[virgil]

I don't know. I'm not so sure it was the CIA that spawned the fundamentalists groups in Afghanistan. I think OBL spawned them as a reaction to increased western presence in the region ( because of the pipeline)

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

OBL was a freedom fighter in Afghanistan. He was familiar with the area, and he got along famously with Omar. Not only that, OBL believed that the caves of Afghanistan were an ideal place for a terrorist network to hide in. Major influence over the regime, heroine exports. Oil was just icing on the cake, IMHO, more an after thought than anything else. Perhaps someone in the Clinton administration was interested in it. OBL had countless short term considerations that greatly outweighed that long term consideration.