Across modern history, Western powers have consistently framed themselves as guardians of democracy, stability, and global security. Yet when examined through the record of declassified documents, official admissions, and outcomes on the ground, a far less flattering reality emerges. Groups later branded as terrorists were not merely overlooked or underestimated. In many cases, they were actively cultivated, armed, and legitimised when they served imperial objectives.
The story of Al Qaeda is not an aberration. It is a case study.
Afghanistan and the Birth of a Proxy War
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the conflict was framed in Western capitals as a battle between tyranny and freedom. In practice, it was a strategic opportunity. The United States, through the CIA, launched Operation Cyclone, one of the longest and most expensive covert operations in its history.
Between 1979 and 1989, billions of dollars were funnelled into arming Afghan mujahideen factions. This included weapons, training, logistics, and ideological mobilisation. These operations were coordinated with British intelligence and regional partners, most notably Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence.
Former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski later confirmed that American support for armed Islamist groups began before the Soviet invasion, with the explicit aim of provoking Moscow into a costly war. His admission remains one of the clearest acknowledgements that extremist mobilisation was not an unintended consequence, but a calculated strategy.
Osama bin Laden, at the time a wealthy Saudi national, operated openly within this ecosystem. He facilitated infrastructure, recruitment, and financing. Western intelligence services did not view him as a threat. He was an asset operating within a sanctioned framework.
When the Soviets withdrew, the alliance collapsed. Fighters once described as freedom warriors were abruptly reclassified as radicals. The infrastructure remained. The ideology remained. Only the narrative changed.
Syria and the Forewarned Disaster
This pattern resurfaced in Syria after 2011. Western governments publicly promoted the idea of a moderate opposition, while internal assessments told a different story.
A declassified 2012 document from the US Defence Intelligence Agency warned explicitly that supporting armed opposition groups would lead to the rise of Salafi jihadist entities in eastern Syria. The memo named the very organisations that would later merge into what became known as ISIS.
Despite this assessment, weapons and funding continued to flow through regional intermediaries. The result was predictable. Extremist factions filled the vacuum created by state collapse. When ISIS later seized territory, Western officials presented its emergence as an unforeseen catastrophe, even though it had been formally anticipated.
Libya and the Cost of State Destruction
Libya followed a similar trajectory. In 2011, NATO intervention was justified under the banner of civilian protection. The campaign dismantled the Libyan state without constructing a replacement.
Muammar Gaddafi’s government had suppressed jihadist groups for decades, including factions aligned with Al Qaeda. Once the state collapsed, militias proliferated. Weapons depots were looted. Fighters dispersed across North Africa and the Sahel, fuelling instability from Mali to Sinai.
Libya did not become freer or safer. It became a transit hub for arms, mercenaries, and extremist networks that continue to destabilise the region.
Admissions Without Accountability
Western political figures have occasionally acknowledged these realities, though rarely with consequences. Hillary Clinton, in a public forum, conceded that extremist groups were empowered during the Afghan war, framing it as a strategic success that later produced unintended blowback.
Such statements rarely prompt reflection in Western media. In the Muslim world, however, these facts have long been understood. The violence did not emerge from nowhere. It was cultivated, then abandoned.
The Function of Chaos
Why does this cycle persist? Because instability serves power.
Extremist groups fracture societies, weaken central authority, and justify permanent military presence. They provide pretexts for surveillance regimes, arms sales, and interventionist doctrines. When useful, they are tolerated or supported. When inconvenient, they are destroyed or selectively condemned.
Meanwhile, Western think tanks produce reports on counter-radicalisation, rarely addressing the conditions created by drone warfare, sanctions, torture programmes, and proxy conflicts that radicalise entire regions.
Palestine and the Double Standard
Nowhere is this hypocrisy more visible than in Palestine.
A Palestinian youth resisting occupation is branded a terrorist with ease. Yet the historical record shows that Israeli militias such as Irgun and Lehi used bombings, assassinations, and mass intimidation during the British Mandate period. These actions are well documented. Their leaders later became statesmen.
Violence is condemned or legitimised not by morality, but by alignment with power.
An Islamic Moral Position
Islam does not require defensive apologetics. Its position is principled and consistent.
The Qur’an forbids the killing of innocents. It rejects collective punishment and lawless violence. At the same time, it recognises resistance to oppression as a moral right when bound by justice.
What Muslims must reject is not only terrorism, but the cynical system that manufactures it while claiming moral superiority.
History demands clarity. When the next black flag appears and the word terrorist is deployed as a political weapon, the essential question remains unchanged.
Who armed him.
Who trained him.
Who benefited from his rise.
Only by asking these questions can truth survive propaganda.
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