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4.2.4 Did US actions create and/or support al-Qaida? |
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Some people believe that al-Qaida would not have come into being without the US funding and training given to the Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. But the Pakistani military regime also supplied the most extreme Islamist Afghan fighters with imported weaponry.
Critics of US and Western policies in the Middle East and worldwide note that some of their actions have caused a great deal of opposition among Arab and Islamic people; they regard terrorism as a predictable reaction.
Examples of controversial policies are:
- Perceived favoritism towards Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians and other Arab countries.
- US support of some dictators in the Middle East.
- The US bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998 suspected of being a chemical weapons facility partly owned by Osama Bin Laden; it fact, it was producing mainly aspirin.
- The use of Saudi Arabian bases by allied forces after 1991. Being the birthplace of Islam, the Arabian Peninsula is seen as a Holy Land under Islam where non-believers do not belong.
- Repeated military actions against Iraq by the US and the UK from 1991 to 2003 were followed by the invasion of the country. Arab cuntries, and even the majority of the worldwide opinion, opposed the war.
- The CIA covert coup d'etat in Iran in 1953, replacing a Prime Minister Mossadegh (who had nationalized Iran's oil) with Reza Pahlavi, whose dictatorship and oppressive government helped cause the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
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