Osama Bin Laden

Osama Bin Laden

In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region was very important due to its extensive oil reserves, the fact that it produces three quarters of the World's opium which produces millions of dollars worldwide.

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new rush in opium production unfolded because many of the powerful business syndicates in the former Soviet Union who were allied with organized crime started competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes.

The ISI's intelligence military-network keep on working even in the wake of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the Islamic "jihad" out of Pakistan and New undercover initiatives started in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans. Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus basically served as means for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the appearance of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia.

At the same time, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi Arabia established themselves in the Muslim republics and also within the Russian federation. Even though they had an anti-American ideology, they served as Washington's strategic interests in the former Soviet Union.

After the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil war in Afghanistan continued. The Taliban were being supported by the Pakistani Deobandis and their political party the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).

In 1993, JUI entered the government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul, the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government, they also handed control of training camps in Afghanistan over to JUI factions.

In other words, backed by Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests.

The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.

Years later, after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization were prime suspects. All of this were the results and after math of teh Cold War.