Osama Bin Laden

In Torkham, the border post between Afghanistan and Pakistan on the point of the Khyber passport, the two countries are only separated by a chain from each other. On the side of Pakistan the perfectly dressed Frontier Scouts stands - para-military units in grey Shalwar Kameezes and with turban. It was April 1989, and the Soviets
had left straight Afghanistan. I wanted coming from Kabul over the highway to Pakistan, but the border was closed. Exhausted of the travel, I put on the Afghan side in the grass and waited myself. Suddenly engine a truck of full Mudschahidin on the road came driven near and held with roar-roaring that. But the men on the loading area were not Afghans. Brown Arabs, naive men from central Asia and dark-membranous Chinese faces blinks under bad wound turbanen and from badly sitting
Shalwar Kameezes out. They had ammunition belts and carried Kalaschnikows. Apart from an Afghan, who functioned as interpreter and a leader, not one dodoing doing, Dari or also Urdu spoke. While we waited together for the fact that the border was opened, we came into the discussion. The group consisted of Filipinos, Usbeks of the Soviet central Asia, Arabs of Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuweit as well as Uiguren of China. Their companion was a trailer of Gulbuddin Hekmatjars Hisb i Islami. The men were trained in a camp the close border and drove now over the weekend to Peschawar, where for her post office from at home, and decent meal waited clean clothes. They had come, in order to assist the Mudschahidin with the Dschihad and itself at the weapons to let train in manufacturing bombs and military tactics; subsequently, they wanted to resume the Dschihad in their homeland. In the evening prime minister minister Benazir Bhutto in Islamabad gave a dinner for journalists. Among the guests lieutenant general Hamid Gul, head of the secret service of Pakistan ISI and passionate Islam ideologist of the army was after Zia ul-Haqs death general Gul was enjoyed over the departure of the Soviets. I asked it whether he did not play with the fire, if he invited radical Muslims from Islamic countries, which were allied with Pakistam. Would these radicals not in their own countries controversies release and of Pakistan foreign policy would endanger? "We fight to the Dschihad, and this is the first international brigade of the modern time. The communists have its international brigades, the west have NATO, why we should not combine Muslims us to a common front?", answered the general. This was the first and only justification, which I received ever for the Arab Afghans in such a way specified, of which nobody Afghan and many no Arabs was.
1986, three years before, the CIA chief William Casey the war had strengthened against the Soviet Union, by he crucial, to which time converted top secret measures. It had convinced congress of US to supply to the Mudschahidin with American Stinger air defense rockets for the fight against the Soviet airplanes as well as US councellor
for the training of the Guerilla as the order to place. Up to then still no weapon or US personnel manufactured in the USA had been used directly in this war. The CIA, which British MI6 and the ISI were correct the plan of Guerilla attacks on the Soviet socialist republics, which sensitive Muslim place of the Soviet Union, too, from which the Soviet troops in Afghanistan were supplied. The task was transferred the ISI favorites and Mudschahidin leader Gulbuddin Hekmatjar.
