Arming the Mujahedeen

In response to what the Western world widely considered an act of Soviet aggression in Afghanistan, the United States (vis-à-vis the CIA and other agencies) along with the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and China began heavily arming Islamic guerillas fighting Afghanistan’s government forces and the Soviet military. (Operation Cyclone) The Americans found adequate allies in religious fundamentalists fighting to rid Afghanistan of the “godless Russians”, and establish an extremist Islamic state along the way. As Dr. Farrukh Saleem notes, “between 1980 and 1989, CIA poured in some $6 billion (other estimates go as high as $20 billion) in arms, ammunition, recruiting, establishing an extensive madrassa network, training, feeding and arming of recruits.” The local Afghan “holy warriors” (Mujahedeen) were joined by some 35,000-50,000 Muslim jihadists from 43 other nations, prominent among them a young Saudi extremist named Osama bin Laden.

As William Blum cleverly observes in his famous book Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, at the same time that the Muslim extremists in Afghanistan were portrayed in the Western media as “freedom fighters” against atheist communist aggressors, the anti-American Islamists who took power in Iran in 1979, and who were coincidently also aiding the Afghan Mujahedeen, “were regularly described in the West as terrorists, ultra-conservatives, and anti-democratic.” The hypocrisy was not lost on the world, but to the US the end justified the means: the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989 after failing to defeat the well-armed Mujahedeen guerillas and soon after the Soviet Union itself collapsed. By 1992 Afghanistan’s government had fallen and the Mujahedeen captured the capital Kabul.

America’s Children: Taliban and al-Qaeda

The Taliban, a movement of Afghan extremist Islamic fundamentalists, took control of Afghanistan in 1996 and established the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.” The war-hardened and American-armed Islamists implemented the strictest interpretation of Sharia law in the history of the Muslim world; their rule was marked by horrendous abuse of women, public flogging and executions, stoning, and massacres of ethnic minorities. The Taliban prohibited music, dancing, the flying of kites, the shaving of one’s beard, displaying of pictures and portraits, and many other activities deemed “anti-Islamic”. Museums and other cultural sites, including the Buddhas of the Bamyian Valley, were desecrated at the hands of the Taliban Religious Police.

In 1996 Osama bin Laden himself returned to Afghanistan where he was to enjoy Taliban protection up until the American invasion in 2001. Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda aided the Taliban in establishing control over problematic regions of Afghanistan and in the assassinations of political opponents. Osama bin Laden praised Afghanistan under the Taliban as the only real Islamic state in existence. The US Department of State has compiled a comprehensive list of joint al-Qaeda and Taliban atrocities committed during this time.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, the Americans were forced to launch an invasion of Afghanistan of their own in order to capture Osama bin Laden, dismantle al-Qaeda, and overthrow the terrorist-harboring Taliban regime. The children of the war against the “godless Russians” had turned on their American supporters and had become the biggest threat to the Western world in the War on Terror. As of December of 2007, US and NATO forces, along with the new “democratic” Afghan government, are still fighting a prolonged war against Islamic Taliban guerillas throughout the country. It is a predicament that the Russians may know a thing or two about.

Aiding KLA Islamists in Kosovo: The Cycle Continues

One would think that, after their experience in Afghanistan, the Americans in particular and NATO in general would have realized that supporting Islamic extremists for the purpose of achieving short-term strategic goals is an approach that is sure to blow up in their face (often quite literally). Nevertheless, following the breakup of Yugoslavia and the subsequent civil war, the US and NATO hurried to condemn the way Serbia was treating Albanian separatists in its province of Kosovo; Albanian separatists who were led by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

The KLA, classified by both the government of Serbia and by the CIA as an illegal terrorist organization, is very much Islamist and extremist in nature. Following the Mujahedeen example, KLA fighters engaged the government of Serbia in a lengthy guerilla war in the late 1990’s. As Chris Marsden explains, the KLA “had pursued a strategy of destabilising the Serbian province of Kosovo by acts of terrorism, in the hope that the US and NATO would intervene. They ambushed Serb patrols and killed policemen.” The US and NATO did intervene, providing finances, weaponry, and finally direct military aid by bombing Serbia for 78 days in 1999. As a result, Serb forces withdrew from Kosovo, and NATO moved in. As of January 2008, NATO maintains its presence in Kosovo while the US and other Western states are advocating that Kosovo ought to become an independent Albanian Muslim state ruled by the KLA. This would allow NATO to maintain its bases in Kosovo permanently. Unless, of course, the Albanian Islamists turn on them like the Afghan Islamists did.

The American Council for Kosovo has repeatedly documented KLA ties to Islamic terrorism and the Mujahedeen. Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda has also had a presence in Kosovo; a Washington Times article reported that al-Qaeda “both trained and financially supported” the KLA. The Times of London quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying that bin Laden had used humanitarian agencies as fronts to fund terrorism in the region as far back as 1994, and that “terrorists had already infiltrated other parts of Europe from bases in Albania. Interpol believes more than 100,000 blank Albanian passports were stolen in riots last year, providing ample opportunity for terrorists to acquire false papers.” Like with the opium industry in 1980’s Afghanistan, organized crime, prostitution, and drug and human trafficking rings have ballooned in Kosovo during the KLA insurgency. As in Afghanistan, the many criminal operations in Kosovo are funding Islamic terrorism. The KLA remains firmly in control of Kosovo, its members have achieved major victories in recent elections, and crime and extremism continue to be rampant in the breakaway province.

Europe’s Afghanistan?

Even as conflict in the original Afghanistan appears to have no end in sight, the US and NATO seem to be pursuing in Kosovo the same strategy that created the Afghan mess. The Americans do not seem to realize that Islamic extremists are not the grateful type, and that short-term strategic goals are not worth creating another “Islamic Emirate” and another regime that harbors terrorists. The ends do not justify the means!

Similar to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Albanians in Kosovo are destroying Christian churches, desecrating Christian cultural sites and graveyards, and terrorizing the Serbian and other non-Albanian minorities in Kosovo. Their goal of creating a purely Islamic state led by war-hardened extremist militants seems close at hand. The only thing missing, for now, is a Religious Police.

It should come as no surprise if within a few years we witness NATO invading its Albanian Islamist “allies” in Kosovo and fighting a prolonged guerilla war against them as well. The 2007 Fort Dix Terrorist Plot, planned by 6 jihadi terrorists including 4 Kosovar Albanians (1 of them being a KLA-trained sharp shooter), seems to be a prelude to what can be expected when the Albanian Islamists see no further use in cooperating with the US and NATO. The shortsightedness of American foreign policy in Afghanistan is being repeated in Kosovo, the lessons have not been learned, and the world is left to anticipate the consequences of an “Islamic Emirate” in Europe.