The AL QAEDA Report: What really happened on September 11th, 2001

By George Kirby

Al Qaeda, this mysterious organization created by the CIA in the late 1980s, has been accused of atrocious crimes, the most famous of which is the September 11, 2001 attack. But is Al Qaeda really responsible for it?
According to evidence and testimonies, the answer can only be a decided NO. The real perpetrators are entities of the US state that have carefully planned and carried out false flag attacks.
The how and why are detailed in the next chapters of this work which, starting from the study of the precedents (Pearl Harbor 1941, Cuba 1962, Vietnam 1964, New York 1993, Oklahoma City 1995 and others), examines in detail the events of September 11, the months and weeks that preceded them and those that followed them, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Guantánamo, the attacks in Madrid 2004 and London 2005, the death of Osama bin Laden and much more, up to arrive at ISIS and the current situation.
Several issues are briefly discussed in the appendix, including American interventions abroad from 1945 onwards, the influence of Jewish neocons in the invasion of Iraq, and the 20 companies that earn more profits from wars (they are almost all American).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Giorgio Ressel
• Release date: Sep 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9788834180013

Book preview

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Casus belli - The precedents

Many governments have lied to their citizens and to the rest of the world to start a war or to participate in it. And those of the United States of America are no exception. But in the examples that follow, the US did more than lie: they created false attacks, as in the case of the war against Spain in 1898; or they provoked their enemies to be attacked, as in the case of the war against Japan; or they still attacked first and then claimed to have been attacked, as in the war against North Vietnam.

Apart from the fact that presenting oneself as victim rather than as aggressor is a great tactic to lift the internal popular indignation and sympathy of other countries, there is also another reason: the fact that in the US the only competent body to declare war is the Congress.

So, if an American president faces a hostile Congress but wants to make war on a certain country, the easiest way is to create a casus belli. Maybe with the false flag method. At that point even a hostile Congress will have to bend before the pressure of public opinion, wisely fomented by the accommodating media.

• February 15, 1898. Sinking of the cruiser USS Maine in Cuba. At the time, the Navy minister is Theodore Roosevelt, who has already prepared a plan for the invasion of the island and needs only a pretext to attack. It will be given by an explosion aboard the Maine, docked in the port of Havana, which causes it to sink in no time and causes the death of over 200 sailors.

Americans accuse Spain of having sunk the ship with a hidden mine. The Spanish government denies any involvement in the explosion and asks that a mixed commission of inquiry be formed. The US refuses and on April 20, 1898, President McKinley approves a congressional resolution calling on Spain to withdraw all its military forces from Cuba. It's an ultimatum.

The United States declares war on Spain four days after Madrid opposes the refusal to obey. In a short time, the entire Spanish war fleet sink and the war ends with the unconditional surrender and the subsequent Treaty of Paris.

In 1987 an American commission of inquiry will establish that the explosion that caused the USS Maine cruiser to sink was caused by the captain's decision to place explosives too close to the boilers. But which captain of a warship would commit such a bestiality?

Thanks to this conflict, the United States chases Spain from Cuba and Puerto Rico into the Atlantic, and from Guam and the Philippines into the Pacific, gaining full control.

• December 7, 1941. The naval air forces of the Japanese Empire attack the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian Islands. The attack starts at 7:49 am and lasts about two hours. The day chosen is a Sunday and at that time the base is still half asleep.

Cost: 5 battleships and 2 destroyers sunken; 3 battleships, 3 cruisers and 1 destroyer damaged; 188 planes destroyed and 155 damaged; 2,402 soldiers killed and 1,247 wounded. For the Japanese, 29 aircraft shot down and 64 men killed.

The attack is presented to American public opinion as a treachery and causes the United States to go to war against Japan and its allies, Germany and Italy.

The next day, President Roosevelt pronounces a historic speech before the assembled Chambers that begins with these words: «Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.»

The Congress brings the United States into the Second World War and the citizens, who up to that time largely wanted their country to remain neutral (88%, according to a September 1940 survey), are now totally in favor of the war.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had promised during the election campaign that the United States would remain neutral, but was determined to fight alongside the United Kingdom, has achieved his goal. But he did it by deceiving his fellow citizens.

Of this is sure Robert Stinnet, an American journalist who for 14 years carried out researches on the declassified documents of the Second World War, and published the book Day of Deceit. The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor.

