When the Soviets invaded the capitol of Afghanistan in 1979, Kabul, the Islamic community declared a fatwa against the secular communists from the North. Inn doing so, hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the world heeded the call. Making up less than 10% of the fighting force, they hardly made an impression. All except for two individuals, a Palestinian imam, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, and a wealthy Saudi, Osama Bin Laden. Both men served as examples for the Afghan and Arab Mujahedeen fighters who battled long and heavy against the Soviets. By the near end of the conflict, Azzam had fell out of favor with the Arabs who gravitated towards the silent but stout, Bin Laden who by now had the full protection of Egyptian militants from groups like Egyptian Islamic Jihad under Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was let out of prison for his suspected role in the assassination of the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat. By 1990, Azzam was assassinated, and Bin Laden and the Arab Mujahedeen had returned back to their native countries. Some, went to the United States, and continued the jihad there. Years later, many terrorist attacks in the country and outside of it, were precipitated by their years of training and funding from the intelligence services who gave them money, weapons and logistical support to defeat the Soviets. Now the war was against the very country who assisted them, in the United States. Had the CIA and US State Department not realized that the very monster they unleashed against the Soviets would return to haunt them?
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