Taliban

Taliban

Osama bin Laden was born on March 10, 1957, in Riyadh, into a family who owned a construction dynasty estimated worth $5 billion by the mid-1990s. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, they began a war in which 1 million people were killed and 5 million were sent into exile.

During the war, Osama bin Laden, then 22, lobbied his family and friends to support the cause of the Afghan freedom fighters, the mujahideen, and made several trips to Pakistan, where he continued his fundraising work.

During this time the United States also supported the cause of the mujahideen against the Soviets. The Reagan administration authorized the CIA to establish training camps for the mujahideen in Afghanistan and Pakistan and asked King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to match U.S. contributions.


King Fahd instructed the minister of intelligence, Turki al-Faisal, to raise money from private sources and Faisal, knowing of bin Laden’s efforts toward the cause, entrusted bin Laden with the task of raising money. Besides raising money for the effort, bin Laden helped encourage Arab volunteers to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviets. He kept a database of his volunteers; the word database translates to Arabic as al-Qaeda.

When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, the United States withdrew its support for the mujahideen, and the country was plunged into chaos and civil war. When Iraq, built up as a major military power by the United States against Iran, invaded Kuwait, the United States sent thousands of troops into Saudi Arabia. The U.S.-Saudi alliance was criticized by bin Laden, who objected to the presence of U.S. troops on land sacred to Muslims.

Bin Laden began publicly criticizing the Saudi regime. As a result, he was placed under house arrest. He convinced King Fahd that he had business to take care of in Pakistan as a means of escaping the country, and eventually found refuge in Sudan with Hasan al-Turabi, the leader of the country’s Islamic Front.

While in Sudan, bin Laden opposed the presence of U.S. troops in Somalia, and al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen bombed two hotels housing American troops in transit to Somalia. Following an attack by al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center in 1993, the Saudi government froze bin Laden’s assets in the country and stripped him of his citizenship.

Meanwhile, in 1994, the Taliban (translated as "students"), a small group of graduates from madrassas (schools of Islamic learning) led by Mullah Muhammad Umar, took control of the city of Kandahar, Afghanistan. The Taliban were able to seize leaders of warring factions, and called for the city to disarm. Fatigued by two years of anarchy, the city willingly agreed to the restoration of order.

The Taliban announced that it was their duty to set up an Islamic society in Afghanistan, and gained popular support. By 1996 they had taken Kabul and established a government willing to provide sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and to accept his support of their regime.

In 2000, bin Laden was linked to the attack on the American guided missile destroyer USS Cole in Aden Harbor, Yemen, and on September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda was held responsible by the United States for the attack on the twin towers and the Pentagon. While the Taliban regime fell as a result of U.S. attacks on Afghanistan on October 10, 2001, the United States was unable to capture Osama bin Laden or destroy the Taliban.

Babrak Karmal - Afghan Politician

Babrak Karmal was an Afghan revolutionary figure, a politician, and an ambassador. He served as the third president of Afghanistan from 1980 to 1986 during the rule of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

Babrak Karmal - Afghan Politician

An effective orator and an educated politician, Karmal is best known as one of the founders of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and for leading a puppet regime with Soviet financial and military support.

Born in Kamari, a small village east of Kabul on January 6, 1929, Karmal came from a wealthy Tajik military family. His father, Major General Mohammad Hussain, had close relations with the royal family, especially King Mohammad Zahir and Prime Minister General Mohammad Daoud.

After graduating from high school Karmal enrolled in law school, pursuing a degree in law and political science, at the Kabul University in 1951. While a student he was arrested and put in prison for five years for organizing demonstrations in support of an Afghani popular revolutionary figure, Abdul Rahman Mahmudi.

In prison he befriended pro–Soviet Union leftist political figures like Mear Mohammad Siddeq Farhang. Karmal increasingly became a staunch supporter of the Leninist-Stalinist form of Marxism, identifying the Soviet model as the best way to modernize Afghanistan.

After graduation Karmal continued his close relations with Farhang. The friendship enabled him to play a major role in establishing the PDPA on January 1, 1965, Afghanistan’s first major Marxist political party.

Like many other PDPA members who aimed for parliamentary seats, Karmal became a candidate and was elected to the National Assembly from 1965 to 1973, where he was able to gain a reputation for his antireligious and anti-imperialistic communist viewpoints.

Due to internal ideological differences the PDPA split into the Khalq (People) and the Parcham (Flag) factions in 1967. Karmal became the leader of the more cosmopolitan, moderate Parcham bloc. Karmal’s faction shared power with Mohammad Daoud’s regime after the coup d’état of 1973, when the monarchy was overthrown.

Though the alliance was short-lived, since Daoud dismissed the Parcham faction from the presidential cabinet, Karmal was able to reunite the PDPA after much Soviet pressure. In April 1978 the PDPA gained power through a military coup.

When Nur Mohammad Taraki, a member of the Khalq bloc, was pronounced the president of the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), instituting a regime that had the full backing of the Soviet Union until 1992, the two factions of PDPA began internal fighting.

Karmal and his mistress, Anahita Ratebzad, were sent into “exile” as ambassadors to Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, respectively, while Hifizullah Amin, another major Khalq political leader, became the prime minister on March 28, 1979.

Karmal later left Prague for Moscow for fear of assassination or execution on his return to Kabul. On December 5, 1978, when the Taraki government initiated a major friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, numerous uprisings spread around Afghanistan against the Soviet-backed regime.

Taraki’s radical reform projects for transforming Afghanistan from a traditional religious to a secular modern society led the way to the rise of the mujahideen (or Muslim fighters), who opposed the Soviet-style westernization of the country.

Tensions between Taraki and Amin factions within the Khalq bloc led to the assassination of Taraki on October 10, 1979, which eventually led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 27, 1979. Karmal, the leader of the Parcham faction, returned to Kabul with the full support of the Soviets and was declared the president.

As the third president of the republic, Karmal’s most important accomplishments were his call for clemency for political prisoners, the change of the Marxist-style national flag, the promulgation of the basic principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, the recognition of the Muslim clerical establishment, and the compensation for the loss of property.

Karmal’s poor leadership skills and his inability to bring an end to the ongoing guerrilla warfare between the Soviet-backed government and the mujahideen gradually made him a highly unpopular figure. With the full backing of Moscow throughout his presidency, Karmal was regarded as a Soviet puppet, both domestically and internationally.

In May 1986 Karmal was replaced as the communist leader by Mohammad Najibullah, and in October 1986 he was relieved of the presidency. After a number of trips between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan after his presidency, Karmal finally settled in Moscow, where he died of liver dysfunction on December 6, 1996.