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Part 7: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

This is part seven of a ten-part series that explains the rise of modern Islamic extremism. From 1951 to 2021, a series of key geopolitical events, many independent of each other, caused the Islamic Revolution, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the creation and collapse of the caliphate, and the reconstitution of ISIS as ISKP. While Western influence and diplomatic blunders are well documented through this period, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are equally culpable. The editors would like to note that a vast majority of the 1.8 billion people who are adherents to some form of Islam are peaceful and reject all forms of religious violence.

Read Part Six: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush become partners in the ‘War Against Terror’

The Rise of Al Qaeda

The first al Qaeda plot to attack the United States was uncovered in November 1990 when the FBI arrested operatives who were planning to blow up skyscrapers and government buildings. It would be an aspiration that Osama bin Laden would maintain for 11 more years.

In 1992, two bombs tore through Aden, Yemen, intending to target United States troops staying at the Gold Mohur and Aden Movenpick Hotels. In the first bombing, the small group of troops had already left for Somalia, and in the second, the bomb went off prematurely.

Then, on February 26, 1993, a truck bomb exploded in the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in an attempt to topple the towers. The blast caused extensive damage, killing six and wounding over 1,000. Officially, Al Qaeda didn’t order the attack, but the chief architect, Ramzi Yousef, was trained by the terrorist organization.

Heavy equipment excavating the site of the World Trade Center parking garage bombing – February 1993
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

The group involved in the planning and execution was exposed when Mohammad Salameh, who rented the truck used to deliver the bomb, returned to the rental agency in New Jersey trying to get his $400 cash security deposit back.

The Saudi government accused bin Laden of being behind a November 1995 bombing in Riyadh that killed five American and two Indian soldiers and wounded 60. Three years later, two bombings targeting the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 and wounded more than 5,000 people.

The Millennium Plots and 9/11

Each successful attack drew more money and members to Al Qaeda’s ranks. A wave of terror that was planned for the year 2000 New Year celebrations, dubbed the Millennium Attack Plots, was mostly thwarted, partially by luck.

Jordanian officials uncovered a plot to attack four locations during New Year, including the Radisson Hotel in Amman, the Christian church on Mount Nebo, the border crossing between Israel and Jordan, and a holy site on the Jordan River where it is believed profit John the Baptist baptized Jesus of Nazareth. One of the plotters was Al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who would go on to be the founder of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

On December 12, 1999, Jordanian security forces arrested 16 people involved with the plot, eventually putting 28 people on trial. However, Al Zarqawi fled to Pakistan before he could be arrested. Twenty-two defendants were found guilty of the plot, including six with Al Qaeda, who were all sentenced to death. Another architect of the plot, Saudi national Abu Zubaydah, was the mastermind behind attacks planned in the United States.

Algerian national Ahmed Ressam traveled from Montreal, Canada, and attempted to enter the United States on a ferry through Port Angeles, Washington. Ressam raised suspicion among customs officials who searched his car and found enough explosives to produce four small bombs, timers, and detonators. He was arrested on December 14, 1999, and told investigators that Zubaydah was orchestrating the bombing of LAX Airport in Los Angeles under the order of bin Laden. Further investigation found that the Space Needle in Seattle, the Transamerica Tower in San Francisco, and Ontario Airport in the Los Angeles area were also planned targets.

On the other side of the world, Al Qaeda operatives hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 on December 24, 1999, and crisscrossed the Greater Middle East for a week, stabbing one passenger to death, a German, and wounding 17 others. The Indian government gave in to their demands, releasing convicted Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. Sheikh would go on to be one of the chief planners of the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Over the next 20 years, Azhar would lead three terror attacks in India, killing hundreds.

On New Year’s Eve in Syrian-occupied Lebanon, 300 members of the terror group Takfir wal-Hijra secured dozens of villages in northern Lebanon, attempting to establish the first Sharia law-based caliphate in the mountainous region. Over 13,000 troops were deployed to quell the uprising with fighting continuing until January 6, 2000. Twenty-five terrorists were killed, and another 55 were captured. Bin Laden was credited with financing Takfir wal-Hijra through shell companies and a bank in Beirut. The surviving fighters who escaped disappeared into the Palestinian refugee camp in Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon. The 55 who were captured were sentenced to ten years to life in prison, with all receiving pardons in 2005.

The rift between al Qaeda and those who sought an even stricter interpretation of Shari law may go back as far as the mid-1990s. It is alleged that an offshoot of Takfir wal-Hijra in Sudan plotted to assassinate bin Laden in 1995 due to his liberal views on Sharia law and the formation of a caliphate. Despite the rift, the group led over a dozen terror attacks in Africa in coordination with Al Qaeda, mostly in Sudan.

The last part of the plot was an attack on the Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided-missile destroyer USS The Sullivans on January 3, 2000, while it was refueling at the Yemeni port of Aden. The attack failed because the small boat, loaded with over 400 kilograms of plastic explosives, sank due to the amount of weight in the bow.

Damage to the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole after the October 12, 2000, Al Qaeda terrorist attack in Aden, Yemen
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

Al Qaeda learned from its mistake and, on October 12, attacked the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole while it refueled at Aden. Two small fiberglass boats were used, distributing more than 450 kilograms of C4 plastic explosives, and each only had a single suicide bomber onboard. Both boats struck the Cole, tearing a 40-foot-long gash into the port side and sparking a large fire. Seventeen crew members were killed and 39 wounded, and it took three days for damage control to stabilize the ship. U.S. officials would later find the Sudanese government to be complicit in working with Al Qaeda and seized over $13 billion in assets.

Eleven years after the first al Qaeda plot to destroy American skyscrapers was uncovered, bin Laden would achieve his goal. On September 11, 2001, two hijacked commercial airliners struck both towers of the World Trade Center in New York, collapsing the buildings. A third hijacked aircraft struck the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania when passengers tried to regain control. The attacks killed 2,996 and wounded over 6,000. Two decades later, hundreds more would die from illnesses attributed to the 9/11 attacks.

Initially, bin Laden denied any involvement in the 9/11 attacks, but in 2004, as part of a brief manifesto, he wrote, “God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the US Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.”

A thirst for revenge fuels Vladimir Putin’s ascendency

When the Red Terror and Soviet Famine ended in 1922, the Soviet Union entered a brief period of reform which ended some of the oppressive Tzarist policies. Vladimir Lenin, who was already in declining health, eased restrictions on the Soviet republics, allowing them to reembrace their original culture, including language, religion, and art. Individuals were permitted to have small businesses within the guidelines of the Soviet government, blending Communism and Socialism.

The economy started to improve, and after decades of repression, deportations, war, famine, revolution, and civil war, the new Soviet society appeared to be finding its feet. All of this came to an end in late 1924 when Joseph Stalin became the Secretary-General, despite Lenin’s warnings. Seventy-five years later, history wouldn’t repeat, but it would rhyme.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly created Russian Federation entered a tumultuous period. Moscow struggled to contain inflation and wild swings of the rouble. The new country would face the 1993 Constitutional Crisis, and the economy would collapse in 1994 and 1998. For the connected and the bold, the underlying chaos was an opportunity for those seeking wealth and the growth of organized crime. However, unlike the turmoil of the Depression and Prohibition Era in the United States, where organized crime bosses fought over the control of bootleg alcohol, gambling, and illegal weapons, the new oligarch class fought for control of the now privatized industrial sectors of Russia—coal, steel, oil and gas, grain, construction, heavy equipment, and technology. Fueled by endemic government corruption, the Yeltsin administration and the now weakened state security services not only ignored the Game of Thrones happening in open view but, for the right price, participated in it. One of the men who grew allies during this period was the now-former KGB agent Vladimir Putin.

In 1991, an embittered Putin resigned from the KGB, refusing to work for the newly created Federal Security Agency (AFB). President Yeltsin dissolved the KGB in November 1991 in response to a failed coup d’etat that was led by Soviet hardliners earlier in the year, including the head of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov. Yeltsin would go on to sign two more decrees, one creating the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation in January 1992 and the second in December 1993, forming the Federal Counterintelligence Service of the Russian Federation (FSK). Each decree further eroded the legacy power structure created by the KGB.

Putin returned to his native home of St. Petersburg and, using information the KGB had gathered during the Soviet era, blackmailed Mayor Anatoly Sobchak to gain a job in the city government. He started as a reformer in name only, investigating corruption, but in reality, he was Sobchak’s political strongman.

Putin’s career was unremarkable until 1994 when he was named deputy mayor. He and Deputy Vladimir Yakovlev went on to run the city, with Putin building a circle of influence and earning future favors among the influential, wealthy, and the criminal underground. Sobchak’s initial popularity faded from 1995 to 1996 as public services deteriorated, crime increased, and allegations of corruption within the city government grew.

Putin became the local leader of the politically liberal and fiscally conservative Our Home–Russia Political Party in 1995 and ran the reelection campaign for Sobchak. Sobchak lost to his deputy Yakovlev in a close election, putting Putin out of a job. Sobchak would become the focus of a corruption investigation in 1997 and would flee to France.

