Very true GfS

No doubt that US funded Mujahideen Groups, so did the Saudis, so did the UAE and others but they were not the paymasters and had no say as to which group got what in terms of funds, training, or weapons that was all done and decided by Pakistan's ISI and Army.

Sources that I have used to support what I believe to be the case include:

- The President of Pakistan at the time Zia ul-Haq
- Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, Head of ISI 1983 to 1987
- Soviet Intelligence sources
- US Intelligence sources
- The only Western Reporter ever to have interviewed bin Laden


"According to CNN journalist Peter Bergen, known for conducting the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997,

The story about bin Laden and the CIA — that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden — is simply a folk myth. There's no evidence of this. In fact, there are very few things that bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on. They all agree that they didn't have a relationship in the 1980s. And they wouldn't have needed to. Bin Laden had his own money, he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently. The real story here is the CIA did not understand who Osama was until 1996, when they set up a unit to really start tracking him.

Bergen quotes Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf:

It was always galling to the Americans, and I can understand their point of view, that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune. The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers' money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition, and equipment. It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy. It was, however, a cardinal rule of Pakistan's policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country. No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan."

The Insider link you list states two very different things:

- In the Banner Headline of "The Insider" it proclaims that;
"CIA created al-Qaeda and gave $3 BILLION to Osama bin Laden" FALSE the CIA had no idea who Osama bin Laden was until 1996.

- In the actual text of the BBC article this changes to the true statement that;
"The Afghan jihad was backed with American dollars and had the blessing of the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan" TRUE

See any difference there?

Other links supplied do not relate in any way to the period under discussion, it should be remembered that Al-Qaeda did not come into existence until the Autumn of 1988 and it played little or no part in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, it was formed for a completely different purpose in full knowledge that the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets was coming to an end. It should also be remembered that the Taliban never fought the Soviets as the Taliban were formed in November 1994 five years after the Soviets had left Afghanistan.