Excerpt from review of book "Warrior from Mecca":
This particular book discusses the gradual involvement of Usama Bin Laden in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. Bin Laden's odyssey began 17 days after the Soviet invasion on Christmas Day 1979. This places Bin Laden's first foray seeking out what he could do for the jihad in mid-January 1980; he was 21 years old. His first actions were not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan, where he donated $3 million to Pakistani Islamist organization Jamiat-e-Islami (The Islamic Group) to be distributed to Afghan mujahideen (jihadists, but at the time, during the Cold War, American officials would have considered them freedom fighters). Between 1980 and 1983, Bin Laden made frequent trips between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, looking for ways to contribute directly to Afghan fighters. In 1983, he arrived in the Pakistan frontier town of Peshawar on the Afghan border and donated $5 million to Afghan mujahideen groups. During this period he invested another $5 million to create a pipeline for young Arabs to volunteer for the Soviet-Afghan War.
hmmmmm...