Last week I met someone who told me that Usama Bin Laden had worked for the USA as an special agent serving the CIA. Is this true? Please tell me and give me some adresses on the web involving this question.

greetings from amsterdam

No, but like many conspiracy theories, there's a grain of truth in there somewhere.

During the 1980s, the US provided weapons, training and materiel to any and all insurgents who were fighting the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, as part of the Cold War. Osama Bin Laden was one of those men, so his group received the same support that other anti-Russian organizations did. The break between bin Laden and the US came in 1990. See:

[news.bbc.co.uk]
[www.snopes.com]

There's a big difference between being one of a crowd of insurgents trained in part by the CIA and being a "CIA agent." At that time, the CIA was training anti-communist rebel forces all over the world, from Nicaragua to Cuba to Angola. The members of these rebel forces, much like Osama bin Laden, would probably be quite offended to be seen as CIA "agents."

[www.greenleft.org.au]

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