A young Zacarias Moussaoui taking part in a graduation ceremony in London. [Source: Agence France-Presse] July 1954: Israel Commits Bombing Attacks in Egypt, Tries to Blame Muslim Brotherhood Bombs explode in British and American cultural centers and libraries, and in post offices in Alexandria and Cairo. The campaign ends when a bomb explodes prematurely in the pocket of an Israeli agent who is about to plant it in a British-owned cinema. The plan is to damage the relations between Egypt and the US and Britain by placing the blame for the bombings on the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian Islamic militant group. An initial inquiry places blame on the Minister of Defense, Pinhas Lavon, but a subsequent inquiry authorized by Sharett finds that Lavon was set up using forged documents, and that the true author of the false-flag attack was none other than David Ben Gurion, the “father of the Israeli State. (see March 2005)” [New York Times, 4/30/1975; New York Times, 1/11/1955; Hirst, 2003] These events, which later become known as the Lavon Affair, will be documented in the diaries of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, who did not learn of the plot until after it was completed. [Rokach, 1986] People and organizations involved: Israel December 26, 1979: Soviet Forces, Lured in by the CIA, Invade Afghanistan The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. They will withdraw in 1989 after a brutal 10-year war. It has been commonly believed that the invasion was unprovoked. However, in a 1998 interview, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, will reveal that the CIA began destabilizing the pro-Soviet Afghan government six months earlier in a deliberate attempt to get the Soviets to invade and have their own Vietnam-type costly war (see July 1979). Brezinski rhetorically asks, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” [Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris), 2/1998; Mirror, 3/1/2002] The US and Saudi Arabia give a huge amount of money (estimates range up to $40 billion total for the war) to support the mujahedeen guerrilla fighters opposing the Russians. Most of the money is managed by the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency. [Nation, 3/15/1999] People and organizations involved: Central Intelligence Agency, United States, Saudi Arabia, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Taliban 1984: Bin Laden Develops Ties with Pakistani ISI and Afghan Warlord Bin Laden moves to Peshawar, a Pakistani town bordering Afghanistan, and helps run a front organization for the mujahedeen known as Maktab al-Khidamar (MAK), which funnels money, arms, and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war. [New Yorker, 2/24/2000] “MAK [is] nurtured by Pakistan’s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA’s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow’s occupation.” [MSNBC, 9/24/1998] Bin Laden becomes closely tied to the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and greatly strengthens Hekmatyar’s opium smuggling operations. [Le Monde (Paris), 10/14/2001] Hekmatyar, who also has ties with bin Laden, the CIA, and drug running, has been called “an ISI stooge and creation.” [Asia Times, 12/15/2001] People and organizations involved: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Maktab al-Khidamar, Osama bin Laden, Central Intelligence Agency The CIA, MI6 (Britain’s intelligence agency), and the ISI agree to launch guerrilla attacks from Afghanistan into then Soviet-controlled Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, attacking military installations, factories, and storage depots within Soviet territory, and do so until the end of the war. The CIA also gives subversive literature and Korans to the ISI, who carry them into the Soviet Union. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/23/2001; Washington Post, 8/19/1992] People and organizations involved: Central Intelligence Agency, UK Secret Intelligence Service, Benazir Bhutto 1986-1992: CIA and British Recruit and Train Militants Worldwide to Help Fight Afghan War According to Australian journalist John Pilger, in this year, “CIA Director William Casey [gives] his backing to a plan put forward by Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, to recruit people from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. More than 100,000 Islamic militants [are] trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by the CIA and [the British intelligence agency] MI6, with the [British special forces unit] SAS training future al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders [are] trained at a CIA camp in Virginia.” This operation is named Operation Cyclone. While the operation is originally designed to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, it continues for several years after the Soviets leave Afghanistan in 1989. [Guardian, 10/20/2003] Eventually, around 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries will fight with the Afghan mujahedeen. Tens of thousands more will study in the hundreds