25 December 1979

Posted on December 25, 2020January 30, 2021 by William Arkin

Over a three-day period, beginning near midnight on Christmas Eve, four Soviet Army motorized rifle divisions invade Afghanistan as Soviet special forces seize airports in Kabul. The communist, exiled leader Babrak Karmal is installed as president.

It is the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, but also the birth of a new brand of Islamic fundamentalism not based on animus towards Israel. Over the next decade of fighting—devastating to Afghanistan and to Afghan fighters—al Qaeda is born. The CIA’s decade-long, covert-action support for the war against the Soviets reportedly involves billions in arms and support, much of it funneled through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Arab migration to the fight—the holy jihad supported by a young Osama bin Laden—does not really get underway for another five years, but then thousands of volunteers make the holy pilgrimage to Afghanistan to fight the foreign invader, some joining al Qaeda as it later forms (in 1988) and some just jihadi tourists who return to their home countries of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

18 December 1986

Posted on December 18, 2020December 23, 2020 by William Arkin

McNair Hall at North Carolina A&T State University

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) graduates with an engineering degree from North Carolina A&T University, Jesse Jackson’s alma mater.

KSM had entered the United States four years earlier, first attending Chowan College in Murfreesboro to improve his English language proficiency. During his time in America, KSM mostly hung out with other Middle Eastern students. But he also attended lectures at East Coast mosques promoting the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which had invaded the country at the end of 1979. Those lectures are now thought to have included fundraising trips by Aymen al-Zawahiri and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, who were free to travel in the U.S. (Azzam was Osama bin Laden’s intellectual mentor.)

With a Pakistani passport, but having grown up in Kuwait (as the son of an oil industry guest worker), KSM was already a man of the world. And after he graduated, he went from Kuwait to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he joined his brother, Zahed, who ran one of many NGOs providing aid and relief for fighters and refugees from Afghanistan.

29 November 1999

Posted on November 29, 2020December 23, 2020 by William Arkin

Mohammed Atta travels from Hamburg, Germany to Karachi, Pakistan via Istanbul, spending the night in Turkey. Despite the African embassy bombings in August 1998, American military retaliation, and CIA covert operations, he and his compatriots have no trouble reaching Afghanistan.

Atta is already the leader of the Hamburg Four, and together with Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ramzi Binalshibh, they travel to Kandahar and then on to Khalden camp, where they meet with the al Qaeda operational commander Abu Hafs (Mohammed Atef) and Osama bin Laden. Abu Hafs spotted them immediately as special, according to various accounts, especially the three who would go on to pilot the 9/11 planes (Atta, al-Shehhi and Jarrah). They were educated, had technical skills, could speak English, and had learned how to live in the West. They also came from countries—Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates—where they wouldn’t have trouble obtaining U.S. visas. By the time they leave Afghanistan, they have their broad assignments.

25 November 1999

Posted on November 25, 2020December 23, 2020 by William Arkin

The “Hamburg Four” begin their journey to join al Qaeda, ultimately being assigned to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s “planes operation.”

Ziad Jarrah flies from Hamburg, Germany to Karachi, Pakistan via Istanbul, on Turkish Airlines flight 1662 and the 1056, the first of the “Hamburg Four” to fly to Afghanistan. He stays in Pakistan for two months.

According to the interrogations of Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the four (and now in Guantanamo), sometime in 1999, the four decided to act on their beliefs and to pursue jihad against the Russians in Chechnya. They were advised that it was difficult to get to Chechnya and that they should go to Afghanistan first. The four then traveled separately to Quetta in Pakistan, meeting with a trusted representative, who arranged their passage to Kandahar.

In Afghanistan, the four have an audience with Osama bin Laden and pledge loyalty, knowing that they were volunteering for a martyrdom operation. They were instructed to enroll in flight training. Mohammed Atta was chosen to lead the group, and before they left Afghanistan, he met with bin Laden and received a preliminary list of targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. (See 911 Commission, p. 166; 911 Commission, Staff Statement 16, p. 3)