Ghost Wars

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Cited by (60)

• CIA operations with Massoud in 1990 whole source

  In the winter of 1990, Schroen reminded Massoud, the CIA had been working closely with the commander.

• Soviet troops call Afghan rebels "dukhi" (ghosts) whole source

  During the 1980s, Soviet conscripts besieged by CIA-supplied Afghan rebels called them dukhi, or ghosts.

• Mob attacks the US Embassy in Kabul whole source

  When the mob broke in, William Putscher, a thirty-two-year-old American government auditor, was eating a hot dog.

• US Marine Stephen Crowley dies in Kabul embassy attack whole source

  Crowley had died when the oxygen supply in the vault ran out.

• Soviet invasion of Afghanistan whole source

  Disguised KGB paramilitaries were still chasing Hafizullah Amin through the hallways of his Kabul palace, Soviet tanks had barely reached th…

• Badeeb carries $1.8 million to Afghan Arab volunteers whole source

  Ahmed Badeeb checked about $1.8 million in American cash on a Saudia Airlines commercial flight to Karachi

• Abdul Aziz unites the Arabian peninsula whole source

  The al-Sauds were led this time by their extraordinary commander Abdul Aziz, a laconic and skillful emir

• Casey briefs Reagan on the covert Afghan war whole source

  IN JANUARY 1984, CIA director William Casey briefed President Reagan and his national security cabinet about the progress of their covert Af…

• Massoud assaults Ali Abad Mountain near Kabul whole source

  AHMED SHAH MASSOUD charged up the face of Ali Abad Mountain on the west side of Kabul, with a ragtag crew of a dozen soldiers in tow.

• Radical political doctrines introduced to Kabul whole source

  It was during the 1960s, and then largely in the city of Kabul—on its tree-shaded university campuses and in its army barracks—that radical…

• Series of terrorist hijackings and attacks broadcast on television whole source

  THE TERRORIST ATTACKS came one after another during 1985, all broadcast live on network television to tens of millions of Americans.

• Milton Bearden becomes CIA station chief in Islamabad whole source

  MILTON BEARDEN REPLACED William Piekney as CIA station chief in Islamabad in July 1986.

• Massoud studies revolutionary theory whole source

  Massoud had become a serious, deeply read student of Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, and French revolutionary strategist Regis Debray.

• Soviets deploy Spetsnaz to seal the Afghan-Pakistan border whole source

  Frustrated by the copious new supplies pouring into Afghanistan, the Soviet Fortieth Army deployed intelligence teams and helicopter-borne S…

• CIA considers endorsing bin Laden Arab volunteer program whole source

  When they first learned of efforts by bin Laden and allied Islamic proselytizers to increase the number of Arab volunteers fighting the Sovi…

• Massoud makes truce deals with Soviet forces whole source

  there was a residue of distrust dating to the truce deals that Massoud had cut with Soviet forces in 1983.

• Andropov rises to prominence through 1956 Hungarian crackdown whole source

  As a young communist apparatchik he had soared to prominence as ambassador to Budapest when Soviet troops crushed the 1956 Hungarian uprisin…

• One million Afghan refugees flee to Pakistan whole source

  Within a year of the Soviet invasion, about one million Afghan refugees had poured into Pakistan

• Massive cash flows create corruption in CIA Afghan operations whole source

  There was so much cash washing through the system by 1983 that it was hard for Hart to be sure who was making a reasonable profit and who wa…

• Bin Laden and Saudi royal families linked by business whole source

  Prince Turki’s father and Osama bin Laden’s father were friends, business partners, and political allies.

• Gorbachev decides on Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan whole source

  The strategic goal is to finish the war in one, maximum two years, and withdraw the troops

• Bin Laden opens first training camp at Jaji whole source

  He opened his first training facility in 1986, modeled on those just over the barren hills run by Pakistani intelligence.

• CIA Director Bill Casey suffers fatal seizure whole source

  Casey had served as CIA director for six years and one day. Four months later, at his estate on Long Island, he died at age seventy-four.

