Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden

Several sources have alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had ties with Osama bin Laden's faction of "Afghan Arab" fighters when it armed Mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War.

[1] On the other hand, several other journalists and academics have documented that bin Laden and the Afghan Arabs at least informally cooperated with the ISI, thus indirectly benefiting from the CIA's funding.

In a 2004 article entitled "Al-Qaeda's origins and links", the BBC wrote that "[d]uring the anti-Soviet war Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding.

In an article in The Guardian, Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, would state that: Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies.

Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.

[3]According to journalist Ahmed Rashid, in 1986 bin Laden "helped build the Khost tunnel complex, which the CIA was funding as a major arms storage depot, training facility and medical centre for the Mujaheddin.

[11][12] In conversation with former British Defence Secretary Michael Portillo, two-time prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto said Osama bin Laden was initially pro-American.

"[6] Marc Sageman, a former CIA Operations Officer who was based in Islamabad from 1987 to 1989, and worked closely with Afghanistan's Mujahideen, states that no American money went to the Afghan Arabs, that "[n]o U.S. official ever came in contact with the foreign volunteers," and that they "never crossed U.S. radar screens.

[22] Academic historian Paul Thomas Chamberlin wrote in 2018 that "[t]o date, no researcher has produced documentation of direct links between Washington and bin Laden or, for that matter, Zarqawi.

"[23] In his 2004 book Ghost Wars, Steve Coll writes that "Bin Laden moved within Saudi intelligence's compartmented operations, outside of CIA eyesight.

[24][25] On the other hand, according to Rashid, then-CIA chief William J. Casey "committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI initiative to recruit radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan Mujaheddin.

"[26] Norwegian academic historian Odd Arne Westad writes that the CIA funded "Islamic charitable organizations that provided assistance to the mujahedin," and that "[a]t least two of these organizations also recruited Muslim volunteers—mostly from North Africa—to fight in Afghanistan," with the CIA also helping run training camps in Egypt and "probably one in one of the Gulf states" for both native Afghan and Afghan Arab recruits.

[27] Sir Martin Ewans stated that the Afghan Arabs "benefited indirectly from the CIA's funding, through the ISI and resistance organizations,"[28] and that "it has been reckoned that as many as 35,000 'Arab-Afghans' may have received military training in Pakistan at an estimated cost of $800 million in the years up to and including 1988.

"[29] Some of the CIA's greatest Afghan beneficiaries were Arabist commanders such as Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who were key allies of Bin Laden over many years.