Using his contacts and network, Putin moved to Moscow in early 1997 and was named the deputy chief of the Presidential Property Management Department. Less than a year later, he joined President Yeltsin’s staff and quickly maneuvered himself through a number of roles before becoming the leader of the FSK replacement, the 1995 Yeltsin-created Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB), on July 25, 1998.

Putin only led the FSB for 13 months, but he implemented a complete restructuring and dismissed almost all of the leadership, installing former Soviet-era KGB agents loyal to the ideals of Kryuchkov and his vision of restoring Russia to its former glory.

Like Lenin in 1922, Yeltsin was in declining health in 1998. Presidential elections were coming in less than two years, and potential candidates were starting to position themselves and build alliances. Within the Kremlin, Yeltsin’s inner circle started to warn him about Putin’s restructuring of the FSB, his growing influence and connections, and his desire to return to restore Soviet-style state controls. His aspirations were supported by a growing list of oligarchs, who viewed Putin as someone they could control while leveraging his vision of state security to grow and protect their wealth.

On August 9, 1999, Putin was appointed as one of three deputy prime ministers of the Russian Federation and endorsed by Yeltsin as his future successor in the upcoming 2000 elections. Eight days later, the State Duma confirmed Putin as the acting Prime Minister.

In the span of 2 1/2 years, Putin had gone from a failed St. Petersburg deputy mayor to the unelected prime minister of the second most powerful country on the planet. Even before Yeltsin’s endorsement, alarm bells were going off within the corners of the FSB and in the pages of the newly created free press about Putin and his plans.

To help his rise to power, Putin makes a series of deals with Islamic terrorist leaders

In the Sixth Part of this series, Chechen terrorist leader Shamil Basayev and his connections to Pakistan and Afghanistan and his encounters with organizations adjacent to Al Qaeda were lightly touched.

A young Basayev arrived in Azerbaijan in 1992 with an estimated 1,000 Chechen militants to fight in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, leading a call for jihad with Chechen leader Salman Raduyev. Basayev left for the Abkhazia region of Georgia in late 1992, while Raduyev continued to command the Chechen contingent. Reportedly, Basayev ordered the withdrawal from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan in 1993 due to a series of military defeats and a lack of support for the call to jihad.

Chechen leader and terrorist Shamil Basayev – 1995
Credit – Photographer Natalia Medvedeva – public domain

Basayev would fight on the side of the Moscow-backed Abkhazia separatists, and he would go on to lead up to 1,500 volunteer fighters of the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (CMPC). Basayev is accused of overseeing the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in the breakaway Abkhazia Republic, the September 27 to October 11, 1993, Sukhumi Massacre, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions for the mass executions of captured Georgian soldiers.

This is where Basayev’s history becomes murky. He is believed to have defended Russian President Yeltsin during the failed August 1991 coup d’etat, occupying the barricades of the Russian White House with other Yeltsin supporters. There are many allegations that during the War in Abkhazia, Basayev and up to 200 Chechens within the CMPC received training and arms from the Main Defense Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (GRU). The CMPC would fall apart at the end of the War in Abkhazia, with different factions supporting the Moscow-backed breakaway republic and others aligning with Chechnya and other radical Islamic factions. And despite having a death warrant on his head, Basayev was able to freely travel between Chechnya, Georgia, and the Russian Federation.

Basayev would go on to run for president of Chechnya, coming in second place. He was then appointed deputy prime minister by newly elected president Aslam Maskhadov and actively worked to undermine his government. During a six-month period in which he was symbolically named the acting president of Chechnya, he gutted government oversight, shut down numerous ministries, and turned a blind eye to the theft of natural resources. By the end of 1998, Basayev was a warlord leading a rival faction against Maskhadov and had aligned himself with Afghanistan mujahideen veteran and Al Qaeda leader Ibn al-Khattab, a Saudi national. Al-Khattab had also broken away from President Maskhadov despite being named the Chief of Military Training for the Chechen Armed Forces in 1996.

Basayev met with Putin in March 1999 and agreed to help the Kremlin topple Maskhadov’s Chechen government and support a Russian invasion. Putin would reverse the failure of the First Chechen War with a quick success by taking just the northern third of the republic to the Terek River. Transcripts of phone records would show that Putin and his associates had numerous phone calls with almost a dozen radical Muslims and were using the FSB to orchestrate both kinetic and information warfare plans.

Al-Khattab and Basayev, along with Raduyev, openly called for the occupation of the Russian Federation Republic of Dagestan and the formation of a single state under Islamic Sharia law, declaring the final goal of expelling all Russians from the Caucasus. Putin had reached 20 years into the KGB past to tap the fears of long-dead Soviet leaders that Iranian-style radical Islam would spread to the Caucasus.

Independent of Putin’s plan, in April 1999, the Emir of the Islamic Djamaat of Dagestan (IDD), Bagauddin Magomedov, called for jihad to liberate “Dagestan and the Caucasus from the Russian colonial yoke” and created an unusual and doomed alliance. Magomedov and the IDD were aligned with Wahhabism, while Al-Khattab formed the Islamic Legion, comprised of foreign fighters, with a significant number aligned with the doctrine of Al Qaeda.

In July, Turpal-Ali Atgeriyev, the Deputy Prime Minister of National Security for Chechnya, and Deputy Prosecutor-General Adam Torkhashev traveled to Moscow to meet with Putin and warn him of the imminent invasion of Dagestan, which Putin was well aware of and counting on. Shortly after the Moscow meeting, an article in the Russian newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda warned that the Kremlin was preparing a series of false flag attacks in Moscow to undermine President Yeltsin and cited leaked documents.

The War in Dagestan and false flag attacks in Russia bring Putin to power

On August 4, the IDD launched its first attacks, and three days later, the Muslim Legion invaded the Republic of Dagestan. In an ironic twist, Basayev and al-Khattab were not greeted as liberators and instead were met with fierce resistance. Shortly after, President Yeltsin ordered the bombing of Chechnya. On August 19, newly minted acting prime minister Putin set a deadline for Russian forces to crush the rebellion by the end of the month. In the same speech, Putin threatened to start bombing Dagestani rebels “hiding in Chechnya.” In reality, airstrikes on Chechnya started on August 8, but the Kremlin didn’t acknowledge the bombings until August 26. By September 11, major fighting in Dagestan was over, and the Second Chechen War had started. What Basayev didn’t know is he had been double-crossed by Putin, who had cut another deal. He didn’t want a third of Chechnya; he was going to take it all.

Yeltsin and Putin intentionally delayed the response of Russian ground troops, preferring to let Dagestani forces exhaust themselves while prolonging the raids coming from Chechnya. By the end of August, a wave of terror attacks would spread across Russia, with history revealing the FSB executed most of them under the order of Putin.

The first attack was on August 31 at an arcade in the Manezh Square Shopping Mall in Moscow, adjacent to the Kremlin. Three phone calls allegedly from the Liberation Army of Dagestan took credit for the attack. Future investigations would blame the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade, an Islamist mujahideen organization co-created by al-Khattab and Basayev.

The next bombing was on September 4 in Buynaksk in Dagestan. The apartment building served as housing for Russian border guards and their families and was destroyed by a car bomb. Sixty-four people were killed, and another 133 were wounded. A second car bomb containing 2,700 kilograms of explosives was found by the Russian Army Hospital and defused.

On September 9, a bomb estimated to weigh 400 kilograms exploded in a Moscow apartment building. The nine-story brezhnevka was destroyed, killing 106 and wounding 249. The next day, Putin called United States President Bill Clinton and told him he was confident the bombing was executed by Chechen terrorists, adding that he believed the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Africa were not executed by Al Qaeda but by Chechnya.

At 5 a.m. on September 13, the next bomb exploded, destroying an eight-story apartment building, killing 119 and wounding 200. Due to poor planning, the false flag plot started to fall apart.

After the second bombing, Moscow businessman and landlord Achemez Gochiyaev had a horrifying realization. An acquaintance of his who was a former FSB agent had requested to rent the basement areas of four apartment buildings. The two blasts were in his buildings. Believing he was being set up, he contacted the Ministry of Internal Affairs, explaining what had happened and warning that bombs were likely in two more buildings. Moscow police searched the basements, finding massive bombs made of RDX.

As the smoke was still rising over the apartment block on Kashira Road, State Duma Deputy Gennadiy Seleznyov announced that there had been a third bombing in Volgodonsk in the Rostov-on-Don region of Russia. There had been no such explosion, but on September 16, a third bomb destroyed a nine-story brezhnevka in Volgodonsk, killing 17 and wounding 69.