In March 1987 crossed small units of the military bases in the north of Afghanistan the Amu Darja river and started their first missile attacks on villages in Tadschikistan. Casey was pleased over the pieces of news, and with its next journey to Pakistan he crossed the border to Afghanistan with president Zia ul-Haq, in order to examine the Mudschahidin groups. Afterwards obligated Casey the CIA, one for longer time intended ISI initiative be supported to fight with which radical Muslims from the whole world be recruited and to to Pakistan brought should, in order on sides of the Afghan Mudschahidin. The ISI had this since 1982 lively, and in the meantime all other parties had their own reasons to support this idea. President Zias a goal was to strengthen the Islamic unit to make Pakistan the leader of the Muslim world and to promote an Islamic opposition to central Asia. Washington wanted to demonstrate that the entire Muslim world at the side of Afghanistan and its American benefactors fought against the Soviet Union, and the Saudi Arabs saw an opportunity to get the Wahhabisms going and its own radicals get rid of. None the involved one counted on the fact that these freiwilligen pursue their very own plans and last end against the Soviet Union, against their own regime and against Americans directed their hate. Pakistan had already instructed all messages abroad to fight to everyone, which wanted to come, with the Mudschahidin without issuing large questions visas. In the middle east organized the Muslimbrothers, those in Saudi Arabia resident world Muslim league and Palestinian radicals their recruits and manufactured contact to the Pakistanern. Receipt committees of the ISI and Pakistan Jamaat i Islami welcomed the arriving militant ones, provided for accommodation, training and encouraged themselves these men, the groups of Mudschahidin, above all the Hisb i Islami to attach. The funds for this enterprise came from the Saudi Arabian secret service. The
French scholar Olivier Roy describes it as "a joint venture between the Saudis, the Muslim brother shank and the Jamaat i Islami, arranged from the ISI". Between 1982 and 1992 approximately 35,000 radical Muslims from 43 Islamic countries of the middle east, from north and East Africa, central Asia and the far east received their fire baptism with the Afghan Mudschahidin. Ten thousands further radical Muslims came to furnish in order to visit the new Madrasses, which Zias military government in Pakistan and at the border began to Afghanistan. At the end over 100.000 radical Muslims directly contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan had been subordinate and the influence of the Dschihad. In the camps with Peschawar and in Afghanistan this radicals for the first time and learned, trained and fought side at side met one another. For most of them this was the first opportunity to experience something over the Islamic movements in the other countries and they attached tactical and ideological connections, which should benefit them in the future. The camps became literal universities for the future Islamic radicalism. None of the secret services seemed to realize itself the consequences, which resulted from meeting thousends of Islamic radical from the whole world. Many this radicals hoped for it, that the Afghan Dschihad, after Soviet Union a setback, also the other superpower, which the USA, had been already taught to the superpower, and which could defeat own regime. Hope was based on the simple premise that it was alone the Afghan Dschihad, which had forced the Soviet Union into the knees. The numerous internal factors, which led to the collapse of the Soviet regime, of which the Dschihad only one had been, were ignored. While the USA regarded the collapse of the Soviet realm as a failure of the
communist system, it only and alone many Muslims regarded as a victory Islam. These conceptions were inspiring and swore to memories of the large Muslim triumphant advances in 7. and 8. Century up. A new Islamic Umma, then they argued, could be forged by the victims and the blood of a new generation by martyrs and still more victories. Under these thousands foreign recruits was a young Saudi Arab named Osama Bin Laden, son of the Yemeni building lion Mohammed Bin Laden, which was a close friend of king Feisal and whose firm had arrived by restoration and development of the holy mosques in Mekka and Medina at legendary wealth.
The ISI had to demonstrate already for a long time prince Turki Ibn al-Feisal, which head of the Saudi Arabian secret service Istakhbarat asks, to place a prince from the king family as leaders of the Saudi Arabian contingent in order the Muslims, how the king family the Dschihad commits itself saw. So far only poor Saudi Arabs, students, taxidrivers and Beduinen had come, in order to fight. But of the delicate Saudi princes none was ready on the hard life in the mountains of Afghanistan. Bin Laden was no king child, for the royal family however close stood enough and was certainly richly enough to lead the Saudi Arabian contingent. Bin Laden, prince Turki and General Gul became close friends and allied for the common thing. The center of the Arab Afghans were the offices the Muslim brother shank in Peschawar, which was led by Abdullah Azzam, a Jordanian Palestinian, Bin Laden at the university of Dschidda know had learned and as its leader admired. Azzam was killed together with its two
sons 1989 in Pschawar with a bomb assassination attempt. In the eighties Azzam had close connections to Hekmatjar attached as well as to Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the Afghan Islamic scholar, whom the Saudi Arabs had sent after Peschawar, in order to spread the Wahhabism. Saudi Arabian funds flowed to Azzam and the supply center Makhtab al-Khidmat, it the 1984 for the new recruits had created and around donations of Islamic organizations to receive. Also donation funds of the Saudi Arabian secret service, the Saudi Arabian red halfmoon, the world Muslim league and from the purse of Saudi princes and mosques flowed by this center. Ten years later it should emerge than center of radical organizations, which were involved in the bomb putting in the World Trade Center and in the US embassies in Africa 1998.

