Osama Bin Laden: A Military Analysis

Midnight of December 24, 1979 the skies of Afghanistan were covered with the Soviets and its massive military airlift of around 280 transport aircraft and three divisions of almost 8,500 men each. That was the start of the invasion of Kabul, capital of Afghanistan (“Soviet Tanks Rolls into Afghanistan,” 2009). As the Soviets ground forces ventured out through the countryside they encountered resistance fighters, called mujahideen, who saw the atheist Soviets that controlled Afghanistan as a destruction of their faith to Islam. They declared a “jihad” (holy war) (“Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan,” 2015). One fighter in this Holy War was Osama bin Laden, a 22-year-old wealthy and educated Sunni-Muslim. In 1979 he relocated to Peshawar, Afghanistan from Saudi Arabia where he recruited and trained members of the mujahidin and helped fund this force by funneling arms, money, and …show more content…
Under Operation Cyclone, the U.S. covertly funded, trained, and armed the mujahideen forces and worked with Bin Laden to fight the Soviets (Billard, 2010). So how did the United States and Osama Bin Laden turn from partners fighting the same enemy to enemies fighting each other? Well the revulsion between the U.S. and Osama Bin Laden can be explained by the grievances of Bin Laden which are the following; the U.S. alliance with the state of Israel which Bin Laden saw as a repressive occupation on Muslim land, the United States presence in Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden’s Islamic holy land, and the Iraq embargo that created a dire environment for the Shia’s that Bin Laden had compassion for (“Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (Text of 1998 fatwa],” 1998). An analysis on these actions by the U.S. show that they did create reasonable grounds for anger, however, it does not justify anti-America terrorism that still shed light