On September 22, a man in the Russian city of Ryazan reported seeing two suspicious men carrying sacks into the basement of an apartment building from a car with partially obscured Moscow license plates. Police found 150 kilograms of white powder in three sacks with detonators and timers. Onsite testing identified the contents of the bags as the explosive RDX. The next day, Putin ordered the bombing of the Chechen capital of Grozny in response to the allegedly most recent attempted terrorist attack, declaring “no sympathy for the bandits.”

A quick investigation and telephone records traced the car and two men to a telephone number linked to the FSB office in Ryazan. The Ministry of Internal Affairs arrested three people who identified themselves as FSB agents from Moscow. Putin’s operation was in crisis, as Moscow had declared that the explosives were real to justify the bombing of Grozny. On September 24, the Kremlin declared the bags were filled with sugar, and the entire event was an FSB training exercise that ended in success due to the quick reaction of local authorities.

President Boris Yeltsin naming Vladimir Putin acting President of the Russian Federation – December 31, 1999
Credit – Press office of the Russian Federation – photographer unknown

Despite the obvious mistakes pointing to a government plot, Putin’s popularity soared. On December 31, Yeltsin resigned and named Putin acting President. Riding a wave of popularity due to the response to the so-called terror attacks and the initial success in Dagestan, Putin cruised to victory when Russians went to the polls on March 26, 2000.

Looking into Putin’s soul

The United States held elections in November 2000, and George W. Bush was elected the 43rd President in a contested election. On June 16, 2001, President Bush and President Putin met for the first time in Brdo Pri Kranju, Slovenia. Almost the entire world believed the Cold War was over, and despite the U.S. intelligence reports about Moscow’s ties to Islamic terror and the false flag attacks on Moscow, President Bush took his own path.

“This was a very good meeting. And I look forward to my next meeting with President Putin in July. I very much enjoyed our time together. He’s an honest, straightforward man who loves his country. He loves his family. We share a lot of values. I view him as a remarkable leader. I believe his leadership will serve Russia well. Russia and America have the opportunity to accomplish much together; we should seize it. And today, we have begun.”

The Western press asked hard questions after Bush and Putin made their separate remarks. It was a question directed at Putin, which led to a pivotal moment in U.S.-Russian relations.

“A question to both of you, if I may. President Putin, President Bush has said that he’s going to go forward with his missile defense plans basically with or without your blessing. Are you unyielding in your opposition to his missile defense plan? Is there anything you can do to stop it? And to President Bush. Did President Putin ease your concern at all about the spread of nuclear technologies by Russia, and is this a man that Americans can trust?”

Bush directed the question to Putin first, and when the question of trust was addressed, the Russian President said, “Can we trust Russia? I’m not going to answer that. I could ask the very same question.”

There was a brief but awkward pause caused by Putin’s response, with Bush breaking the sudden tension.“I will answer the question. I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. And I appreciated so very much the frank dialogue. There was no kind of diplomatic chit-chat, trying to throw each other off balance. There was a straightforward dialogue. And that’s the beginning of a very constructive relationship. I wouldn’t have invited him to my ranch if I didn’t trust him.”

Russian troops stand over a mass grave in Chechnya – February 2000
Credit – Natalia Medvedeva – Creative Commons 3.0

During their private meeting, Bush and Putin discussed Chechnya, Dagestan, and Russia’s response to Islamic terrorism, among many other topics. Putin was right to refuse to answer the trust question because he wasn’t negotiating honestly. Over a year ago, Putin cut another deal with the Chief Mufti of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation had completed the first phase of its occupation of Chechnya in June 2000, and Putin named Kadyrov the head of the administration of the Chechen Republic.

For Al Qaeda, which was at its apex of power, this was the ultimate betrayal.

Next installment: A second wave of Islamic terror spreads across Russia, and this time, the attacks are real. The Second Chechen War continues for another eight years. Osama bin Laden’s influence fades, and Al Qaeda fractures. The ISIS caliphate rises and falls as Syria becomes the next Russian battleground.

International News, National

Part 6: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

This is part six of a ten-part series that explains the rise of modern Islamic extremism. From 1951 to 2021, a series of key geopolitical events, many independent of each other, caused the Islamic Revolution, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the creation and collapse of the caliphate, and the reconstitution of ISIS as ISKP. While Western influence and diplomatic blunders are well documented through this period, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are equally culpable. The editors would like to note that a vast majority of the 1.8 billion people who are adherents to some form of Islam are peaceful and reject all forms of religious violence.

Read Part Five: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

The Russian Civil War the West ignored—The First Chechen War

A very brief history of Chechnya 

From March 1990 to September 1991, 11 Soviet republics that used to be countries broke away from the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. What made the revolution in the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic unique was that the region had never been its own country.

During the Caucasus Wars, the Imperial Russian Empire fought a loose association of vassal states and the Ottoman Empire from 1819 to 1864. During the 45-year conflict, hundreds of thousands were forced to flee to the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia. Ultimately, the Caucasus was absorbed into the Empire, and fighting between the Ottoman Turks and Russia continued.

When the Russian Imperial Empire collapsed in 1917, Chechens made their first attempt to form their country but were defeated in 1922 at the end of the Red Terror and became part of the Soviet Union. In 1936, Joseph Stalin arbitrarily created the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, located on the northern border of Georgia and Azerbaijan and deported, arrested, and executed thousands during the 1937 Great Purge.

During World War II, Nazi Germany occupied parts of the republic from 1942 to early 1944 during Hitler’s campaign to secure the Caucasus natural resources. After the Nazi withdrawal, Stalin ordered the republic to dissolve, accusing the residents who were living under occupation of collaborating with Germany. Over 500,000 were deported to slave labor camps in Siberia, imprisoned, and executed, accused of disloyalty to the state. The region was divided between three bordering republics.

In 1957, Soviet Secretary General Nikkita Kruschev reversed Stalin’s order of deportation, permitting survivors of Stalin’s genocide to return and reestablish the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic.

Chechens seek independence

Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev – date unknown
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

On November 27, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic declared itself as a sovereign state and adopted the name of the Checheno-Ingush Soviet Socialists Republic. Led by Dzhokhar Dudayev, the First Chechen National Congress met in June 1991, despite the Committee and the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic still being seated.

In Russia, the failed coup d’etat by the Soviet Union Communist Party from August 19 to 21, 1991, saw the dissolution of the Communist Party and ultimately led to the final collapse of the Soviet Union four months later. Dudayev saw an opportunity to take advantage of the chaos.

In a third meeting of the Chechen National Congress at the beginning of September, the Committee and the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic were removed, and political control was transferred to the Chechen National Congress Executive Committee.

On September 6, Dudayev declared the existing Soviet political and power structure had been dissolved. Armed supporters stormed TV and radio stations and the House of Political Education, where the Supreme Soviet was holding legislative meetings. Over 40 deputies were beaten, and the Supreme Soviet of the Grozny City Council was thrown out of a window. On September 15, the last meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic dissolved Parliament and handed over control to the Chechen National Congress Executive Committee.

Elections were held on October 27 to install a new government despite a warning from Moscow that doing so would be illegal. Dudayev overwhelmingly won and, on October 28, formerly declared independence from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

The President of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin, had survived the August coup largely due to poor organization and planning. Fearing he would look politically weak and concerned that other Oblasts and Republics within the RSFSR would declare independence, he ordered Russian Air Assault forces (VDV) deployed to the capital of Grozny to restore order and reestablish the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic. Irregular troops loyal to Dudayev surrounded the airport, forcing the VDV to leave just three days later.

In June 1992, the self-declared Checheno-Ingush Soviet Socialist Republic split in two. The Republic of Ingushetia was formed along the Georgian border and joined the newly created Russian Federation, and the Chechen Republic was formed.

Old wounds and civil war

Dudayev severed economic and political ties with Moscow, collapsing the economy of the newly created republic. In the neighboring Republic of Ingushetia, old wounds caused by Stalin’s 1944 expulsion from the region exploded into ethnic violence between North Ossetians and Ingushetians. Yeltsin ordered Russian troops deployed to the Chechen border to stop arms shipments to Ingushetia, which Dudayev saw as a prelude to a Russian invasion. Chechnya didn’t test the border blockade, choosing to negotiate with Moscow to withdraw their troops.

The fighting in Ingushetia spilled over into Chechnya, which found itself in a low-grade civil war. There were four factions, including those loyal to Dudayev, those loyal to Moscow, those looking to settle old scores with Russians who were moved into the area by Stalin from 1944 to 1953, and those fighting in support of Ingushetia. Dudayev survived two coup d’etats—one in April 1993 and the second in December. After the failed second attempt, opposition leaders created a Provisional Council and asked Moscow for military assistance. By this time, Dudayev had transferred power to himself and in January 1994, renamed the Chechen Republic to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

Moscow failed in its threat assessment in the run-up to the First Chechen War. Yeltsin and his advisors believed that the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were well-trained and equipped, that Chechen separatists were of poor quality, and that Chechen citizens would welcome Russian troops as liberators.