To Bin Laden at Afghanistan arrived, his life hardly had particularly remarkably run. It approximately 1955 as the 17. of 57 children, son of the Yemeni building contractor and a Syrian mother, of Mohammed Bin Laden was born numerous wives. It completed its master in engineer natures at the king Abd al Asis university in Dschidda, changed then however for the study Islam. It is slim, 1.93 meters largely, carries one barrier-ends beard and towered above all fellow students, who satisfy it as, pious man without special characteristics remembers. Its father supported fight in Afghanistan also financially, so that the family reacted enthusiastically, when he followed him. 1980 traveled Bin Laden after Peschawar and met with leaders of the Mudschahidin. It came back then ever more frequently with Saudi Arabian donation funds and established themselves 1082 finally completely in Peschawar. It brought engineers and heavy equipment to its firm also, in order to build roads and depots for the
Mudschahidin. It helped 1986 with the building of the Khost tunnel complex, which the CIA financed as important weapon depot, training camp and medical center for the Mudschahidin in the mountains the close border of Pakistan. In Khost it established for the first time its own training camp for Arab Afghans, who regarded the rich and charismatischen Saudi Arab as leaders. "Around this Soviet Atheists to counter, the Saudi Arabs selected me to their representative in Afghanistan", said Bin Laden later. "I established myself in Pakistan. There I received freiwillige from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and from Arab and Muslim countries. I established my first camp, where these freiwilligen were trained by officers of Pakistan and American. The weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money came from the Saudis. I saw that even this was not sufficient, in order to fight in Afghanistan, had however the task to fight at all fronts against communist or western suppression" Bin Laden stated later, it participated in ambushes for Soviet troops, but mainly it used its wealth and the Saudi donations, in order to carry out the projects of the Mudschahidin and to spread the Wahhabism among the Afghans. After Azzams death 1989 he took over its organization and furnished the military basis al-Quaida as service center for Arab Afghans and its families. With Bin Laden assistance thousands Arab militant ones in the provinces Kunar, Nuritan and Badakhshan military bases had established, but their extreme practices made it unpopular with the majority of the Afghans. Beyond that they drove a wedge between itself and the not Paschtunen as well as the Shiites. Ahmed Schah Massud criticized later the Arab Afghans. "My Dschihad parliamentary group did not have good relationship to the Arab Afghans during the Dschihad. However it had a very good relationship to the groups of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and Gulbuddin Hekmatjar. When we penetrated 1992 in Kabul, the Arab Afghans fought in the rows Hekmatjars against us. We will request it to leave our country. Bin Laden arranges more damage, than he does property", Massud said 1997, after he had been displaced by the Taliban from Kabul.
1990 were Bin Laden by the internal Gezaenk of the Mudschahidin disillusioned and returned to Saudi Arabia, in order to work in the exempt private company. It created a welfare organization for veterans of the Arab Afghans, from whom alone 4,000 in Mekka and Medina had established themselves, and supported the families of the
pleasures financially. After the invasion of the Iraq in Kuweit it tried to persuade the royal family to organize a people defense of the kingdom and to form from the Afghan war veterans an armed force, with which the Iraq could be fought. Instead king Fahd got the Americans in the country. The transferred Bin Laden a giant shock. When the 540.000 men strong US troops arrived gradually, is open Bin Laden criticized the royal family and affected the Saudi-Arab Ulama to express Fatwas (religious decisions) approximately in the country stationed non-Muslims. Bin Laden expressed violent criticism, when after release Kuweits remained approximately 20.000 men US crew in
Saudi Arabia stationed. 1992 it had a glowing debate with Minister of the Interior prince Naif, whom it called traitor at the Islam. Naif weighted with king Fahd, and Bin Laden became the Persona non grata. But it had further allied in the royal family, which Naif could not likewise stand. He kept its connections to the Saudi-Arab secret service and the ISI upright.

