Wars and Empire | Page 9

Hekmatyar supported the KGB general and
spymaster Haidar Aliyev's coup in Azerbaijan and, in 1994, Hekmatyar
was involved in supporting pro-Russian Lezghin terrorists in the
Caucasus. Hekmatyar is still active. He lives in Teheran, and has
recently finally revealed his true colors by siding with the Taliban.
As far as I know, Osama bin Laden was never a CIA agent. However,
there are relatively plausible claims that he was close to Saudi
intelligence, especially to the recently fired intelligence chief Prince
Turki bin Faizal, until they broke up.
Osama first appeared in the Afghan War theater either in 1979, or, at
the latest in 1984. But at the beginning he was first and foremost a
businessman. He served the interests of those who wished to construct
roads accessible for tanks to cross through Afghanistan to the Indian
Ocean. This might also explain his characteristic opportunism - quite
atypical for a self-proclaimed warrior of faith.
International jihadists surely want to portray him as a religious fighter
or Muslim hero, but this is not the true picture, but, mostly, a myth
created by the Western media. This is where Arab, Pakistani and
Indonesian teenagers learn that Osama is a fighter in a universal
struggle of Islam against its oppressors.
But bin Laden never fought the Soviets to liberate Afghanistan. For
most of this period, he was not even in Afghanistan. He was managing
an office in Peshawar, and the only credible claim about him being in a
battle has been made by the former CIA official Milton Bearden

concerning a minor skirmish that took place in spring 1987.
Bin Laden's first significant contact in Peshawar was the Palestinian
Professor Abdullah Azzam, whom bin Laden has later described as his
mentor. Azzam was an Arab idealist, who wanted to concentrate on the
liberation of Afghanistan, and who wanted to support Massoud, whom
he correctly regarded as being the right person to uphold. Bin Laden
disagreed. He wanted to support the disloyal Islamist fanatic
Hekmatyar. As a result, Azzam and his son were blown up in a car
bomb in 1989, and consequently, bin Laden took over his organization
and transformed it into Al-Qaida (the Base).
Already before these events, he started to transform the agency by
flooding it with his Arab contacts from the Middle East. These Arabs
were not interested in liberating Afghanistan as much as in hiding from
the law enforcement agencies of their own countries, most of all
Egypt's.
When Russia attacked Tajikistan, bin Laden and his folks were by no
means interested in liberating Tajikistan from a new communist yoke.
Instead, bin Laden left Afghanistan and dispersed his terrorist network,
directing it to act against the West.
It is bizarre that a man claiming to be an Islamic fundamentalist
supported the invasion by the Arab socialist (and thereby atheist) Iraq
against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, both with conservative Islamic
regimes.
Al-Qaida's supported all causes and activities against the West: the US,
Turkey, Israel, and any pro-Western Muslim regime like Pakistan.
Robbers on the island of Jolo in the Philippines qualified for Al-Qaida's
support although they hardly knew anything about the Qur'an. They
were immediately they were portrayed as "Islamic fighters". Even the
strictly atheist anti-Turkish terrorist organization PKK has been
welcomed. At the same time they definitely have not supported
Muslims advocating Turkish-modeled moderate independence, like the
Chechens, the original Tajik opposition or the Azeri government under
President Abulfaz Elchibey.
As concerning Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, I think it would
be gross underestimation of a potential regional great power and its
British colonial traditions of military and intelligence to describe it just
as an arm of the CIA or of the Islamists.

These are widespread myths. The ISI is neither the hero nor the villain
of this story. I think the ISI is interested simply in the national interest
of Pakistan, which consists of four main elements: security against the
hostile strong neighbors India and Iran, security against the instability
and uncontrolled forces ravaging Afghanistan and infiltrating Pakistan
through the large Pashtun population, the conflict over Kashmir, and
Pakistan's own international status.
Afghanistan is an historical buffer zone in the ancient Great Game of
Central Eurasia. It is the gateway through which Pakistan's enemies can
attack or destabilize it, and it is equally the buffer that stops these
enemies. Pakistan's is interested in regional stability while its enemies
seek to use any instability against it. There is a great divide within
Pakistan between Pakistani nationalists and internationalist Islamists.
Pakistan is relatively democratic compared with its neighbors - even
including India, considering its treatment of minorities and the Kashmir
issue. It, thus, has the problems of a democracy. Pakistan has quite free
and critical press, local administration and intellectual opposition, the
Islamists included. It is not, and has never been, an