After leaving college in 1979, bin Laden arrived to
Pakistan and joined Abdullah Azzam to take part in the soviet war in
Afghanistan. During operation-cyclone from 1979 to 1989, the United States
provided financial aid weapons to the mujahideen leaders through Pakistan’s
intelligence (ISI). Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a
three star general in the Pakistan army and head of the ISI agency. Although
the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant
groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the
ISI. By 1984,
bin Laden and Azzam established Maktab al-khidamat, which funneled money, arms
and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan. Through al-Khadamat,
bin Laden inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid
for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other services for the
jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established
Religious
extreme
Islam Military in Pashtum and Pakistan - According to Robert Kemp (2008) he points that the
rise of radical Islam along both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border has roots
in three major factors. The first is the disintegration of Afghanistan social
structures at both the state and the tribal levels, beginning in 1979 with revolts
against the communist government and the subsequent soviet invasion. The second
is the increased sway of political islam, due mostly to outside influences
including selfish thought from the middle East and the more local Deobdi
philosophy. The third is the radicalization of the pashtuuns, the dominant
ethnic group along the border. The question now is, how current instability on
both sides of the border and what may it lead to?
Nature of
the Afghanistan-Pakistan border Areas.
The Afghanistan-pakistan-border area would still be
familiar to kipling and his contemporaries, with its armed tribes, rugged hills
and mounting, charismatic leaders, smuggling, weak central government control
and war fare. Much of the population is rural, subsisting on irrigated crops
and live stock while the towns are far from richness. Today, both sides of the
border suffer from an active insurgency and significance from more radical
strains of Islam.
The attacks of sept. 2001 forced events in the area,
particularly the heavy engagement of NATO and the U.S. along the border, but
many of today’s headlines from Afghanistan have deep roots in the history and
culture of the area.