Law and order were collapsing in 1994, and Moscow used a strategy of sending Russian troops as “little green men,” arming pro-Moscow separatists, and providing close air support using unmarked aircraft. Backed by the Russian Federation, opposition forces attacked Grozny in October and November, with both attempts ending in failure. During the second attack, forces loyal to Dudayev captured 20 Russian Federation soldiers and up to 50 members of Russian state security, exposing Moscow’s direct involvement.

On November 29, President Yeltsin issued an ultimatum. All factions were to disarm and the captured Russians must be released. Dudayev refused, and on December 1, Russia started a bombing campaign of Chechnya to set conditions for a land invasion. The First Chechen War had started.

Russian tactics breed a terroristic response

The Russian Federation started its ground attack on December 11. The Minister of Defense of Russia, Pavel Grachev, boasted that a single regiment could end the separatist movement and that major fighting would be completed by December 20.

A destroyed column of Russian tanks in Dolinskoye, Chechnya – December 1994
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

Russian forces advanced to the outskirts of Grozny, and on December 29, a ten-day aerial bombardment and artillery campaign shattered the city, killing thousands of civilians. Russia accused Chechen separatists of using civilians as human shields, while Russia was accused of attacking civilians fleeing the assault. Grachev’s prediction of a nine-day special operation became a distant memory, and it was not until March 6, 1995, that Russian troops secured the remains of Grozny. Between 27,000 and 35,000 civilians were killed, with former Soviet Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev condemning the assault.

The peak of Russian control of Chechen was reached in March 1996, followed by a series of crushing defeats, including the loss of control of Grozny. In less than two years, Russian losses were halfway to the Russo-Afghan War, and the campaign had become very unpopular. President Yeltsin was looking for an exit.

On August 19, the Russian Federation issued an ultimatum that it would use strategic bombers and ballistic missiles to destroy the rest of Grozny if Chechen separatists did not leave the city. The declaration created panic, and thousands of civilians were killed during the Russian shelling as they tried to flee. Three days later, Yeltsin’s national security advisor brokered a ceasefire and dismissed the previous ultimatum as a “joke.”

Despite numerous reports of war crimes and human rights atrocities in the newly created free press in the Russian Federation, Moscow officially tolerated the tactics of its military. The worst incident was the Samashki Massacre in 1995, where 300 civilians were executed and burned alive by Russian troops using flame throwers, machine guns, and grenades.

In 95% Muslim Chechnya, Jihad is declared

In 1991, Jordanian-Chechen Sheikh Ali Fathi al-Shishani returned to Grozny. Al-Shishani had fought with the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, and in 1993, he formed the Salafi Islamic Jamaat in Chechnya, recruiting Jordanian-Palestinians to the cause.

In addition to the faction created by al-Shishani, as early as 1992, Muslim extremists in Chechnya were being supported by the Afghan Taliban-aligned Haqqani Network. Chechens and exiled Chechen nationals traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan for training and engaged in illegal arms shipments, reportedly supported by the Pakistan intelligence services. Fighters, arms, and recruits moved across the Azerbaijani border. The Haqqani Network collaborated with Osama bin Laden during the Russo-Afghan War and, in 1995, pledged their loyalty to Al Qaeda.

In the first half of 1994, the first terror attacks carried out by the Salafi Islamic Jamaat and their supporters included the hijacking of airplanes and buses, mostly to draw attention to the situation in Chechnya. As al-Shishani grew his ranks and influence, he caught the attention of the Chief Mufti of Chechnya, Akhmat Kadyrov, and in December 1994, they formed the Chechen Mujahideen. A month later, Kadyrov, the father of Chechen warlord Colonel General Ramzan Kadyrov, announced a global Jihad against Russia and all its interests, declaring, “There are a million Chechens and 150 million Russians. If every Chechen kills 150 Russians, we will win.”

For the remainder of the First Chechen War, al-Shishani acted as a conduit between Al Qaeda and Chechen militants and recruited Arab fighters. Islamic militants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan fought against Russian troops while simultaneously waging a terror campaign against the non-Muslim minority in Chechnya.

On June 14, 1995, a group of Chechen militants led by terrorist leader Shamil Basayev stormed the city of Budyonnovsk in the Stavropol Krai region of Russia. A month earlier, a Russian airstrike killed 12 of his family members, including his mother. The Budyonnovsk raid was the first major terror operation conducted within Russia.

The group took control of the City Council building and the Ministry of Internal Affairs before Russian troops arrived. Basayev led a withdrawal to the city hospital, where up to 2,000 hostages were taken, including 150 children. Moscow accused the militants of executing up to 100 civilians as they moved from the city center to the hospital.

The next day, when Russian negotiators did not meet Chechen demands, a hostage was executed, followed by five more. Elite Russian units attempted to storm the hospital on June 16 but failed to gain control of the building and killed dozens of hostages. A brief ceasefire was declared, and 225 hostages were released.

Moscow negotiated a ceasefire on June 18, including within Chechnya. Over the next two days, the remaining hostages were released, and the militants were allowed to withdraw, including Basayev. It was a humiliating defeat for Russia and bolstered Chechen resistance. Between 130 and 170 hostages were killed by Chechen and Russian forces during the hostage crisis, and approximately 35 Russian police officers and soldiers. The international community condemned the Chechen militants and the Russian response, which President Yeltsin dismissed at the G8 meeting in Halifax, Canada.

As the fighting in Chechnya raged, terrorist leader Basayev contacted a Russian reporter and told her to look for a buried package in Moscow’s Izmailovsky Park. On November 23, she made a shocking discovery. Basayev had hidden a container holding 32 kilograms of medical-grade radioactive Cesium-137 that had been stolen from the Budyonnovsk Hospital. The find received little publicity, but Russian and Western intelligence interpreted the incident as a warning that Chechen militants were prepared to make a dirty bomb and use it.

On January 9, 1996, 200 Chechen separatists, led by Chechen Salman Raduyev, seized the Russian Federation military airfield in Kizlyar, Dagestan, taking over 2,000 people, mostly civilians, hostage. An agreement to release the women and children was quickly reached, and Moscow negotiated in bad faith for the Chechens to withdraw. One hundred and fifty civilians were taken as human shields, with the convoy of 13 buses ambushed by Russian VDV forces at the Dagestan-Chechen border, forcing the convoy to fall back to the village of Pervomayskoye.

Up to 500 troops repeatedly attacked the village despite the 150 hostages and up to 1,200 civilians caught in the middle. Nine days of fighting killed hundreds, with a majority of the Chechen militants able to break out of the encirclement. The village was destroyed in the fighting and Raduyev became internationally famous for leading the raid.

During the siege at Pervomayskoye, two Chechen terrorists and three Turks, including Erdinç Tekir, who was trained by Basayev from 1992 to 1993 in the Georgian-Abkhazian Conflict, hijacked a ferry boat and threatened to kill the 119 Russian nationals on board. Despite Russian demands that Turkey attempt an armed rescue of the hostages, negotiations continued. The crisis ended on June 19, the same day Chechen militants withdrew from Pervomayskoye, with the terrorists surrendering to Turkish authorities. By the end of 1997, all five had escaped Turkish custody.

In February 1996, Yeltsin ordered the capture and extrajudicial executions of Dudayev, Basayev, and Raduyev. Raduyev would surprise being shot in the head by a sniper in March of the same year, and Dudayev would die in a targeted Russian airstrike a month later.

Raduyev would go rogue, defying acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, and is credited with at least six terror attacks. In June, a bomb blast in the Moscow Metro killed four and wounded 12. In July, two bombings of electric trolleys wounded 23. Several days later, Raduyev took credit for the explosions and vowed that if Russian troops did not withdraw from Chechnya, more acts of revenge would continue.

There were two more major incidents before Russian troops withdrew in accordance with the August 31 ceasefire agreement. Chechen gunmen hijacked an airplane in March 1996 and surrendered peacefully in Germany, and on November 18, a terrorist attack on a Russian base in Dagestan killed 56, with Chechen leaders claiming they had no involvement.

As part of the ceasefire, Moscow agreed to revisit the issue of Chechen independence in 2001. On January 5, 1997, the last Russian troops withdrew. It was a humiliating defeat after the failure of the Russo-Afghan War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. Over 8,000 Russian soldiers were killed, and up to 40,000 more wounded. The Russian military had lost more tanks in Grozny than in its attack on Berlin in April and May of 1945.

Chechens collect the bodies of dead civilians in Grozny – December 1995
Credit – Photographer Mikhail Evstafiev – used under Creative Commons License

In Chechnya, the violence from 1994 to 1997 left an estimated 100,000 civilians dead, 500,000 displayed, and thousands missing. The republic and the economy were in tatters, and thousands of Islamic militants who had fought against the Soviet Union and Russia for more than a decade were looking for a new fight.

