Robin Cook , former leader of the British House of Commons and Foreign Secretary from 1997 – 2001 , wrote in '' The Guardian '' on Friday , July 8 , 2005 , Bin Laden was , though , a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies . Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan . Al-Qaida , literally " the database " , was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians . However the notion that the CIA had any contact with non-Afghan mujahideen and specifically bin Laden is disputed by a number of sources . According to Peter Bergen of CNN the story that the CIA funded bin Laden or trained bin Laden — is simply a folk myth . There 's no evidence of this . In fact , there are very few things that bin Laden , Ayman al-Zawahiri and the U.S. government agree on . They all agree that they did n't have a relationship in the 1980s . And they would n't have needed to . Bin Laden had his own money , he was anti-American and he was operating secretly and independently . The real story here is the CIA did n't really have a clue about who this guy was until 1996 when they set up a unit to really start tracking him . Bergen quotes Pakistani Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf , who ran ISI 's Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987 : It was always galling to the Americans , and I can understand their point of view , that although they paid the piper they could not call the tune . The CIA supported the mujahideen by spending the taxpayers ' money , billions of dollars of it over the years , on buying arms , ammunition , and equipment . It was their secret arms procurement branch that was kept busy . It was , however , a cardinal rule of Pakistan 's policy that no Americans ever become involved with the distribution of funds or arms once they arrived in the country . No Americans ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahideen , and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan . According to Peter Beinart , Vincent Cannistraro , who led the Reagan administration 's Afghan Working Group from 1985 to 1987 , puts it , " The CIA was very reluctant to be involved at all . They thought it would end up with them being blamed , like in Guatemala . " So the Agency tried to avoid direct involvement in the war , ... the skittish CIA , Cannistraro estimates , had less than ten operatives acting as America 's eyes and ears in the region . Milton Bearden , the Agency 's chief field operative in the war effort , has insisted that " T he CIA had nothing to do with " bin Laden . Cannistraro says that when he coordinated Afghan policy from Washington , he never once heard bin Laden 's name . According to Olivier Roy , " the CIA was not in charge ( accusing Bin Laden of having been a CIA agent is nonsense ) of the program " to enlist Muslim volunteers to fight Soviets in Afghanistan , " but it did not oppose the scheme or worry about it negative consequences . " The US attitude had more to do with benign neglect than Machiavellian strategy . Eagerness to claim absolute victory in Afghanistan , bureaucratic inertia , lack of concern and expertise , overconfidence in the Saudi and Pakistani security services ... all explain why nobody in Washington cared . However , Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman — a major recruiter of the Afghan Arabs — was given his visas to enter the US on four separate occasions by the CIA . Egyptian officials testified that the CIA actively assisted him . Rahman was a co-plotter of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing
1993 World Trade Center bombing
1993 World Trade Center bombing
Afghan Arabs