jihad, included Osama bin Laden, who arrived in Afghanistan in the early 1980s to support the mujahideen.
The Politics of Heroin by Alfred W. McCoy (1972, revised 2003) contextualizes this period by highlighting how the CIA’s alliances with drug traffickers in Afghanistan facilitated the heroin trade to fund covert operations. While not directly naming al Qaeda, McCoy notes that “the CIA’s covert operations in Afghanistan transformed the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands into the world’s largest heroin-producing region” (McCoy, 2003, p. 478). This drug trade provided financial networks that later supported militant groups, including those associated with bin Laden.

A Mosque in Munich by Ian Johnson (2010) adds another layer, detailing how the CIA supported the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in the West to counter Soviet influence. Johnson describes how the CIA’s backing of Islamic networks in Europe, particularly through mosques like the one in Munich, created ideological and logistical hubs that later fed into al Qaeda’s recruitment. He writes, “The CIA’s support for Islamist movements… laid the groundwork for the global jihadist movement” (Johnson, 2010, p. 112).
===According to Paul Williams===
"In September 1979 (Nur Muhammad) Taraki was killed in a coup organized by Afghan military officers. Hafizullah Amin was installed as the country's new president. Amin had impeccable western credentials. He had been educated at Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin. He had served as the president of the Afghan Students Association, which had been funded by the Asia Foundation, a CIA front." 
===After the Coup===
After the coup, he met regularly with US Embassy officials, while the CIA continued to fund Hekmatyar's rebels in Pakistan. Fearing a fundamentalist, US-backed regime at its border, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan on December 27, 1979. The CIA got what it wanted. The holy war had begun. For the next decade, black aid-amounting to more than $3 billion-would be poured into Afghanistan to support the holy warriors, making it the most expensive covert operation in US history.  Such vast expenditures demanded an exponential increase in poppy production, which Hekmatyar and his fellow jihadists were pleased to provide.
===The State Department Response===
The war in Afghanistan delighted state department officials, including Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski. Voicing the utopian vision of what author Chalmers Johnson called the "military-industrial complex," Brzezinski wrote of the plans to control Eurasia, including Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan: For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia.... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia-and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three great imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.14 Brzezinski and fellow members of his "over-world" (the elite group which puppeteers events to bring about a "new world order") realized that the concept of democracy and freedom could never galvanize the scattered tribes and peoples of Central Asia. The people could only be unified by the cause of Allah since they were overwhelmingly Islamic."

Williams' goes on to explain what [[Operation Gladio]] looked like in Afghanistan..."in the view of American geostrategists, offered many be efits, including the possible downfall of the Soviet Union and the possibility of gaining access and control over the vast natural gas and o resources of Eurasia.