Terrorism didn’t end with the end of the First Chechen War

There is significant evidence that Al Qaeda and sympathetic Islamic terrorist groups helped arm, finance, and supply Chechen factions during the First Chechen War. Russian intelligence warned the CIA that bin Laden was working directly with Chechnya in an attempt to acquire Cesium-137 to build a dirty bomb but never specified a target. The 1995 Moscow incident dramatically increased efforts within Russia, with support from the West, to secure its reserves of refinied radioactive materials.

After the initial declaration of independence by Chechnya in 1990, the territory became increasingly radicalized. Much like in the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, executions, torture, rape, and the destruction of towns and villages fueled a radical Islamic response. In early 1995, Dudayev was deeply unpopular and faced a no-confidence vote, which he stopped by absorbing all political power. The successful terror attacks against Russia, combined with Russian brutality, drew thousands to the Chechen cause while introducing even more radical elements into the mix. Dudayev’s transition of Chechnya to Islamic law resulted in additional support from his Al Qaeda and other terror network financiers. For the Western conscious, the violence in Chechnya was little more than a footnote.

The end of hostilities did not bring an end to terrorism committed by radical Islamist Chechens. On April 21, 1997, on the one-year anniversary of the death of President Dudayev, Basayev was credited with the bombing of the Armavir Railroad Station in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia, killing three and wounding eight. He is also believed to be behind the planning of the April 28 train station bombing in Pyatigorsk, which killed two and wounded 17. In that incident, the Federal Security Service of Russia (FSB) arrested two Chechen militants. The two women would be sentenced by a Russian court in March 1999, sparking Dudayev to vow a new wave of terrorism.

Although peace was achieved within Chechnya, the open issue of full Chechen independence had been pushed back. It is highly unlikely that Moscow negotiated in good faith, and an embittered Vladimir Putin was building his own inner circle within the Russian oligarch class. He had political aspirations. Chechnya’s shattered economy and infrastructure plunged the country into chaos, where rival Muslim factions ranging from traditionalists to those seeking to establish a caliphate fought for control.

Much like Europe and the United States, Russia got its first taste of Al Qaeda-supported terrorism in the 1990s. Decades of misguided foreign policy by the new post-Cold War allies served to strengthen the ranks of multiple terrorist organizations.

By the end of 2001, Russia and the United States would be united in their mutual war against terror, and both countries would have new Presidents. One could be described as overly idealistic, and the other was plotting the return of the greatness of the Russian Imperial Empire.

Tomorrow’s installment: Al Qaeda spreads terror to four continents, killing thousands, leading to the 9/11 attacks. The Second Chechen War starts, and a new American President sees the new Russian Federation President, Vladimir Putin, as an ally in the war against terror.

Read Part Seven: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

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Part 5: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

This is part five of a ten-part series that explains the rise of modern Islamic extremism. From 1951 to 2021, a series of key geopolitical events, many independent of each other, caused the Islamic Revolution, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the creation and collapse of the caliphate, and the reconstitution of ISIS as ISKP. While Western influence and diplomatic blunders are well documented through this period, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are equally culpable. The editors would like to note that a vast majority of the 1.8 billion people who are adherents to some form of Islam are peaceful and reject all forms of religious violence.

Read Part Four: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

Iraq invades Kuwait, Al Qaeda prepares for terror, and storm clouds brew over Chechnya

Prologue 

In 1990, the Soviet Union was in collapse, and its influence on the world stage was greatly diminished as General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev focused on internal issues. Western news reports told a story of a peaceful transition from Soviet rule in the Eastern Bloc nations and the Soviet Republics.

The reality was very different from what played on American TV sets, with Soviet troops and security forces continuing to use brutality to try and hold the USSR together. Republics that were previously countries were allowed to slip away. But when the idea of freedom from Soviet rule started to spread to historical Russian Imperial Empire lands, that was a bridge too far—which will be the topic in the sixth installment. This detour to explain the roots of the First Gulf War is critical to understanding what caused the full radicalization of Osama bin Laden, which led to the creation of ISIS and two decades of Islamic extremist terrorism within the borders of the Russian Federation.

Saddam Hussein prepares for another war 

At the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein intensified his brutal suppression of Shia and Sunni Muslims and Iraqi Kurds. While the Ba’aathist government aligned with the idea of Pan-Arab nationalism in the Greater Middle East, it rejected Sharia law and fundamentalist Islam. As the only secular Arab government in the region, Iraq was a terror target for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran and condemned by the newly formed Al Qaeda Arab Legion led by Osama bin Laden. Due to its secular lean and opposition to Iran, the West opted to ignore Hussein’s brutality and pro-Soviet stance and maintained cautious diplomatic ties.

The Iran-Iraq War had been fought to a stalemate, but the core of Iraq’s military might and Hussein’s Republican Guard was not only left intact but had grown. Shunning repayment of the debts Baghdad accumulated, Hussein went on a spending spree, purchasing over $10 billion of tanks and other heavy equipment from the Soviet Union ($25.5 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars) and additional equipment from France. He expanded his chemical weapons program and invested in domestic weapons production using dual-use goods.

Hussein wanted Kuwait back, in alignment with the long-standing Ba’aathist goal of reunification, whether through negotiations or military force. A new war was coming to the Middle East.

The creation of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia and the start of the First Gulf War

At the end of World War I, as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the British took control of large swaths of the Middle East. Due to centuries-old territorial disputes, fighting erupted between the Kingdom of Kuwait, which was loosely part of Iraq, and the House of Najd, which would become part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1923.

In an attempt to resolve the regional disputes, the British High Commissioner in Baghdad, Percy Cox, arbitrarily defined the borders between Iraq, Kuwait, and Nejd. Many Kuwaitis and Iraqis were against the split, and there were significant reunification movements, leading to an armed revolt in 1939. At the behest of Great Britain, Shaikh Ahmad al-Sabah, the tenth ruler of the Sheikhdom of Kuwait, put down the rebellion.

Kuwait would remain a British protectorate until June 19, 1961. Iraq refused to recognize Kuwati’s independence but backed down less than a month later after the detente by the Arab League backed by Britain. A treaty of friendship was signed in 1963, and on May 14, the U.N. formally recognized Kuwait’s sovereignty. Tension between Iraq and Kuwait remained high, with a series of minor border crises and skirmishes through the mid-1970s.

Economic warfare, a 70-year-old border dispute, and a diplomatic blunder leads to war

During the eight years of the Iran-Iraq War, Kuwait had loaned $65 billion to Iraq for economic and military assistance. Iraq claimed it couldn’t repay, and Hussein demanded that Kuwait forgive the debt because it had defended the region from the spread of Iranian radicalism. Kuwait refused and escalated the situation by implementing a 40 percent increase in oil production.

In 1990, Baghdad accused Kuwait of slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields and ignoring OPEC-set limits on oil production. During the late spring and summer, the Iraqi military started building up on the Kuwait and Saudi borders.

Washington was alarmed, and on July 25, 1990, United States Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, met with Hussein for an explanation. During the meeting, Glaspie told him, “I know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” Hussein promised that Baghdad would look for a diplomatic solution but framed the issue with Kuwait as an existential crisis, declaring that Iraq would “never accept death.”

History continues to debate if Hussein interpreted Glaspie’s words as a green light to invade Kuwait. In 1991 Senate hearings and under oath, she denied even making the statement, but intelligence leaks in 2011 confirmed the content of her conversation with Hussein and that she submitted a positive read of the meeting to Washington.

The next day, OPEC announced that Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates agreed to reduce oil output by 25 percent in an attempt to ease regional tensions. The diplomacy and economic concessions didn’t matter; Hussein had always intended to occupy Kuwait by force, and the slant drilling claim was his casus belli.

An abandoned Iraqi BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle in Kuwait City – First Gulf War
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

On August 2, Iraqi troops crossed the border, defeating the Kuwaiti military in just two days. Under Iraqi occupation, the brutal repression of Kuwaitis and Palestinian refugees living in the country started, including extrajudicial killings, torture, kidnappings, imprisonment, and rape. Hussein’s Republic Guard looted the country, and Saudi officials worried that the historical disagreements between Iraq and the Najd would lead to the invasion of their country.

Aftermath of February 25, 1991, Iraqi Scud missile attack on Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
Credit – Staff Sergeamt Lee F. Corkran – public domain

The concern was not misplaced. U.N. Resolution 678 gave Iraq until January 15 to withdraw from Kuwait. If the resolution was ignored, then enforcement by military force was authorized. When a coalition of 42 nations started their air campaign against Iraq in January 1991, Baghdad responded by launching Scud short-range ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia, mostly targeting civilians. The attacks killed one Saudi and wounded 78. A missile strike on a U.S. logistics base in Dhahran killed 27 American soldiers and wounded more than 100.

Iraqi forces briefly invaded Saudi Arabia on January 29 but were pushed back. The first coalition forces crossed into Iraq on February 15 to set conditions for the main invasion, which started on February 24. Major fighting ended on March 1, with the Iraqi military shattered. The advance toward the Iraqi capital of Baghdad ended with Hussein pressing for peace and U.S. armored forces reaching the limit of their logistics.