1992 went Bin Laden into the Sudan, in order to participate in the Islamic revolution, which was under the charismatischen Sudanese leader Hassan al-Turabi in developing. Bin Laden continued criticism at the royal family annoyed these at the end so much that they extracted 1994 the nationality from it - a first measure. With its fortune and its contacts succeeded it Bin Laden in the Sudan, veterans from the Afghanistan war around itself at crowds, which were frightened all over the victory America over the Iraq and over the anmassende attitude of the Arab ruler elite to permit the American military the stationing at the gulf. When the pressure increased on the Sudan on the part of the USA and Saudi Arabia, because it Bin Laden asylum granted, the Sudanese authorities requested it to leave the country.
In May 1996 Bin Laden traveled back to Afghanistan and arrived in a charter aircraft at company of dozens of Arab militant ones, bodyguards and family members - four wives and 13 children - at Jalalabad. Here it lived under the protection of the Jalalabad Schura up to the conquest of Kabul and Jalalabads by the Taliban in September 1996. In August 1996 he explained for the first time the Dschihad against the Americans, whom, as he stated, Saudi Arabia occupied. "The walls of suppression and humiliating can be destroyed only by a ball hail", were called it in the explanation. After it had closed friendship with Mullah Omar, it pulled 1997 after Kandahar and stood from now on under the protection of the Talliban. In the meantime the CIA had created a special-purpose force, which all its activities and connections to other Islamic militant one supervised. In a report of the US State Department it meant, Bin Laden is "one of the most important financial givers for Islamic extremism of the world". The report means that Bin Laden terrorist camp in Somalia, Egypt, the Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan financed. In April 1996 president Clinton signed the anti-terrorism law, which permitted the USA to block the fortunes of organizations of terror. First are blocked Bin Laden fortune at an estimated value of 250 to 300 million US Dollar. The Egyptian secret service explained, is some months after Bin Laden trains 1,000 militant ones; a second generation of Arab Afghans, in order to plot an Islamic revolution in the Arab countries.
At the beginning of of 1997 sent the CIA a command to Peschawar, which should try to take out in an actionaction action Bin Laden of Afghanistan. The Americans obligated Afghans and Pakistaner for assistance, broke the action off then however. The US action in Peschawar convinced is finally Bin Laden to move into the safe surrounded from Kandahar. With a meeting to 23. All adopted February 1998 in the Khost camp with al-Qaida associated groups a communist manifesto under the auspice of the "international Islamic front for the Dschihad against Jews and cruisaders". In the communist manifesto was located: "for more than seven years occupy the USA reason and soil Islam at the holiest places of the Arabian peninsula, loot his wealth, ordered its ruler, humiliate its inhabitants, terrorize its neighbours and make their militarybases on the peninsula a tip of the spear, with that the surrounding Muslim peoples to be fought are" A Fatwa was issued. "The decision to kill the Americans and their allied ones - civilians and military - is the obligation of each Muslim; in each country, in that it is possible." Thus Bin Laden a policy had formulated, which did not only aim at the Saudi king family and the Americans, but called after the release of the entire Muslim middle east. When the American air raids increased on the Iraq 1998, Bin Laden called all Muslims up to place Americans and Britains "to fight and kill".
By the bomb assassination attempts in August 1998 on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, with which 263 humans died, Bin Laden became in the Muslim world and in the west the term. Exactly 13 days after the USA Bin Laden of the assassination attempts had accused, practiced it retaliation and 70 Cruise Missiles fired on Bin Laden camp with Khost and Jalalabad. Several camps, which had been handed over by the Taliban to radical Arab Afghans and groups of Pakistan, were met. Of Bin Laden controlled camp al-Badr and from the Harakat of Pakistan al-Ansar led camp Khalid are Walid and Muawia were the principal purposes. Harakat trained in the camps fighters against the Indian troops in Kashmir. Filters foreigners with the attack were killed - three Jemeniten, two Egyptians, a Saudi Arab and a Turk. Besides 7 Pakistaner and 20 Afghans died.