of new madrassas (Islamic schools) funded by the ISI and CIA in Pakistan. Their main logistical base is in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. [Washington Post, 8/19/1992; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/23/2001] Ironically, although many are trained, it seems only a small percentage actually take part fight in serious fighting in Afghanistan, so their impact on the war is small. [New Yorker, 10/9/2002] Richard Murphy, assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian relations during the Reagan administration, will later say, “We did spawn a monster in Afghanistan. Once the Soviets were gone [the people trained and/or funded by the US] were looking around for other targets, and Osama bin Laden has settled on the United States as the source of all evil. Irony? Irony is all over the place.” [Associated Press, 9/23/1998] In the late 1980s, Pakistani President Benazir Bhutto, feeling the mujahedeen network has grown too strong, tells President George H. W. Bush, “You are creating a Frankenstein.” However, the warning goes unheeded. [Newsweek, 11/1/2001] By 1993, President Bhutto tells Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that Peshawar is under de facto control of the mujahedeen, and unsuccessfully asks for military help in reasserting Pakistani control over the city. Thousands of mujahedeen fighters return to their home countries after the war is over and engage in multiple acts of violence. One Western diplomat notes these thousands would never have been trained or united without US help, and says, “The consequences for all of us are astronomical.” [Atlantic Monthly, 6/1996] People and organizations involved: UK Secret Intelligence Service, Central Intelligence Agency, UK Secret Intelligence Service, Benazir Bhutto
1988: Bin Ladens Bail Out George W. Bush? Prior to this year, President George W. Bush is a failed oilman. Three times, friends and investors have bailed him out to keep his business from going bankrupt. However, in 1988, the same year his father becomes president, some Saudis buy a portion of his small company, Harken, which has never performed work outside of Texas. Later in the year, Harken wins a contract in the Persian Gulf and starts doing well financially. These transactions seem so suspicious that the Wall Street Journal in 1991 states it “raises the question of … an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.” Two major investors in Bush’s company during this time are Salem bin Laden and Khalid bin Mahfouz. [Salon, 12/19/2001; Intelligence Newsletter, 4/2/2000] Salem bin Laden is Osama’s oldest brother; Khalid bin Mahfouz is a Saudi banker with a 20 percent stake in BCCI. The bank will be shut down a few years later and bin Mahfouz will have to pay a $225 million fine (while admitting no wrongdoing) (see October 2001)). [Forbes, 4/18/2002]
People and organizations involved: Harken, Khalid bin Mahfouz, George W. Bush, Salem bin Laden 
July 5, 1991: Outlaw BCCI Bank Is Shut Down The BCCI logo on the front of one of their banks. [Source: BBC]
The Bank of England shuts down Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the largest Islamic bank in the world. Based in Pakistan, this bank financed numerous militant organizations and laundered money generated by illicit drug trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms trafficking. Bin Laden and many other militants had accounts there. [Detroit News, 10/30/2001] One money-laundering expert claims, “BCCI did dirty work for every major terrorist service in the world.” [Los Angeles Times, 2/20/2002] American and British governments were aware of its activities yet allowed the bank to operate for years. The Pakistani ISI had major connections to the bank. However, as later State Department reports indicate, Pakistan remains a major drug trafficking and money-laundering center despite the bank’s closing. [Detroit News, 10/30/2001] “The CIA used BCCI to funnel millions of dollars to the fighters battling the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan” according to the Washington Post. A French intelligence report in 2001 suggests the BCCI network has been largely rebuilt by bin Laden (see October 2001). [Washington Post, 3/17/2002] The ruling family of Abu Dhabi, the dominant emirate in the United Arab Emirates, owned 77 percent of the bank. [Los Angeles Times, 2/20/2002]
People and organizations involved: Osama bin Laden, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Bank of England, Central Intelligence Agency 
October 3, 1991-February 1992: First Hijacker Enters US A young Hani Hanjour. [Source: Arizona Star] Future 9/11 hijacker Hani Hanjour first arrives in the US on October 3, 1991. [9/11 Commission, 8/24/2004; US Congress, 10/26/2002] Some media accounts have him entering the country in 1990. He apparently is the first hijacker to enter the US. [New York Times, 7/19/2002; Cox News Service, 11/15/2001; Time, 10/24/2001] He takes an English course in Tucson, Arizona until early 1992. There are some important al-Qaeda operatives currently living in Tucson. However, it is not known if Hanjour has contact with them at this time, or even when he first develops his radical militant beliefs. According to Hanjour’s eldest brother Abulrahman, Hani stays in Arizona for three months then returns to Saudi Arabia, where he spends the next five years managing his family’s lemon and date farm. [Washington Post, 11/15/2001] FBI Director Robert Mueller also reports his stay as lasting three months. [US Congress, 10/26/2002] However, the FBI tells one person that Hanjour may have stayed in the US for as long as 15 months. [Washington Post, 10/10/2002] People and organizations involved: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hani Hanjour, 9/11 Commission 1994: French Suspect Moussaoui Involvement in Assassination; British Block Investigation A young Zacarias Moussaoui taking part in a graduation ceremony in London. [Source: Agence France-Presse] Three French consular officials in Algeria are assassinated. A French magistrate travels to London to investigate the case. The magistrate has information that a “Zacarias” living in London was a paymaster for the assassination. Zacarias Moussaoui, born in France and of North African ancestry, had moved to London in 1992 and become involved in radical Islam after being influenced by Abu Qatada (who has been called one of the leaders of al-Qaeda in Europe). The magistrate asks British authorities for permission to interview Moussaoui and search his apartment in Brixton. The British refuse to give permission, saying the French don’t have enough evidence on Moussaoui. But the French continue to develop more information on Moussaoui from this time on. [CNN, 1/11/2002; Independent, 1/11/2002; Los Angeles Times, 1/13/2002] People and organizations involved: Zacarias Moussaoui, France, United Kingdom
July 7, 1996: A Clean Break Outlines New Middle East Strategy for Israel Richard Perle. [Source: Public domain]
The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, publishes a paper entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” [Chicago Sun-Times, 4/6/2003] Lead author Richard Perle will later become chairman of President Bush’s influential Defense Policy Board. Several other co-authors will hold key positions in Washington after Bush’s election. In the paper, Perle and his co-authors advise the new, right wing Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to make a complete break with the past by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism. …” The first step is to be the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. A war with Iraq will destabilize the entire Middle East, allowing governments in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and other countries to be replaced. “Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them,” the paper concludes [Guardian, 10/3/2002] , citing the original paper at [Studies, 8/8/1996] . Perle will be instrumental is moving Bush’s US policy toward war with Iraq after the 9/11 attacks.
People and organizations involved: Richard Perle, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, Benjamin Netanyahu, Saddam Hussein, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Israel
June 3, 1997: PNAC Think Tank Issues Statement of Principles William Kristol, one of the founders and leaders of PNAC. [Source: Public domain]
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative think tank formed in the spring of 1997, issues its statement of principles. PNAC’s stated aims are:
to “shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests”
to achieve “a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad”
to “increase defense spending significantly”
to challenge “regimes hostile to US interests and values”
to “accept America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.” [Project for the New American Century, 7/3/1997] The Statement of Principles is significant, because it is signed by a group who will become “a roll call of today’s Bush inner circle.” [Guardian, 3/26/2003] ABC’s Ted Koppel will later say PNAC’s ideas have “been called a secret blueprint for US global domination.” [ABC News, 4/5/2003]
People and organizations involved: Ted Koppel, Project for the New American Century
October 1997: Brzezinski Highlights the Importance of Central Asia to Achieving World Domination Zbigniew Brzezinski. [Source: USIS, American Embassy]
Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publishes a book in which he portrays the Eurasian landmass as the key to world power, and Central Asia with its vast oil reserves as the key to domination of Eurasia. He states that for the US to maintain its global primacy, it must prevent any possible adversary from controlling that region. He notes, “The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America’s engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” He predicts that because of popular resistance to US military expansionism, his ambitious Central Asian strategy can not be implemented “except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” [Brzezinski, 1997]
People and organizations involved: Zbigniew Brzezinski Read more…