Saudi response to the Kuwait invasion is the final straw for Osama bin Laden

After Iraq invaded Kuwait, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia formally requested military assistance from the U.S. After the request, bin Laden met with him and Minister of Defense Sultan bin Abdulaziz, claiming that he could lead a coalition of former mujahadeen fighters and Al Qaeda to defend Saudi Arabia. Asked how he would respond to a theoretical chemical weapons attack, bin Laden responded, “with faith.”

Fahd and bin Abdulaziz were not impressed.

After bin Laden was rejected, he denounced the Saudi government and royal family, stating that the Qu’ran forbid non-Muslims from stepping foot in Saudi Arabia and that Mecca and Medina could only be defended by Sunni Muslims. His continued criticism, political interference, and repeated attempts to lead Muslim clerics in a fatwa declaration against the Saudi royal family led to his house arrest and eventual exile. Bin Laden’s radicalization was complete. In 1991, he and his Al Qaeda militants left for Sudan, and the Saudis were glad to see him go.

The Soviet Union crumbles

An unknown man protesting in Vilnius, Lithuania, on January 13, 1991, during the Soviet Union’s attempt to stop Lithuanian independence
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

On June 4, 1989, the Solidarity Trade Union overwhelmingly won the elections in Poland, starting a series of revolutions, first in the Eastern Bloc, quickly followed by the Soviet Union.

  • May 2, 1989 – Hungary starts to remove its fence on the border with Austria
  • June 4, 1989 – Poland ends Communist Rule
  • August 19, 1989 – the Pan-European Picnic is held near Sopronpuszta, Hungary, with over 800 East Germans crossing the Austrian border
  • October 23, 1989 – Hungary dissolves the Presidential Council
  • November 9, 1989 – the Berlin Wall falls
  • November 28, 1989 – Czechoslovakia eliminates the clause in their constitution declaring Communism holds a “leading role”
  • December 1, 1989 – East Germany ends single-party Communist rule
  • December 25, 1989 – Romanian Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife are executed
  • January 15, 1990 – Bulgaria eliminates the clause that Communism holds a “leading role”

The fall of Soviet power over the Eastern Bloc would have a profound impact on an unassuming 5’6″ tall, Moscow-educated KGB agent assigned to Dresden, East Germany. On December 5, 1989, after a mob stormed the headquarters of the East German Stasi, part of the group broke off, turning their attention across the road to the office of the KGB.

The guards retreated into the building, and a KGB Lieutenant Colonel who was the Soviet Union’s liaison to the Stasi emerged, issuing a warning to the crowd: “Don’t try to force your way into this property. My comrades are armed, and they’re authorized to use their weapons in an emergency.”

It was a calculated bluff, but the warning was enough to convince the group to leave. Afraid that a larger, better-organized mob could return, the KGB officer contacted the headquarters of a nearby Red Army unit, asking for reinforcement. His request was denied, being told, “We cannot do anything without orders from Moscow. And Moscow is silent.”

That 14-year KGB veteran was Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Putin. Putin was a product of Yuri Andropov’s KGB leadership and, at that moment, felt he had been stabbed in the back by Moscow and the West’s interference in Soviet affairs.

In another three months, the political tidal wave that swept Eastern Europe would spread across the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. From March 1990 to September 1991, eleven Soviet states that were colonized by the Russian Imperial Empire, or occupied as part of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, or were subjugated under Soviet rule, declared independence.

  • March 11, 1990 – Lithuania
  • April 9, 1991 – Georgia
  • August 20, 1991 – Estonia
  • August 21, 1991 – Latvia
  • August 24, 1991 – Ukraine
  • August 25, 1991 – Belarus
  • August 27, 1991 – Moldova
  • August 31, 1991 – Kyrgrzstan
  • September 1, 1991 – Uzbekistan
  • September 9, 1991 – Tajikistan
  • September 23, 1991 – Armenia

A twelfth, the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic also declared independence on September 7. However, Checheno-Ingush was different as it had never been a country. For Moscow, the newly declared Chechen Republic of Ichkeria could not be allowed to exist. Soviet leaders feared that if they didn’t quell the bid for independence, other oblasts and autonomous republics would follow, plunging the country into multiple civil wars.

The quest for Chechen independence started when the head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of Grozny was murdered. Militants stormed a session of the Supreme Soviet, took over the building, and threw him out a window. One of the men behind the attack who wanted an independent Chechnya was Akhmad Kadyrov.

In November 1991, Moscow sent troops to Grozny in an attempt to regain control. The next 18 years would lead to a civil war and terrorist violence, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. Moscow’s destruction of Chechnya would enrage Osama bin Laden and other militants within the Muslim world.

Tomorrow’s installment: Moscow’s attempt to prevent Chechen independence becomes a brutal war, sparking outrage among radical Islamists. The First Chechen War deepens the ties between Al Qaeda and Islamic militants and Chechen fighters.

Read Part Six: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

International News, National

Part 4: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

2 Comments

This is part four of a ten-part series that explains the rise of modern Islamic extremism. From 1951 to 2021, a series of key geopolitical events, many independent of each other, caused the Islamic Revolution, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the creation and collapse of the caliphate, and the reconstitution of ISIS as ISKP. While Western influence and diplomatic blunders are well documented through this period, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are equally culpable. The editors would like to note that a vast majority of the 1.8 billion people who are adherents to some form of Islam are peaceful and reject all forms of religious violence.

Read Part Three: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

State-sanctioned violence grows in Afghanistan as the Soviets prepare to withdraw

Moscow forces the replacement of their puppet leader in Afghanistan and struggles to find an exit 

When the Soviets assassinated Hafizullah Amin on December 27, 1979, and installed Babrak Karmal as their puppet leader, KGB head Yury Andropov advocated for Mohammad Najibullah to be installed as the head of the state security services of Afghanistan—the KHAD. After his appointment, Andropov immediately started an influence campaign to convince Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and Amin to support expanding Najibullah’s power, which earned him a seat in the Afghanistan Politburo.

When Najibullah took over the KHAD in 1980, he was responsible for 120 people. Six years later, the KHAD was an independent government Ministry with 30,000 highly paid employees trained by KGB advisors. Most of the KHAD budget came from the Soviet Union, and shortly after Andropov became the General Secretary of the Soviet Union in November 1983, he started laying the groundwork to replace Karmal with his protege, Najibullah.

During the six years Najibullah led the KHAD, the KGB funded and trained its staff. Over 16,000 extrajudicial executions were carried out, and 100,000 were imprisoned. The KHAD brutally tortured peasants and tribesmen, burned villages, killed livestock, and destroyed crops in an attempt to identify members of the mujahadeen. In the cities, anti-communists, intellectuals, professors, doctors, and educated professionals were threatened, assassinated, falsely imprisoned, and executed. Flush with funds from the Soviet Union and under Najibullah’s leadership, the KHAD was wildly corrupt.

When Mikhail Gorbachev became the Soviet Premier in 1985, he continued to follow the path created by Andropov, believing that after the Soviet withdrawal, Najibullah would be a stronger leader who would stay loyal to Moscow. The Main Defense Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet Union (GRU) disagreed. In their assessment, Najibullah would be even more polarizing than Karmal and would not be able to build a strong coalition with the various Afghan tribal warlords. Gorbachev was unmoved.

Soviet Union soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan -1986
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

Moscow hoped that their newly installed leader could bring the fractured Afghanistan nation to reconciliation, ending eight years of violence, allowing the exit of Soviet troops, and keeping a pro-Soviet government in place. On May 4, 1986, Najibullah was made the General Secretary of the Afghanistan Politburo, with Karmal remaining as the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council. The assessment by the GRU that ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Pashtuns would resist cooperating with Najibullah, and the armed factions fighting against Soviet troops would reject him was accurate. Additionally, Karmal fought back, openly questioning Najibullah’s loyalty to Afghanistan, exposing his trail of corruption, and spreading misinformation.

Najibullah complained to Moscow that Karmal was interfering with his rule and asked for guidance, with Gorbachev deciding on a non-violent solution. In November 1986, Karmal was dismissed from the Revolutionary Council and exiled to Moscow. The Kremlin now saw the reconciliation strategy as a failure and decided that negotiating peace was the best option. Gorbachev also believed that due to the improving relationship with the United States, he could push for more favorable terms.

In March 1987, the first round of U.N.-sponsored peace talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan was held in Geneva, Switzerland, with the U.S. and the Soviet Union as guarantors. Pakistan negotiators refused to meet with the Afghanistan delegation because they did not recognize the Soviet-backed and controlled government as legitimate. The first round of negotiations failed, with Pakistan refusing to agree to a 16-month timetable for a controlled withdrawal of Soviet troops, demanding it be eight months. Additionally, the Soviets asked for the immediate end of U.S. arms shipments and financial support to the Afghan resistance as a condition for Soviet withdrawal. Washington refused.