The key document that Stinnet found is a memorandum by the US Navy frigate captain Arthur H. McCollum, born and living in Japan, and director of the ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) for the Far East. Captain McCollum knew Japan deeply and spoke its language perfectly.

In the memorandum that McCollum presents on October 7, 1940 to Roosevelt, a very worrying scenario is hypothesized: if the Nazi-fascist armies were to occupy all of Europe (including the United Kingdom) and the Soviet Union remained neutral, it would be possible that Germany and Italy from the Atlantic and Japan from the Pacific decide to attack the United States, which from the beginning has supported the British Empire.

Even more so, if they manage to take over the British naval fleets of the Atlantic and Mediterranean and gain control of the Suez Canal. For Roosevelt such an eventuality must be avoided at all costs. The US must therefore declare war on Germany and Italy to prevent this from happening.

But first of all, it is worthwhile to attack Japan, which would also help British troops engaged in the dominions of the East and Australia. Especially since the Army is still in the training phase and could fight effectively only after one year, while the Navy is already able to do so. But how can Roosevelt convince the American people?

One way is to be attacked by the Japanese, who are allies of Germany and Italy thanks to the tripartite pact signed on September 27, 1940 in Berlin.

Then McCollum examines the strengths and weaknesses of Japan. Among the strengths: a geographically solid position, a very centralized government, a strict control of the economy, a people tempered by the hardships of war, a powerful army and a well-trained Navy corresponding to two thirds of the American one.

Among the weaknesses: one and a half million men engaged in a prolonged war on the Asian continent, reduced food supplies, lack of materials needed for the war (especially oil, iron and cotton), inability to obtain supplies in Europe, dependence on maritime routes for essential supplies, inability to increase production without having certain raw materials, large cities and industrial areas very vulnerable to air strikes, and poor sea conditions until April.

Conversely, the advantages of the United States are numerous: very robust defensive positions in the Pacific, air and sea forces capable of carrying out wide-ranging attacks, the Philippines under American control, the possible alliance with the government of the Dutch Indies, the British bases of Singapore and Hong Kong, the Chinese army fighting against Japan, and the ability to prevent the Japanese from obtaining supplies through the southern routes.

Finally, the memorandum suggests a series of actions to push Japan to attack the US:

• Agreeing with Britain to use its bases in the Pacific.

• Agreeing with the Netherlands to obtain supplies from the Dutch Indies and use its bases.

• Help the Chinese government of Chiang Kai-Shek in all ways.

• Send a division of heavy cruisers to the East, Philippines or Singapore.

• Send two divisions of submarines to the East.

• Keep much of the Pacific fleet near the Hawaiian Islands.

• Insist with Holland so that it refuses to supply Japan with raw materials, especially oil.

• Exercise a complete trade embargo with Japan.

Roosevelt fully accepts all these suggestions which he will gradually implement in the following months. In addition, in September 1940 he has the Draft Act (militarization law) approved by the Congress to convert the industries to the production of armaments, and on March 11, 1941 he passes the Lend-Lease Act which allows all the countries at war with Germany, Italy and Japan to obtain loans for the purchase of war material produced by American industries. Thus, the United States can also do business.

As expected, the commodity embargo puts Japan in difficulty and it decides to invade the oil-rich Dutch Indies. But first it must neutralize the US fleet. The plan involves the aerial attack on Pearl Harbor and, shortly after, the occupation of the Philippines with a landing.

On November 3, 1941, the Japanese plan becomes operational and heavy traffic of both civil and military messages with embassies, consulates, naval and air commands begin.

But the Americans have a big advantage: a particular device called Magic with which the secret services can intercept and decipher the Japanese secret communications even before the legitimate recipients (who believe them unassailable). The Purple Code, the Japanese cryptographic system used to exchange messages between the Foreign Ministry and Japanese embassies, is regularly deciphered by the SIS (Signal Intelligence Service) as early as September 1940. And so, Roosevelt and a few others are constantly informed of the Japanese intentions. Who knows nothing is Admiral Husband Kimmel, commanding the Pacific fleet in Hawaii.

On November 26, the Japanese imperial fleet, composed of 31 ships (including 6 aircraft carriers) and 423 aircraft, set sail from Hitokappu on the Kuril Islands with a route to Hawaii. On November 28, Washington orders the departure of the aircraft carrier Enterprise and 11 escort ships from Pearl Harbor. The pretext is to bring 12 planes to the marines on the island of Wake. On December 5, the same order for the Lexington aircraft carrier and 8 escort ships. The planes to be delivered to the marines are 18 and the destination is the Midway Islands. In this way the two aircraft carriers and 21 modern warships are saved, while those remaining on the island of Oahu are 90 largely antiquated units.

On December 2, Admiral Yamamoto radio transmits the order of attack on the fleet commanded by Chuichi Nagumo with a phrase that will become famous: Climbing Mount Niitaka on December 8. The date is that of Tokyo; that of Honolulu is 7.

Four cables are then sent from Tokyo to the Washington embassy. With the first two the Americans are informed of the end of each negotiation; with the others the Japanese communicate the breaking of diplomatic relations.

The ambassador is ordered to deliver the declaration of war at 1:00 pm Washington time, but Roosevelt is aware of it as early as 10 am. An alert message is sent to Hawaii, but it will arrive at its destination too late. As it was in the plans. The expenses will be paid by Admiral Kimmel and Lieutenant General Short who will be removed from office.

• March 13, 1962. In Washington, the JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) completes a secret memorandum, which will be declassified in 1998, addressed to the US Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.

The proposal that presents the memorandum starts from the observation that an internal revolt within the next nine or ten months in Cuba is practically excluded, and it is therefore necessary to make provocations to justify American military action on the island.

We are in the middle of the Cold War. In Cuba, from January 1, 1959, the brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara and the other guerrillas who chased the previous dictator, Fulgencio Batista, are in power. They nationalized foreign companies on the island (most of which are American) and became loyal allies of the Soviet Union. This situation is considered unacceptable by Washington, which does not tolerate the existence of a communist state only 180 km (112 miles) from its coasts and fears that other Latin American countries may be hit by the contagion.

A first attempt to overthrow Castro was already made between 17 and 19 April 1961, when John F. Kennedy was in power for only three months. The CIA armed and trained about 1,500 mercenaries opposed to the regime, supplied them with ships, trucks and tanks and prepared air support for the time of the landing which took place at one in the morning in the Bay of Pigs. But the operation failed. The men arrived on the beach were countered by the army, the ships were sunk and the bombers (old American B-26s) shot down by Cuban fighter planes. Most mercenaries, around 1,200, surrendered. They were imprisoned and tried, and later released in exchange for 53 million dollars, drugs and baby food. For Kennedy, who spoke of peace and freedom during the election campaign, it was a burning defeat and a loss of prestige, especially abroad.

As a further consequence of the operation Bay of Pigs, and to prevent a possible new attempt at landing, Castro decides to equip the country with missiles that will be supplied by the USSR and will be armed with nuclear warheads. In October 1962, when the American U2 spy planes will photograph the missile launch pads in the assembly phase, a new crisis will break out. It will last 13 days and will lead the two superpowers to touch the nuclear conflict that would end with mutual total destruction.

It is in this tension-laden atmosphere that JCS sends McNamara its proposal for a series of terrorist actions against Cuba, which it calls Operation Northwoods. The document, signed by General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, has as its object: Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba, and responds to a request by General William H. Craig, Head of Operations (Project Cuba, Operation Mongoose) which urged an opinion from the JCS. The memorandum states that the proposal is considered valid only if there is a reasonable certainty that the USSR will not intervene militarily alongside Cuba. And, in this regard, it is recalled that the Caribbean island is not currently part of the Warsaw Pact. The importance of the time factor is also emphasized: the plan should be implemented within a few months.

The JCS foresees the creation of artfully and increasingly serious incidents, which should take place around and inside the air base of Guantánamo, which is located in Cuban territory and is perpetually leased to the United States thanks to a contract signed in 1903. Here is a list of the proposed incidents:

• Causing loud noises around the base;

• Use clandestine radio;

• Staging false attacks with men in Cuban uniforms;

• Capturing fake saboteurs inside the base;

• Causing riots near the main door of the base;

• Explode ammunition inside the base;

• Cause fires;

• Set fire to an airplane;

• Firing mortar shells in the base;

• Capture fake assault teams from the sea or near Guantánamo City;

• Capture militia groups that storm the base;

• Sabotage a ship in the harbor and start fires;

• Sink a ship near the harbor entrance and organize funerals for the fake victims.

The US will respond to these fake provocations with genuine military operations, such as the destruction of artillery and mortars that would threaten the base, and secure energy production facilities and those of the port.

The memo of the JCS continues with a series of suggestions to provoke even more spectacular accidents that come together under the title Remember the Maine:

• Blow up an American ship in Guantánamo Bay and blame Cuba.

• Blow up a boat-drone in Cuban waters as if it had been attacked by sea or air, and preferably in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago. To amplify the effect even more they could send an American rescue team to save the hypothetical survivors and then publish the list of fake victims in American newspapers to provoke a wave of indignation.

• Implement a communist terrorist campaign against Cuban exiles in Miami and other parts of Florida, and perhaps extend it to Washington.

• Sink boats of Cubans heading for Florida (real or simulated operations).

• Injure Cuban refugees in the United States to make news in the newspapers.

• Blow up plastic bombs in carefully chosen places, arrest Cuban agents and publish false documents to prove the involvement of the Havana government.

• Implement subversive actions against Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Nicaragua and make them believe they were carried out by Cuban agents. Examples: enter the Dominican airspace at night by B-26 or C-46 aircraft painted in Cuban colors; burn sugarcane crops and have incendiary bombs from the Soviet Bloc found in the fields; send false Cuban messages to Dominican communist organizations; leave on the Dominican beaches loads of weapons falsely coming from Cuba.

• Use American-piloted MiG aircraft to carry out further provocations, such as threatening US civilian aircraft in flight, attacking cargo ships and destroying US military aircraft drones. If the MiGs were not available, paint F-86s to make them look like Soviet planes. However, the JCS ensures that within three months discrete copies of the MiGs could be made.

• Simulate attempts to hijack Cuban airplanes and ships, while at the same time encouraging real hijackings of both civilian and military Cuban aircraft and ships.

• Create a false accident that simulates the shooting down of a USAF plane by a Cuban MiG in international waters and without American provocation. Send 4 or 5 F-101 planes from Homestead AFB, an aviation base in Florida, up to the vicinity of Cuba; at least 22 km (14 miles) off the coast.

The mission would be a defense exercise above southern Florida. The planes should vary the route frequently. At one point, one of the F-101s would break away from the others and say it was hit by Cuban MiGs and is falling. The plane would instead fly westward at very low altitude and land in an auxiliary field of the Eglin base. The aircraft would be hidden and the registration number would be changed. The pilot, who would carry out the mission under a false name, would recover his true identity and return to normal activity. Shortly after the false shooting down, a submarine or a small ship would take parts of the F-101, the parachute etc. from the sea. Airplanes and research vessels would be sent to the site and would find other parts of the plane.

And finally, the most spectacular provocation: to make the American public believe that a civilian plane, departing from the United States for Jamaica (or Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela) has been shot down by a Cuban MiG. On board the charter there would be college students on vacation or a group of people with a common interest. The route of the plane would be chosen on purpose to let it fly over the island of Cuba.

Here's what would actually happen:

• In Eglin, an Air Force base in Florida, a perfect copy (same colors and numbering) of a registered aircraft belonging to a CIA-owned organization would be realized.

• The civilian fake airplane with a group of passengers with fictitious names would take off from a commercial airport.

• The original civil plane, transformed into a drone, would take off empty from the base of Eglin.

• At a certain point there would be the flight meeting of the two airplanes.

• The fake aircraft would drop to a minimum altitude and head towards an auxiliary field of Eglin. The passengers would be evacuated and the plane would return to its original state.

• The drone would instead continue its flight and, arriving above Cuba, would launch a MAYDAY signal on the international danger frequency and a message according to which it would be attacked by a Cuban MiG.

• The aircraft would be destroyed in flight with a radio signal that would trigger an explosive charge.

• ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) radio stations would ask what happened, officially certifying the attack.

Despite the fact that in 1962 the political climate is that of the Cold War, it is difficult to accept that an American general, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, proposes to:

• Unleash a terrorist campaign that plans to shoot unarmed people on the streets of the United States;

• Sink in the open sea ​​boats full of migrants seeking refuge;

• Blow up bombs in Washington, Miami and other cities, blaming innocent individuals;

• Simulate hijackings or plane crashes.

And all this with the aim of blaming the Cubans and procuring an excuse to invade the island and overthrow Fidel Castro.

The project is worthy of figures of the kind of Adolf Hitler, who on August 31, 1939, staged a fake attack on the German radio station in Gleiwitz, not far from the border with Poland.

After sending messages urging the Polish minorities in East Germany to rebel, the military left the radio station leaving the bodies of some men taken in concentration camps and dressed in German uniforms, for the benefit of journalists and photographers.

The action, carried out by German soldiers wearing Polish uniforms, was intended to provide Nazi Germany with an excuse to invade the neighboring state, which happened on September 1, 1939 and started the Second World War.

Unlike the other cases presented here (and the so-called Gleiwitz Incident), Operation Northwoods will be rejected by Kennedy and, a few months later, Lyman Lemnitzer will be sent to Europe to fill the post of supreme commander of the allied military forces.

• August 2 and 4, 1964. The incidents of the Tonkin Gulf are the excuse that allows President Lyndon Baines Johnson to drag his country into a war against North Vietnam that will last until January 27, 1973, when they will be signed in Paris the peace agreements, which will mark the first burning defeat in US military history.

Why did Johnson decide to intervene militarily in Southeast Asia? To understand this, it is worth starting from the 1954 Geneva conference. Vietnam was divided into two: The Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the north with Hanoi as capital, where a communist junta headed by Ho Chi Minh ruled the country; and what remained of the Empire of Vietnam in the south, with Saigon as capital. The following year (1955), a coup by Ngo Dinh Diem (Catholic and anti-communist) transformed the empire into the Republic of Vietnam. But in reality, it was a masked dictatorship.

In 1960 a bloody civil war breaks out between the North and the South. The Americans, obsessed by the idea that the defeat of South Vietnam will cause a chain reaction throughout the Indochinese peninsula and that this whole area will fall into the hands of the communists (the famous domino effect), begin to send their military advisers in addition to financial aid and weapons.

But despite US support, the war is getting worse and worse for the South, so much so that Diem tries to find an agreement with the Hanoi junta. This idea does not like at all to the generals, who on November 1, 1963 kill Diem and establish a military dictatorship hostile to any negotiations with North Vietnam.

A few weeks later, President Kennedy, who was determined to disengage from Vietnam and had declared his intention to withdraw one thousand instructors (meeting of October 5, reported in the National Security Action Memorandum 263), will be assassinated in Dallas. The date is November 22.

Lyndon Johnson takes over and, perhaps convinced by the Pentagon generals and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (all sure to easily win the war thanks to the advanced technological means of the US military), decides to have US troops intervene directly in the war against the North.

However, in order to do so, he needs the authorization of the Washington Congress, the only one that can declare a war. But the opposers are numerous, and so is public opinion. He, as usual, needs an excuse to present his country as a victim of an aggression that cannot be ignored. Naturally, the aggressor will be North Vietnam.

The first occasion - perhaps caused - happens on the morning of August 2.

According to the US version, the USS Maddox destroyer is attacked in international waters with torpedoes from three North Vietnamese torpedo boats while it is carrying out an espionage mission (part of DESOTO operations) in the Tonkin Gulf. Then the Maddox counterattacks, supported by four Vought F-8 Crusader fighters that took off from the Ticonderoga aircraft carrier. The final cost is one sunken torpedo boat.

The North Vietnamese version is completely different: a group of US commandos carried out a raid against a North Vietnamese radio transmitter located on an offshore island. In response, three North Vietnamese patrol boats began chasing the Maddox, who then fired three warning shots. At that point the torpedo boats used the machine guns on board and launched torpedoes at the destroyer that responded to the attack.

The outcome of the clash is a plane damaged and no casualties on the American side, while it is three boats hit, four sailors killed and six injured North Vietnamese. It will be known later that the raid against the radio plant was part of OPLAN 34-Alpha (or Operational PLAN 34-A), a program of military actions under cover developed by the Pentagon that included infiltration of agents, aerial reconnaissance operations and naval sabotage.

The second episode of aggression would take place on the night of August 4. According to the American version, the Maddox, still on a spy mission together with the USS C. Turner Joy, is again attacked by North Vietnamese boats. It responds to fire and sinks two enemy ships.

But at that moment in the Gulf of Tonkin the weather is bad: a violent storm is raging and the presence of enemy boats reported by sonar are most likely caused by atmospheric interference. In fact, the same commander of the squadron of planes that escort the American ships (James Stockdale) denies the version of the Maddox, communicating of not having identified any enemy ship.

Moreover, there is an article published in 2001 in a classified document of the NSA, whose author is Robert J. Hanyok, a historian and employee of the NSA. Based on the analysis of original documents of the time, Hanyok arrives at the same conclusion as Stockdale: no North Vietnamese attack, but a deliberate distortion of the facts to make the opposite appear.

It seems that the intelligence officials would have canceled 90% of the North Vietnamese communications intercepted by the Americans on the night of August 4 and related to the alleged attack. Therefore, an intentional falsification by the NSA in the report that will arrive on President Johnson's desk.

But according to the historian, the purpose of these alterations would not have been to influence American politics in Vietnam, but rather to hide mistakes made earlier. This, however, is the thesis reported in the article by Scott Shane entitled Vietnam Study, Casting Doubts, Remains Secret and published on October 31, 2005 in the New York Times.

Finally, there is McNamara's statement in a 2003 documentary by Errol Mark Morris entitled The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. The former Secretary of Defense confirms once again that the attack on August 4 never happened.

But for Lyndon Johnson this is the casus belli he was looking for. In retaliation, he orders airstrikes to be carried out on North Vietnam, and on August 5 he announces before the Congress that US Navy ships had been attacked, twice and in international waters, by the Hanoi regime.

Then, recalling the Southeast Asian Collective Defense Treaty signed in February 1955, he calls for a resolution to be approved for US economic and military assistance to South Vietnam and Laos.

On August 7, Congress authorizes Johnson almost unanimously to dispatch American troops in combat against the North Vietnamese armed forces. It is the beginning of the escalation that will end in 1975 with the death of 58,000 US soldiers and 3 million Vietnamese and will finally lead to the unification, under the rule of Hanoi, of a war-ravaged country.

The origins of the Base

It all starts in Afghanistan, a country that until 1991 shared a long and jagged border with the Soviet Union and in the course of its history had to fight against the Mongol invasions of Genghis Khan and the Turks of Tamerlane, and then fought for its independence (which it won in 1919) against the British Empire for almost a century.

Between 1919 and 1973 Afghanistan is a monarchy that remains strictly neutral, both during the Second World War and during the Cold War, and lives one of the most stable and peaceful periods in its history.

July 17, 1973. Mohammed Daud Khan - cousin of King Mohammed Zahir Shah and former prime minister - dethrones the king with a coup and puts an end to the monarchy. Daud, who is clearly pro-American, also puts an end to the neutrality of Afghanistan.

April 27, 1978. Five years after taking power and declaring the republic, Daud is in turn deposed by members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), of Marxist-Leninist ideology. The coup is called the April Revolution and power passes into the hands of Nur Mohammad Taraki, party leader.

Of course, the new socialist regime does not enjoy Washington's sympathy, which begins to study plans to replace it with a friendly government.

Taraki initiates several changes in the country, such as agrarian reform and the secularization of society. For women in particular: the right to vote, compulsory education and the ban on wearing the burqa.

All reforms to which the inhabitants of the cities are largely favorable, but which arouse the hostility of the religious authorities and the populations of the rural areas that represent the majority of the country. Furthermore, these reforms are imposed too quickly and forcefully. Opponents are arrested and, in some cases, executed. Numerous protests and calls for rebellion by exiled Islamic leaders start from neighboring Pakistan.

Thus, at the end of 1978 in the mountains of Afghanistan the first guerrilla bands, which will become known as mujahideen (fighters for jihad, holy war), are formed. In October there are the first clashes between rebel militias and government troops. The rebellion also infects an entire army division which occupies the city of Herat. It will be taken up by soldiers loyal to Kabul after heavy air raids.

1979. Osama bin Laden is recruited by the CIA and the Saudi secret service in Istanbul. He is probably chosen at the suggestion of George Bush Sr., who was director of the CIA between January 30, 1976 and January 20, 1977, and is a friend of Mohammad bin Awad bin Laden, Osama's father.

With the aim of defending its interests in the Middle East and fighting the Soviet Union, the United States makes a secret treaty of three with the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) and the Saudi intelligence service (Itajbarat).

Bin Laden is commissioned to set up a guerrilla group to fight the Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan, and receives comprehensive training to recruit fighters, manipulate weapons and explosives and use encrypted communication systems.

There are 35,000 Muslim extremists fighting in Afghanistan between 1982 and 1992, and they come from 40 Islamic countries. It has been estimated that between 1978 and 1992 the US spends at least 6 billion dollars in this undeclared war against the USSR.

March 30, 1979. A popular referendum marks the end of Reza Pahlavi's monarchy in Iran. The country becomes a Shiite Islamic republic hostile to the United States, which since 1941 has kept the Shah in power for almost forty years in exchange for very favorable agreements for the exploitation of oil.

Mid-1979. 25 out of 28 Afghan provinces are in revolt. To combat the uprising, Taraki asks for help from the USSR, which initially sends other