Osama Bin Laden first visits Pakistan and Afghanistan, less than three months after the Soviet invasion. He is working for Saudi authorities, or at least cooperating with Saudi intelligence in providing information and support for Saudi and Gulf-state citizens motivated to go to Afghanistan to fight.
Bin Laden also begins to provide financial, organizational, and engineering aid for the local mujahidin in Afghanistan. Some believe he was doing so with the advice and support of the Saudi royal family and that he was hand-picked for the job by Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service.
Bin Laden stays in the region – mostly in Peshawar but then inside Afghanistan in the Jalalabad area – until the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. He returns to Saudi Arabia after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.