Osama bin Laden, America's bogyman, was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihad. He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.
The architects of the covert operation in support of "Islamic fundamentalism" launched during the Reagan presidency played a key role in launching the "Global War on Terrorism" in the wake of 9/11.
President Ronald Reagan met the leaders of the Islamic Jihad at the White House in 1983
Under the Reagan adminstration, US foreign policy evolved towards the unconditional support and endorsement of the Islamic "freedom fighters". In today's World, the "freedom fighters" are labelled "Islamic terrorists".
In the Pashtun language, the word "Taliban" means "Students", or graduates of the madrasahs (places of learning or coranic schools) set up by the Wahhabi missions ffrom Saudi Arabia, with the support of the CIA. Education in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war war largely secular in Afghanistan. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasahs) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000.
The Soviet-Afghan war was part of a CIA covert agenda initiated during the Carter administration, which consisted in actively supporting and financing the Islamic brigades, later known as Al Qaeda.