In July, Najibullah made a secret trip to Moscow to meet with Gorbachev. The Soviet leader pressed him to make additional government reforms, hoping that the dead reconciliation plan could be brought back to life. Gorbachev’s council was undermined by the KGB, who advised against implementing some of his recommended reforms. Returning to Afghanistan, Najibullah announced that single-party rule would end. However, there were tight restrictions on what platforms would be acceptable. New parties were required to want to maintain relations with the Soviet Union, had to be Muslim, and had to oppose colonialism, imperialism, Zionism, racial discrimination, apartheid, and fascism. The mujahadeen and all but one armed faction fighting against the Soviet-backed Afghan government boycotted the August elections, but several new leftist parties were formed and were able to gain a handful of government seats.

In September, a second round of peace talks was held in Geneva. While progress was made in establishing the legitimacy of the Afghan government, no progress was made in establishing a timetable for the Soviet withdrawal, and the U.S. again refused to end military and financial aid before the Soviet troop withdrawal was complete.

In November, during the conference of the Afghanistan Politburo, Najibullah proposed accelerating the timetable for the Soviet withdrawal from 16 months to 12. A new constitution was approved, creating the office of the President. On November 30, Najibullah, running unopposed, was elected president of Afghanistan. Under the mandate of the new constitution, the Revolutionary Council would be dissolved and replaced with a General Assembly elected by the people.

On February 8, 1988, Soviet negotiators announced a conditional date of withdrawal from Afghanistan, hoping that the U.S. would agree to the immediate end of military and financial aid to the Afghanistan rebels. Washington rejected the proposal. With the domestic situation in the Soviet Union deteriorating, Gorbachev decided that an unfavorable peace deal was better than remaining in Afghanistan.

On April 14, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. signed the Geneva Accords. Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to non-interference and non-intervention, and Pakistan agreed to stop the flow of weapons across its border. The Soviet Union agreed that the withdrawal of the 40th Combined Arms Army would begin on May 15 and be completed by February 15, 1989. The U.S. did not have to end military and financial aid before the completion of the Soviet withdrawal.

On February 15, 1989, the last column of BTR-80 armored personnel carriers of the Soviet 40th Combined Arms Army crossed the Friendship Bridge into Soviet Uzbekistan. General Boris Gromov symbolically walked behind the troops, becoming the last Soviet soldier to withdraw from Afghanistan. Mobbed by reporters, he cursed profusely, later explaining that his anger was directed at “the leadership of the country, at those who start the wars while others have to clean up the mess.”

The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan elevates Osama bin Laden to a cult of personality

There are questions about how much combat Osama bin Laden was engaged in with the mujahedeen, but he did participate in a handful of tactical battles. During his time in Pakistan and Afghanistan, bin Laden used his wealth and influence to promote victories on the battlefield and recruit Arabs to the Islamic cause within Afghanistan. While bin Laden was media-shy, his talent as a leader was well-known in the Middle East, converting his influence into a cult of personality.

Osama bin Laden -1988
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

But bin Laden was looking ahead to the future. In 1988, shortly after the signing of the Geneva Accords, he quietly founded Al Qaeda. For him, Afghanistan was the end of the beginning. Al Qaeda would continue its violent jihad against what he perceived were the enemies of fundamentalist Islam and fight to establish Muslim states controlled by Sharia law.

Despite fighting against the Soviet Union, a lot of bin Laden’s beliefs were influenced by his exposure to Soviet propaganda, including late 19th Century Eastern European and Imperial Russia antisemitism. In the simplest of terms, bin Laden believed that Muslim Arabs faced four enemies: the Jews and Israel, the United States, “heretics,” and Shia Muslims, particularly Iranian Shias.

At the time of the Soviet withdrawal, bin Laden believed that the West had wronged Arabs and Muslims worldwide. The Al Qaeda charter established that the people of democratic nations directly participate in their government, making them legitimate military targets due to their complicity in their government decisions. Further, any “good Muslim” civilian who was killed due to their proximity to an attack would be blessed in death and go to paradise.

In 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia and was given a hero’s welcome along with his Al Qaeda Arab Legion. He continued to lead a triple life, running aspects of the family construction business, continuing to work with Pakistan and Saudi Arabian intelligence agencies, and indirectly and directly supporting jihadist activity in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Bin Laden would return to Afghanistan to personally lead up to 800 Al Qaeda fighters in Operation Jalalabad, which was an attempt to install a pro-Pakistani mujahadeen government in Kabul. Although Soviet troops had withdrawn from Afghanistan, military aid to the Najibullah government continued. Moscow sent approximately $4 billion in weapons and ammunition, including OTR-21 Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile launchers with Scarab missiles and Su-27 multirole fighter aircraft.

Operation Jalalabad was a complete failure, with the Afghan army using its arsenal to stop the offensive. Up to 500 of bin Laden’s militants were killed, and he was forced to return to Saudi Arabia, further imbittered by another betrayal.

Once back in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden supported opposition movements against the Saudi royal family and ordered the executions of the leaders of the Soviet-backed Yemeni government. He also interfered with reunification talks in Yemen, which has led to decades of civil war, famine, and hundreds of thousands of deaths. The unrest continues to this day, with north Yemini rebels switching from Al Qaeda-oriented dogma to gaining support from the Islamic Republic Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran. Today, the IRGC-backed Houthi rebels control approximately 30 percent of Yemen and have interfered with global shipping since November 2023 in support of the Hamas-initiated war against Israel.

The increasing influence of bin Laden and his meddling in Saudi government affairs drew the attention of King Fahd and the ire of the then-President of Saudi Arabia, Ali Abdullah Saleh. They now viewed bin Laden as more than a problem they could manage—he was becoming a threat.

The Saudis weren’t the only country warily watching bin Laden and the Al Qaeda Arab Legion. U.S. intelligence was also hearing chatter that his plans weren’t just contained to the Greater Middle East.

It was now 1990, and in less than two years, the first attempted Al Qaeda terror attack on U.S. soil would be stopped, and the Saudi government would send bin Laden into exile.

Over the last four chapters, we’ve outlined a number of events that individually, are completely disconnected. However, in 1991, all roads from the Soviet Union, the U.S., Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan converge to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The only thing missing was the final spark. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was preparing to light that fire.

Tomorrow’s installment: Iraq invades Kuwait, sparking the First Gulf War. The Saudi Royal Family rejects a plan by Osama bin Laden, sending him into exile. The Soviet Union starts to collapse and the Kremlin starts another war.

Read Part Four: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

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Part 3: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

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This is part three of a ten-part series that explains the rise of modern Islamic extremism. From 1951 to 2021, a series of key geopolitical events, many independent of each other, caused the Islamic Revolution, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS, the creation and collapse of the caliphate, and the reconstitution of ISIS as ISKP. While Western influence and diplomatic blunders are well documented through this period, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation are equally culpable. The editors would like to note that a vast majority of the 1.8 billion people who are adherents to some form of Islam are peaceful and reject all forms of religious violence.

Read Part Two: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS

Part Three – Efforts by the Soviets and the United States to contain Islamic extremism only helped it to spread

The rise of Saddam Hussein and the start of the Iran-Iraq War

After the death of his brother in an April 1966 plane crash, Abdul Salam Arif came to power in Iraq. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson considered Arif a political moderate and saw an opportunity to improve U.S.-Iraq relations with the hope of tugging the Middle Eastern nation away from the Soviet Union. On June 5, 1967, while dialog between Baghdad and Washington was ongoing, the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War started. In response to the U.S. backing of Israel, Arif severed diplomatic relations.

Arif’s political opponents used the Six-Day War as leverage to push his new government to nationalize the foreign-owned Iraq Petroleum Company so he could use oil as an economic weapon. Behind the discord, the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party was plotting a coup, with future president Saddam Hussein among the lead conspirators. On July 17, 1968, Arif’s government was overthrown in a mostly peaceful coup d’etat, installing Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as president. After taking control, the new Ba’athist government announced it would embrace its current relationship with the Soviet Union and grow relations with the Chinese People’s Republic.

Vice President of Iraq Saddam Hussein (L) and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, better known as the Shah of Iran (R), during the Algiers Agreement meetings in 1975
Credit – Photographer unknown – public domain

Hussein was named vice president of Iraq and led the full nationalization of the country’s oil industry, which was completed in 1972. At the time of the coup, relations between Iraq and Iran were poor due to Iran’s support of Iraqi Kurdish rebels. In late 1974, Hussein directed the Ba’athist government to improve relations with Iran, which led to the March 6, 1975, Algiers Agreement and two additional treaties also signed in 1975.

The Algiers Agreement aimed to settle maritime and territorial disputes in Iran’s Shatt al-Arab region and Iraq’s Khuzestan Province. Additionally, Iran agreed to end its support of the Kurdish Rebellion. After the agreement was signed, foreign relations significantly improved, ending almost a decade of isolation. The diplomatic success significantly expanded Hussein’s power.

