U.S. Propaganda Video From 1980s Cheers Kids Being Indoctrinated In Jihad

The State Department made several documentaries about the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. This clip, from "We Are Afghanistan," made in 1984, extols the virtues of children being indoctrinated for a life of jihad.

Ironically, some of these children are now likely adults in an Afghanistan wracked with insurgents targeting U.S. forces.

Many of the dozens of American jihadists who fought the Soviets researched the U.S. government's position on the mujahideen before going to Afghanistan. For more about these American jihadists, check out "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam" by J.M. Berger. To pre-order the book, click here.

For more videos related to terrorism, check out the new INTELWIRE YouTube channel. There will be additional content relating to American jihadists as the book's release date grows nearer.

Labels: Afghanistan, American-Jihadists, Jihad-Joe, Soviet-Union, State-Department

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Secret British Documents From 1980 Detail Origins Of Western Covert Aid To Afghan Mujahideen

The British National Archives recently released hundreds of pages of previously classified documents pertaining to Afghanistan, including early moves by the U.K. and the United States to provide covert aid to the Afghan mujahideen following the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union.

According to the documents, dated from 1980, the U.S. proposed supporting Pakistani refugee camps being used as operating bases by the mujahideen. Some of these bases would later be used by Arab volunteers in the Soviet jihad, including Makhtab al Khidmat, the predecessor group to Al Qaeda.

The documents include suggestions that the mujahideen would need surface-to-air missiles, which would later be supplied by the CIA.

INTELWIRE has obtained the documents and posted them below. These are very large PDFs, so I recommend downloading them and viewing them locally rather than trying to open them in a browser window, or using Google's QuickView.

U.K. Afghanistan Documents, 1980, Vol. 1

U.K. Afghanistan Documents, 1980, Vol. 2

For more about the documents, see this story from the Telegraph.

Labels: Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, CIA, Covert-Action, INTELFILES, Makhtab-Al-Khidmat, Mujahideen, Soviet-Union

Views expressed on INTELWIRE are those of the author alone.

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink