3/15/1989

“In March 1989, State Department officials told Secretary of State James Baker that Iraq was working on chemical and biological weapons and that terrorists were still operating out of Iraq.”  – Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 81 […]

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2/24/1989

On February 24, 1989, shortly after the Soviets left Afghanistan, bin Laden’s mentor Abdallah “Azzam delivered a sermon in Islamabad laying out his vision of a jihadist future: ‘We will fight, defeat our enemies and establish an Islamic state on some sliver of land, such as Afghanistan. Afghanistan will expand, jihad will spread, Islam will […]

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2/15/1989

“General Boris V. Gromov, the commander of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, walked across the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan on February 15, 1989. ‘…Our nine-year stay ends with this.’ The Soviets had lost fifteen thousand lives and suffered more than thirty thousand casualties. Between a million and two million Afghans perished, perhaps 90 percent of […]

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2/15/1989

In Fuad Hussein’s book, Al-Zarqawi: The Second al Qaeda Generation, former Egyptian army officer and al Qaeda military commander Sayf al Adel said: ” ‘After God granted the Muslim mujahideen in Afghanistan victory against the Russians [in February 1989] and when disagreements began to emerge among factions of the Afghan mujahideen, many of our Arab […]

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2/15/1989

“The withdrawal of the last Soviet soldier [from Afghanistan] took place in February [15] 1989, the first full month of the administration of George H. W. Bush.”  – Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, Page 53 […]

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2/15/1989

In an interview in August 2005, “Ahmad Shah Ahmadazi [who] was acting Afghan prime minister from 1995 to 1996 [said:] ‘After the defeat of the Soviet Union [in February 1989], we sent a message to all Arabs that were in Afghanistan: *We thank them for their cooperation with us in fighting the Soviet Union. Now […]

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2/15/1989

In an interview on June 13, 2005, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi said, ” ‘after [the Russians left Afghanistan in February] ’89, floodgates open to Afghanistan of all kind of Arab adventurists and that’s when radicalism starts creeping in. [jihadist/bin Laden mentor] Abdullah Azzam was selective. Osama was more in the mind-set that this is a […]

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2/15/1989

“An estimated fourteen thousand jihadis had dispersed after the Russians abandoned Afghanistan in [February 15] 1989, and untold numbers began to settle in New York and New Jersey.”  – Peter Lance, 1000 Years For Revenge, Page 38 […]

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2/15/1989

“By February 1989, the Soviets had retreated and [Osama] bin Laden had joined the civil war to turn once-tolerant Afghanistan into a model Islamic state. He financed the construction of vast training camps and bankrolled militant factions. His activities seemed to increase as the Soviets shrank back.” [The 15th of the month used for date […]

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2/15/1989

“With the Soviet withdrawal in February 1989, Afghanistan replaced the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley in Lebanon as the world’s premier terrorist training centre for about forty guerrilla and terrorist groups.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]  – Rohan Gunaratna, Inside al Qaeda, Page 221 […]

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