ORIGINS OF AL-QAEDA!

Al-Qaeda's leaders: (From left) Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden and Mohammed Atef

Al-Qaeda, meaning "the base", was created in 1989 as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues began looking for new jihads.

The organisation grew out of the network of Arab volunteers who had gone to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight under the banner of Islam against Soviet Communism.
During the anti-Soviet jihad Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe that Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.
The "Arab Afghans", as they became known, were battle-hardened and highly motivated.

In the early 1990s Al-Qaeda operated in Sudan. After 1996 its headquarters and about a dozen training camps moved to Afghanistan, where Bin Laden forged a close relationship with the Taleban.

The US campaign in Afghanistan starting in late 2001 dispersed the organisation and drove it underground as its personnel were attacked and its bases and training camps destroyed.