After the signing of the Algiers Agreement, Hussein started an aggressive military modernization program, buying billions of dollars of hardware from the Soviet Union and France. In just 15 years, Iraq would build one of the largest conventional militaries in the world. In 1976, Hussein was named the General of the Iraqi Armed Forces while continuing to hold the office of vice president.

Around the same time, President al-Bakr’s health significantly deteriorated. Behind the veil, Hussein was already wielding presidential power and controlling the economy, the military, and foreign affairs. He used that control to become a feared strongman and started cultivating an inner circle of loyalists to take full control of the Ba’athist Party and the leadership of Iraq.

In 1979, President al-Bakr started negotiating with Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad for unification. If an agreement were reached, al-Assad would become the deputy leader of the combined nations, stripping Hussein of his power. On July 16, 1979, in what could be described as a one-man coup d’etat brought on by a health crisis, Hussein forced al-Bakr to resign and became the President of Iraq. Negotiations with Syria about unification immediately ended.

Despite the signing of the Algiers Agreement and the subsequent treaties, relations between Iraq and Iran were strained. The new leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, repeatedly called for the overthrow of the Iraqi Ba’athist government in jingoistic speeches due to Iraq’s embrace of secularism. The newly minted President Hussein praised the Iranian Revolution and Khomeini and called for renewed Iraqi and Iranian friendship and a mutual pledge to stop interfering with each other’s internal affairs.

The call for better relations was hollow and fell on deaf ears, and the diplomatic situation between Iran and Iraq quickly crumbled. On March 8, 1980, Iran recalled its ambassador and demanded that Iraq do the same. The next day, Iraq symbolically declared Iranian Ambassador Fereydoun Adamyat persona non grata.

Before the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s GDP was the largest among the 36 U.N.-recognized Greater Middle East nations. It had over 300,000 active-duty military personnel and was deep into a modernization program, buying billions of dollars of weapons from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union.

One of the immediate outcomes of Khomeini’s rise to power was the embargo of parts, munitions, and other materials to maintain Iran’s military. Arrests and executions eliminated skilled and loyal military officers and pushed their subordinates into hiding. Iran’s military readiness was falling apart.

To deal with dissenters and political enemies, Khomeini created a personal guard, the paramilitary Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), which would go on to be the terrorism-supporting arm of modern-day Iran. On April 30, 1980, Khomeini ordered the creation of the Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed, better known as the Basij. The all-volunteer paramilitary was comprised of poorly trained and led men, most will little education. Often referred to as the 20 Million, during speeches, Khomeini would boast that with the Basij, no nation could defeat Iran.

During the first eight months of 1980, Iran and Iraq accused each other of over 1,200 border incidents, airspace violations, and maritime disputes. Hussein now viewed the Algiers Agreement as a mistake and recognized that he could use the post-revolution chaos in Iran to his advantage. He also saw an opportunity to engage the U.S. through the enemy of my enemy is my friend politics.

Hussein believed he had an opportunity to quickly take back the disputed Khuzestan Providence and its oil fields while expanding Iraq’s access to the Persian Gulf. On September 10, 1980, using the open issues of the Algiers Agreement as a casus belli, Iraq launched a limited military operation to seize the territories of Zain al-Qaws and Saif Saad. Twelve days later, the limited operation turned into a full-scale invasion of Iran, starting an eight-year war.

The Soviet Union becomes stuck in an Afghanistan quagmire

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and completed its coup d’etat, Soviet troops launched a series of large-scale attacks in the central, northern, and western states of Afghanistan through 1985. While these large-scale attacks sometimes brought about temporary stability, the mujahadeen would retreat into Pakistan or deep into the mountains and return as soon as the Soviets withdrew.

Moscow had expected the Afghanistan army to do the majority of the fighting, with Soviet forces providing intelligence, logistics, close air support, and artillery. The opposite happened, with the local military units providing little support and frequently running from battles.

Soviet troops supported by the KGB and Afghanistan KHAD instituted brutal programs against the civilian population to try and find mujahadeen fighters, which only built more support for the Islamic rebel forces. However, the war was essentially a stalemate, and fighting against Soviet brutality made for odd bedfellows. With Western and Middle Eastern reporters embedded with mujahadeen, popular support in the Middle East, Europe, the U.S., and China rapidly grew. the mystique of chiseled-faced tribesmen bravely fighting against Russian tanks and helicopters on horseback was embraced as a noble struggle.

For Europe and the U.S., the fight within Afghanistan was seen as an extension of the Cold War. The Reagan Administration sought to destabilize the Soviet Union economically and diplomatically, with the Department of Defense budget swelling to $1.7 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, 1985
Credit – Erwin Franzen, Creative Commons 2.0-4.0

The mujahadeen and other factions aligned against the Soviets were backed by the U.S., United Kingdom, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and China. Funding for Operation Cyclone, operated by the CIA, dramatically increased in 1986 and included the supply of Stinger antiaircraft missiles to the Afghan resistance. The Stinger provided SHORAD capabilities to the mujahadeen, tipping the balance of power on the battlefield. Russian aviation was practically grounded, and without air support, the number of Russian casualties increased significantly.

With the Soviet military stuck in an Afghanistan quagmire, another seemingly unrelated event would alter the course of world history. On April 26, 1986, after a failed safety test on Reactor 4 at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, technician Leonid Toptunov pushed the AZ-5 button meant to scram the reactor. Instead, due to a design flaw, Reactor 4 exploded, causing the worst nuclear accident in world history.

A combination of a failing and stagnant economy, the inability to keep up with Western defense spending, the war in Afghanistan, and the economic cost of cleaning up the Chornobyl disaster put the Soviet Union irreversibly on the path toward bankruptcy. The metaphorical rusting of the Iron Curtain and the Glasnost programs introduced by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev permitted public criticism of the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Additionally, Gorbachev had been looking for an offramp since becoming Premier in 1985.

In 1987, with popular support for the war plummeting, Moscow announced it would start a controlled two-year withdrawal. For some, the announcement brought hope of a renewed Afghanistan. However, thousands of Islamic fighters didn’t come to fight for liberation. They choose to go to Afghanistan in response to the fatwas calling for the protection of historic Islamic lands from infidel invaders.

For some, like Osama bin Laden, the Soviet withdrawal announcement wasn’t the beginning of the end; it was the end of the beginning. What almost no one knew was bin Laden was already laying the foundation to form a new organization called Al Qaeda.

The United States embraces the Iran-Iraq War and pushes for a stalemate

In the first three months of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq achieved multiple successes on the battlefield before momentum shifted. With relations already firmly established, Iraq was able to freely buy weapons and ammunition from the Soviet Union, France, and China. While the U.S. didn’t directly supply weapons to Baghdad, Washington lifted dual-use sanctions, which permitted the sale of civilian technology and heavy equipment that could be easily pressed into military service. And while declassified records show that no single nation provided Baghdad with the resources and technology to produce chemical weapons, companies from France, the U.S., West Germany, the U.K., and the Netherlands sold dual-use components, with France selling precursor chemicals to support the production of Sarin nerve gas.

Iran had deeper problems and could only find support from North Korea for weapons and ammunition and one other very unusual ally. Israel provided spare parts and ammunition for the existing Iranian arsenal of U.S. military technology. Tel Aviv believed that if Iraq won the war, its victory could empower Syria, which would present a broader threat to their sovereignty and stability.

Season 3, Episode 15 of the American TV Show American DaD – This Clip accurately explains the Iran-Contra Affair

While those were the publicly visible relationships, the U.S. was supporting both combatants. From 1981 to 1986, the CIA sold weapons to Iran through French shell companies. The profits were given to the Contras, who used the money to buy weapons to fight against the Soviet-backed Sandinista government in Nicaragua. When the Iran-Contra Affair was exposed, it blew up into a political scandal.

In 1986, Iranian forces captured the Fao Peninsula in Iraq, sending jolts through the West. Concern grew that Iran could win the war, spreading racial Islam across the Middle East. Due to support through the Iran-Contra Affair, Tehran started sharing military intelligence with Washington, which was already receiving military intelligence from Iraq. The 1986 Iran-initiated Tanker War didn’t help Tehran’s cause, and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia boosted military support to Iraq. To tip the balance of power back, Washington started sharing the Iranian military plans with Baghdad.

Iraq regained the initiative, pushed Iranian forces out of the Fao Peninsula, and on August 20, 1988, United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 ended the Iran-Iraq War. While both nations were left economically devastated, the Iranian military was an empty shell. One to two million people died, including at least 500,000 soldiers. The majority of the military dead were members of the Iranian Basij. Among the dead were at least 60,000 killed by chemical weapons, including 50,000 Iranians and 10,000 Iraqi Kurds.

For Hussein, the last eight years allowed him to transform into a brutal and feared dictator. With the war against Iran over, Hussein set his sights on a new military objective.

Tomorrow’s installment: The Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden becomes a cult of personality.

Read Part Three: The complex history of Islamic extremism and Russia’s contribution to the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS