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Sheikh Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora Mountains

Al Qaeda was founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden to consolidate the international network he established during the Afghan war. Its goals were the advancement of Islamic revolutions throughout the Muslim world and repelling foreign intervention in the Middle East.

Bin Laden, son of a billionaire Saudi businessman, became involved in the fight against the Soviet Union’s invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which lasted from 1979 to 1988 and ended with a Soviet defeat at the hands of international militias of Muslim fighters backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Together with Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood leader, Abdullah Azzam, bin Laden ran one of seven main militias involved in the fighting. They established military training bases in Afghanistan and founded Maktab Al Khidamat, or Services Office, a support network that provided recruits and money through worldwide centers, including in the U.S.

Bin Laden and Azzam had different visions for what to do with the network they had established. Bin Laden decided to found Al Qaeda, based on personal affiliations created during the fighting in Afghanistan as well as on his own international network, reputation and access to large sums of money. The following year Azzam was assassinated. After the war ended, the Afghan-Arabs, as the mostly non-Afghan volunteers who fought the Soviets came to be known, either returned to their countries of origin or joined conflicts in Somalia, the Balkans and Chechnya. This benefited Al Qaeda’s global reach and later helped cultivate the second and third generations of Al Qaeda terrorists.

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 guerrillaactions carried out by other organizations. In May 1996, following U.S. pressure on the Sudanese government, bin Laden moved to Afghanistan where he allied himself 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, his “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 (Saudi Arabia); 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.



Subsequently, Al Qaeda escalated its 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.

Afghanistan Tops Columbia as Capital of Illicit Narcotics

Afghanistan Tops Columbia as Capital of Illicit Narcotics

SF Chronicle: Afghanistan Tops Columbia as Capital of Illicit Narcotics

This message is available on the Internet at http://www.WantToKnow.info/afghanistandrugcapital

Dear friends,

Afghanistan has now surpassed Columbia as the world's capital of illicit drugs. The below article from the Nov. 19th front page of the San Francisco Chronicle states that Afghanistan has a narco-economy where 40 to 50 percent of the entire economy is dependent on illicit drugs. With all of the American troops and an American-installed government, how can this be? Especially when drought and the Taliban had eradicated over 90% of the opium crop in 2001. Here are two quotes from our 10-page 9/11 timeline http://www.wanttoknow.info/9-11cover-up10pg

The Truth about Drugs

Feb 21, 2002: A ban on poppy growing by the Taliban in July 2000 along with severe droughts reduced Afghanistan's opium yield by 91% in 2001. Yet the UN expects its 2002 opium crop to be equivalent to the bumper one of three years ago. Afghanistan is the source of 75% of the world's heroin. Guardian, 2/21/02

Aug 11, 2002: The Observer has learned of three heroin refineries in Afghanistan. There are believed to be several more, some of them operating in broad daylight. Observer, 8/11/02 http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,772598,00.html

It is a sad fact that though the US and UK talk tough on fighting the drug trade, in reality, they care little about this massive business, and very possibly actively encourage and benefit from it. If you find this hard to believe, I invite you to watch former LA cop Mike Ruppert's excellent video "Truth and Lies of 9/11 ." Ruppert was forced out of his job 20 years ago when he tried to expose CIA involvement in the drug trade in the US. He has done his homework very well in this video. Or read 25-year DEA agent Mike Levine's story http://www.wanttoknow.info/massmediacover-ups#levine or Pulitzer prize winning reporter Gary Webb's story http://www.wanttoknow.info/massmediacover-ups#webb or Prof. Peter Dale Scott's essay <http://www.wanttoknow.info/resources#drugscontrascia on the topic. All of them found massive evidence of clandestine government involvement in the drug trade both at home and abroad. http://jahtruth.net/300.htm

It's time to bring the dirty laundry into the light and call for clean government and renewed democracy. Corporate media ownership prevents this critical news from going out, so we must depend on all of us now working together. Please help to spread the word by forwarding this important message to your friends and colleagues. Together, we can build a brighter future. http://jahtruth.net/democra.htm

Demoncrazy is unLawful and anathema to God - JAH:- http://jahtruth.net/godgovmt.htm

With best wishes, Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info team

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi? file=/c/a/2004/11/19/MNGSB9UALS1.D TL

Afghanistan's disturbing poppy explosion U. N. says nation tops Colombia as capital of illicit narcotics Colin Freeman, Chronicle Foreign Service Friday, November 19, 2004

Kabul, Afghanistan -- In the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, where his $100 million empire is based, inquiries about Haji Bashir Noorzai elicit an anxious frown, a shrug or the vague explanation that he left years ago.

On a U. S. government most-wanted list established under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, however, he was named in June as an international kingpin. The list names him as the top heroin dealer in Afghanistan -- and one of the biggest in the world.

He also is among the key beneficiaries of a massive rise in drug cultivation in Afghanistan described Thursday in a report by the United Nations, which says production of opium and its derivative, heroin, has rocketed to near record levels.

The discouraging numbers have highlighted the simmering discontentment among hardliners in the Bush administration with anti-drug efforts by Britain, which was assigned the lead in stamping out the Afghan opium trade after the U. S.-led campaign to oust the Taliban in 2001.

"In Afghanistan, drugs are now a clear and present danger," said Antonio Maria Costa, director of the U. N. Office of Drugs and Crime, on the release of the 2004 Afghanistan opium survey. "The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is becoming a reality."

Opium poppy cultivation, the U. N. report says, has risen by two-thirds, compared with last year, to more than 320,000 acres -- more than 10 times the area of San Francisco. The harvest in 2004 was estimated at 4,200 metric tons, an increase of 17 percent from last year. A metric ton equals about 2,
205 pounds.

The report shows that the drug trade has been rising steadily for decades -- except for an abrupt one-year decline in opium poppy cultivation in 2001 that followed a ban imposed by the Taliban regime. "The drug problem in Afghanistan has been allowed to become ever more serious. If it persists, the political and military successes of the last three years will be lost," the report warned.

Since 95 percent of Afghan heroin ends up in Europe, U. S. interest in foreign drug kingpins traditionally has focused on Latin America. But the report says Afghanistan has surpassed Colombia as the world's biggest gross producer of illicit narcotics, heroin being the "main engine of economic growth" and the "strongest bond" among tribes that previously fought constantly.

Until now, "narco-sheikhs" such as Noorzai have been virtually unknown outside their war-torn fiefdoms. But their days of peaceful criminal obscurity may be at an end.

In a move that signals a new front in its worldwide drug war, the Bush administration hopes to extradite Noorzai and up to a dozen other drug lords as part of an "urgent" strike against Afghanistan's spiralling $2.8 billion-a- year heroin trade.

"We are interested in getting people like these indicted and then extradited to the U. S.," said one senior Kabul-based U. S. official. "It sends out a very strong message to the others that no matter how rich and powerful they are, there is a risk attached to what they do."

Yet the extradition move, which requires the permission of newly elected President Hamid Karzai, is sensitive.

"What we have here now is a narco-economy where 40 to 50 percent of the GDP is from illicit drugs," said the Kabul-based official. "The heroin traffickers are naturally interested in supporting terrorism and doing what they can to destabilize the central government because the last thing they want is the establishment of the rule of law. In those terms, it is a matter of national security to the U. S. and Europe."

Officially, both U. S. and British diplomats insist that just as in the war on terror, Washington and London see exactly eye to eye on drug eradication. But at a House International Relations Committee hearing in February, a senior Bush administration official accused Britain of being squeamish about eradicating opium poppy fields before Afghan farmers had found other means of income. http://jahtruth.net/300.htm

"Our priority should not be some kind of misplaced sympathy for someone who will have to do a little bit more work to grow other, less-lucrative crops, such as wheat or barley," said Robert Charles, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement.

British officials believe the more robust U. S. approach, which also may involve crop-dusting raids, could simply alienate the very farmers they are trying to win over, by putting the stick too far ahead of the carrot. They also complain that the 18,000-strong U. S. military in Afghanistan has turned a blind eye to warlords' involvement in the opium trade in exchange for help against al Qaeda and Taliban remnants.

But with the U. N. report confirming Charles' misgivings by revealing a massive rise in opium cultivation, the United States now seems set to steal the lead from Britain by targeting the narco-sheikhs directly.

"We need to turn this thing around quickly," said the Kabul-based official. "It may take 10 or 20 years to completely eradicate it, but we definitely need some success in the next year or two."

Britain has trained a squad of elite counternarcotics police that has seized
50 tons of opium this year, but as of yet not a single drug lord has been brought to court on criminal drug-trafficking charges. The Afghan justice system, which is being rebuilt by Italian officials experienced in dealing with the Mafia, still lacks the necessary investigation teams, secure jails and witness protection programs to begin prosecutions in earnest.

Haji Juma Khan, another kingpin accused by U. S. officials of funding al Qaeda, still freely travels between his homes in Afghanistan and Pakistan and regularly visits Dubai, where he has extensive investments. "Plenty of Afghans will tell you that he is a big player, but getting proof that will stand up in court is another matter," said one official.

U. S. troops arrested Khan two years ago during the hunt for Osama bin Laden, only to release him -- a decision they now bitterly regret.

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The ONLY solution is to enforce The Plan against the N. W. O. Elite traitorous, narco-trafficker, mass-murder, insider-job perpetrators of 911 and the phoney Wars on Terror and Drugs:- http://jahtruth.net/drugs.htm

Drug industry

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Chapter 1
Introduction and Overview: The sheer size and illicit nature of the opium economy mean that it infiltrates and seriously affects Afghanistan's economy, state, society, and politics. The opium economy is a massive source of corruption and gravely undermines the credibility of the government and its local representatives. While the chapters in this report cover diverse topics and use different research methods, their findings are broadly consistent and they have many common themes. This introductory chapter focuses on methodology, main themes, chapter summaries, and conclusions and recommendations.

Chapter 2
Macroeconomic Impact of the Drug Economy and Counter-Narcotics Efforts: The opium economy is equivalent to more than one-third of Afghanistan’s licit economy. Iit is the country's largest source of export earnings, and it comprises a major source of income and employment in rural areas. However, because a large share of drug proceeds leave or never enter the country, and some of the rest are used for imports, the impact of the opium economy is less than its size would suggest. Correspondingly, the harmful macroeconomic effects of successful measures against drugs may be somewhat limited and manageable, although monitoring is needed. The critical adverse development impact of counter-narcotics actions is on poor farmers and rural wage laborers.

Chapter 3
Responding to the Challenge of Diversity in Opium Poppy Cultivation: This chapter argues that diversity in rural household characteristics, assets, and access to markets means a diverse pattern of dependency on the opium economy, and of decision-making about whether to cultivate opium poppy under varying local circumstances. There is also diversity in households' responses to shocks like elimination of opium poppy cultivation in their locality, and to which degree they are able move into alternative livelihoods, or remain dependent on opium. Households with the least assets and limited access to local resources (land, irrigation water) and market opportunities tend to be the most dependent on opium. All of this diversity calls for a commensurate response on the part of the counter-narcotics strategy – working with the diversity that exists rather than ignoring it, and making use of the knowledge that has been gained about rural households and opium cultivation in different localities.

Chapter 4
Opium Trading Systems in Helmand and Ghor Provinces:This chapter looks into the next level up – opium traders and patterns of opiumtrade – based on fieldwork in Helmand, the dominant center of opium production and trade in the south, and Ghor, a much more recent and marginal producer toward the west. Geographical and climatic differences, continuity of different trading systems from the past, and drug-related economic interactions between the two provinces, have shaped the very different size and evolution of the opium trade. There is a case for anticipatory action in Ghor to restrict the spread of opium cultivation in that province. A persistent theme is the engagement of key provincial and district authorities in the opium economy, and both interdiction and eradication measures may have inadvertently contributed to key drug industry actors and their sponsors gaining tighter control over distribution and trade.

Chapter 5
Prices and Market Interactions in the Opium Economy: This chapter analyzes prices of opium and opiates to assess price trends, market structure, and the degree of market integration. Opium prices in Afghanistan have fluctuated sharply in recent years and have been volatile, reflecting supply side factors (weather, cultivation bans) mediated somewhat by inventory adjustments. Spatial price patterns indicate that opium markets are flexible and mobile; actions against the opium economy can have an impact on local markets, but they tend to encourage a shift of production and trade to other areas. Based on econometric tests, opium markets have become less integrated in recent years, probably due to the differing strength and effectiveness of counter-narcotics actions in different areas. Helmand and Kandahar in the south appears to be functioning as a “central market” for opium in Afghanistan.

Chapter 6
The Nexus of Drug Trafficking and Hawala in Afghanistan: This chapter explores the very important but murky nexus between the drug industry and the informal financial transfer system (hawala). The hawala system facilitates the transfer of drug-related funds in Afghanistan, while at the same time serving as a vehicle for licit commercial transactions, aid flows, and remittances. In the settlement process hawala dealers are heavily reliant on formal banking channels in regional countries around Afghanistan. The positive role of the hawala system must be recognized, and through partnership and incentives it can progressively be brought into compliance with existing registration and taxation provisions. The international community also needs to be more diligent in its use of the hawala system to prevent its funds from becoming intermingled with illicit transfers. But imposing stringent anti-money laundering standards too quickly on the re-emerging formal financial sector risks alienating the Afghan people from using banks. Anti-money laundering provisions need to be more strictly enforced for nearby countries’ banks which support the hawala trade.

Chapter 7
Drug Trafficking and the Development of Organized Crime in Post-Taliban Afghanistan: This chapter looks at the drug industry in Afghanistan from an organized crime perspective, focusing on its consolidation, changing internal structure, and linkages with different levels of government. In an environment of criminalization of narcotics, increasing albeit uneven law enforcement and eradication campaigns, and ongoing efforts to rebuild state institutions, the drug industry in Afghanistan is becoming increasingly consolidated. The chapter argues that at the top level, around 25-30 key traffickers, the majority of them in southern Afghanistan, control major transactions and transfers, working closely with sponsors in top government and political positions. The chapter concludes that there are no easy solutions to the drug industry as an increasingly organized set of criminal activities. New analytical frameworks and thinking will be needed, countering organized crime will require a careful balancing act, and improvements in specialized law enforcement agencies alone will not be sufficient. Broader state-building and governance improvements will be key.

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