In November 1998 the USA offered for Bin Laden capture a reward at a value of five million US Dollar. The Americans were as electrified, as if Bin Laden announced, it is its Islamic obligation to acquire and use against the USA chemical and nuclear weapons. "It would be for Muslims a sin not to try to arrive into the possession of weapons
which can hold disbelieving ones from it, Muslims damage to cause. Enmity opposite America is our religious obligation, and we hope, for it by God to be recompenced", explained it. Within fewer weeks after the bomb assassination attempts in Africa had the Clinton government Bin Laden made to a demon that it was made responsible directly for each cruelty, which had been committed in the Muslim world against the USA. In a following indictment before New Yorker courts Bin Laden responsible for the following crimes made: the murder of 18 American soldiers in Mogadischu, Somalia, 1993; the death of five military members by a bomb assassination attempt in Riyadh 1995 as well as the death of further 19 US soldiers 1996 in Dhahran. It was also suspected, with the bomb assassination attempts
1992 in Aden and in the World Trade Center 1993 with the planned attempted assassination on president Bill Clinton 1994 on the Philippines and with the planned notices on a dozen American civil aircraft 1995 its hands in the play to have had. Bin Laden became now the center its that called Washington a world-wide conspiracy against the USA. However Washington did not confess that the Afghan Dschihad with support of the CIA of dozens of fundamentalists movements in the entire Muslim world had created, which were led by militant ones their hate less was directed against America than rather against its own corrupt, incompetent governments. Egyptian and Algerian leaders Washington had already advised 1992 to 1993 to engage itself again diplomatically in Afghanistan in order to create peace and to terminate the operational readiness level of the Arab Afghans. Washington over-heard the warnings and ignored further Afghanistan, also as the civil war escalated there. Bin Laden
moved from the outset uncertainly in the structure Islam. It is to that extent authorized neither an Islamic scholar still another teacher and to impose a Fatwa - even if he does this. Its "death for Amerika" appeals in the west Fatwa were always called, although they do not have a moral weight in the Muslim world. Arab Afghans, who could do it during the Dschihad, state, it dealt neither in its view nor in its expressions with the needs of the Muslim world. In the sense he was not a Lenin of the Islamic
revolution and also no internationalist ideologist of an Islamic revolution as for instance Ché Guevara for the revolution in the third world. Bin Laden former accomplices describe it than man who can be impressed easily, who always needed a Mentor - men, who know more about the Islam and about the modern world than it. To the list of the Mentoren in his youth late Dr. Aimann al-Sawahiri, the head of the forbidden Dschihad came into Egypt, in addition as well as the two sons of sheikh Umar abd
al-Rahman, the blind Egyptian prediger, who stated the forbidden Gamaa al-Islamaija in Egypt. By the Afghan Dschihad it knew also influential personalities of the national Islamic front in the Sudan, the Hisbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas, the radical Islamic Palestinian movement in the Gaza Strip and in the West Jordan
territory. In Kandahar Bin Laden had men from Chechnya, Bangladesh, which the Philippines, Algeria, Kenya, Pakistan and amerrican Muslims around itself - by those many substantially more intelligented and better informed were than he, but Afghanistan abandoned did not know, since they were with wantedposter looked for in America. They needed financial support and a place of refuge, and both could give Bin Laden them. After the bomb assassination attempts in Africa the USA started
a world-wide action. More than 80 Islamic militant ones were arrested in a dozen of different countries. Filters Afghans with wrong Italian passports were arrested in Malaysia because of tried bomb putting. According to data of the FBI the militant ones in the Yemen, which kidnapped 16 western tourists in December 1998, of are financed Bin Laden. In February 1999 the authorities in Bangladesh explained, Bin Laden millions US Dollar to the Harkat al-Dschihad (HJ) in Dhaka sent, by which trailers had been likewise trained in Afghanistan. Leaders of the HJ explained, them wanted Bangladesh into an Islamic state after model of the Taliban to transform. Nuakschott in, which became capital of Mauritania, several militant ones arrested, which is likewise under Bin Laden in Afghanistan had been trained and in the suspicion stood, removes thousands of miles, bomb assassination attempts to plan. While 107 Dschihad members before a military court were located in Cairo, Egyptian secret service officers testified that are shop of the Dschihad money sent. In February 1999 the CIA stated the fact that them are by satellite monitoring of Bin Laden communications network sieve bomb assassination attempts on US mechanisms in Saudi Arabia, Albania, Azerbaijan, Tadschikistan, Uganda, Uruguay and the Ivory Coast would have prevented - and emphasized thereby the sphere of influence Afghan veterans. When of Pakistan was pushed prime minister Nawaz Sharif of Washington to be helpful with the arrest of Bin Laden it stood before a problem. The close contact of the ISI with Bin Laden and the fact that it helped to finance and train the militant ones in Kashmir, brought Sharif into a dilemma, when it came in December 1998 to an attendance to Washington. It avoided the topic, but other Pakistaner was more cheeky and reminded its American partners of the birth aid role, which is it in the eightys Bin Laden and had played for the Taliban in the ninetys. Bin Laden referred to in an interview the steady support of parts of the secret service of Pakistan: "there are some departments, which react through God grace to the Islamic feelings of the people of Pakistan in of Pakistan government. That is reflected against in sympathy and co-operation. But other departments of the government groped into the trap of the disbelieving ones. We pray to God, it likes them again bring on right path."
The USA were of Pakistan closest allied ones with good relations with military and ISI. nevertheless the Taliban and Bin Laden offered to the militant ones in Kashmir, which were covered by Pakistan, refuge and military training, and in Islamabad one had little interest to change this. Tried the Americans repeats the ISI to co-operation to induce and Bin Laden to be delivered, but and helped only, some of Bin Laden aid rejected imprisoned to be taken. Without assistance of Pakistan could not the USA of the employment from US commands or purposeful bomb attacks think - to it they needed territory absolutely of Pakistan. At the same time the USA did not dare to hang of Pakistan support of the Taliban to the large bell because it always still is on the co-operation of the ISI for distribution Bin Laden hoped. The Saudi Arabian problem was still more complicated. In July 1998 prince Turki Kandahar had visited, and a few weeks 400 new arrived later Pick ups at Kandahar for the Taliban - with number signs from Dubai. The Saudis gave also money for the bribery action of the Taliban in the north. Up to the bomb assassination attempts in Africa and regardless of the pressure on the part of the USA the Saudis held their support of the Taliban upright and were silent themselves over necessary distribution are shop out. They preferred it, are to Bin Laden in Afghanistan in peace to be left, because its arrest and a process in the USA could reveal the close relationship, which is shop further to sympathizing members of the royal family and ranges of the Saudi Arabian secret service maintained, which could become extraordinarily embarrassing. The Saudi Arabs did not want Bin Laden either dead or as a prisoner of the Taliban - however under any circumstances in hands of the Americans. After the bomb assassination attempts in August 1998 in Africa the pressure of the USA increased on Saudi Arabia. Again prince Turki Kandahar visited to persuade this time in order the Taliban Bin Laden to be handed out. Mullah Omar refused and accused prince of Turki using the Saudi king family. Bin Laden described, what happened: "it (prince Turki) requested Mullah Omar to deliver or expel from Afghanistan us home. It was not an affair of the Saudi regime, in order the distribution by Osama Bin Laden to be asked. It was, as if Turki would have come as an envoy of the American government." Furiously over the insult the Saudi Arabs froze all diplomatic relations with the Taliban and stopped ostentativ all assistance; they did not withdraw however their acknowledgment of the Taliban government.

In the meantime Bin Laden practiced considerable influence on the Taliban out, which not always the case was. The contact of the Taliban with the Arab Afghans and their Islamic ideology had not existed up to the income of Kabul by the Taliban 1996. Pakistan was deeply at the unification is involved Bin Laden with the leaders of the Taliban in Kandahar, because one the training camps with Khost, which were now in hands of the Taliban, for which own fighter in the Kashmir to back-have wanted. The somewhat more educated cadres of the Taliban, which preserved even Islamic conceptions, let themselves be persuaded by Pakistan; besides financial advantages lured through Bin Laden. Thus it came to a meeting between it and the Taliban, with whom they returned the Khost camps. Partly for own security of holding partly in order it under control brought the Taliban Bin Laden 1997 to Kandahar. Only it lived as a paying guest. He built Mullah Omars family a house and supported other leaders of the Taliban financially. It promised to improve the road to Kandahars airport and mosques to build schools and dams but these projects were not even begun, because its fortune had frozen. Bin Laden made itself with the leaders continues to like, than it sent a few hundred Arab Afghans to the offensive ones the Taliban in the north 1997 and 1998. These fighters helped the Taliban energetically with the massacre at the schiitischen Hazaras in the north. A few hundred Arab Afghans fought at the front in Kabul against Massud. Bin Laden view of the things seemed increasing thinking the struggle-higher Taliban leaders to be affected. The nightlong meetings and discussions disbursed themselves. Up to his arrival the Taliban leaders the USA and the west were not particularly hostilely conviction, them wanted only by them to be recognized. But after the bomb assassination attempts the Taliban was ever louder against the USA, the UN, the Saudi Arabs and the Muslim regime approximately around the world. Their attitude reflected the stubborn language is increasing shop against. When the pressure of the USA became larger on the Taliban, are to be delivered Bin Laden, explained it, he is a guest and it offence against Afghan tradition to deliver a guest. When it had the appearance, as if plan Washington a renewed military attack on Bin Laden, tried the Taliban a cow trade with the Americans: They wanted to permit it to leave the country if they recognized the Taliban government. Thus the Taliban saw up to the winter 1998 Bin Laden on as trump As, as a chip in the play with the Americans, around which left itself haggle. The US State Department manufactured a telephone connection over satellite, in order to speak directly with Mullah Omar. The US officials held long conversations with Omar, with which both sides considered different possibilities, by do translator doing translators however in vain. At the beginning of of 1999 began to dawn the Taliban that there could not be a compromise with the USA, and they regarded are shop rather as load. The US ultimatum, until February 1999 either Bin Laden to be delivered or the consequences to be carried, forced the Taliban, Bin Laden secretly from Kandahar disappear to be let. Thus they won time, but the problem was brought with it by not means to a solution. For the Arab Afghans the circle had closed. As former appendage of the Afghan Dschihad and the cold war in the eightys they stood in the ninetys in the searchlight beam of Afghanistan, the neighbouring countries and the west. Thus the USA paid the price for the fact that they had easily ignored Afghanistan between 1992 and 1999, while the Taliban had opened the most hostile and most militant Islamic fundamentalists of the world after the cold war the door. Now Afghanistan had become a true place of refuge for Islamic internationalists and terrorists, and the Americans, the west did not know not, how it should deal with it.

From the Book: "Taliban, Afghanistans Gotteskrieger und der Dschihad" von Ahmed Rashid*; © Droemer Knaur Verlag u. A. Rashid, München 2001.

* = Since the seizure of power of the Shiites in Iran no other religious-political movement of the Islamic world excited as much attention as the Taliban in Afghanistan. But their power structure, their guiding system and decision-making processes are only inaugurating well-known. Although the Taliban delivers press statements, their political positions are obscure. Due to the prohibition of photo and television shots, issued by them, nobody knows, how their high-ranking leaders look. Mullah Mohammed Omar, from which there is only one photo, steps hardly to public. The journalist of Pakistan Ahmed Rashid, 52, was over 20 years long correspondent in Afghanistan. Hardly someone knows the country, its history and its humans as well as it. It participated, when 1979 into Kandahar the Soviets marched, 1981 it by the head at that time of the secret service, Nadschibullah, was personally cross-examined; Gulbuddin Hekmatjar, the extreme-extremist Mudschahedinleader, condemned it to death. In its book "Taliban. Of Afghanistan God own fighters and the Dschihad" Rashid describes the ascent of the Taliban, their culture and their brutal rule.

Translate from german language in english with the computer-program "SYSTRAN personal"