• ISI teams raid Soviet Central Asia whole source

  In April 1987 as the snows melted, three ISI-equipped teams secretly crossed the Amu Darya into Soviet Central Asia.

• Afghan jihad operation expands to hundreds of participants whole source

  A jihad supply line that had been invented and managed for several years by four or five men had become by 1987 an operation with hundreds o…

• Acting CIA chief Gates meets KGB's Kryuchkov whole source

  On December 4, 1987, in a fancy Washington, D.C., bistro called Maison Blanche, Robert Gates, now the acting CIA director, sat down for dinn…

• Geneva Accords commit to Soviet withdrawal whole source

  SIGNED BY RANKING DIPLOMATS on April 14, 1988, the Geneva Accords ratified by treaty the formal terms of the Soviet withdrawal.

• Soviet troops begin withdrawal from Jalalabad whole source

  The first Soviet troops rolled out of Jalalabad a month later, some twelve thousand men and their equipment.

• Bin Laden expelled from Saudi Arabia whole source

  So far as is known, bin Laden never returned to the kingdom.

• Soviet Union formally dissolves whole source

  VODKA-SOAKED SOVIET HARD-LINERS, including leaders at the KGB, tried and failed to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev on August 19, 1991.

• U.S. and Soviet Union agree to end arms supplies to Afghanistan whole source

  On September 13, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Boris Pankin pledged a mutual cutoff of arms to Najibullah…

• State Department cable documents Pakistani support for Taliban whole source

  A December 1996 State Department cable reported that Pakistani intelligence was secretly supplying cash, equipment, and military advisers to…

• CIA briefs Congress on Afghan intelligence operations whole source

  The Center’s bin Laden unit informed a congressional committee in closed session on April 10, 1997, that it was now running operations desig…

• Pakistan recognizes Taliban government whole source

  The announcement was made by Pakistan’s foreign ministry on May 26.

• United States closes the Afghan embassy whole source

  He told them that the United States had decided to close the Afghan embassy altogether. As far as the United States was concerned, Afghanist…

• George Tenet becomes CIA director whole source

  George J. Tenet’s swearing-in ceremony at the White House on July 31, 1997.

• Bin Laden announces World Islamic Front for Jihad whole source

  On February 23, 1998, bin Laden unveiled a coalition that reflected his spreading ambition and rising international charisma. He announced a…

• Richard Clarke named White House counterterrorism czar whole source

  Presidential Decision Directive-62, as it was called, signed by Clinton on May 22, 1998, anointed Clarke as the White House’s new counterter…

• US embassies bombed in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam whole source

  Shortly before 10:30 A.M. on Friday, August 7, 1998, two teams of suicide bombers rolled through two sprawling African capital cities. In Na…

• CIA locates bin Laden at Helmand hunting camp whole source

  By February 9 the team reported to the Islamabad station: They had found the hunting camp. It was an elaborately provisioned place far from…

• Abdul Haq's wife and children murdered whole source

  That night, January 12, 1999, mysterious assailants smothered Haq’s bodyguards, entered his home, and murdered his wife and children.

• Musharraf seizes power in Pakistani coup whole source

  On October 12, 1999, as Musharraf flew back to Karachi on a Pakistan International Airlines jet, Nawaz Sharif announced that he was firing h…

• Jordanian police seize millennium-plot explosives whole source

  In the early hours of December 5, a militant in custody led them to a house with a false floor covered by cinder blocks. Beneath an iron hat…

• Abu Zubaydah directs millennium terror plots whole source

  On November 30, Jordanian intelligence listened as one of bin Laden’s top lieutenants, Abu Zubaydah, gave orders by international telephone…

• CIA obtains Khalid al-Mihdhar's US visa copy whole source

  By January 5, 2000, the CIA had obtained a copy of one of their target’s passports. Khalid al-Mihdhar, a middle-class Saudi Arabian with no…

• Richard Clarke's White House counterterrorism group frustrated with bin Laden intelligence whole source

  BY THE LATE SPRING OF 2000, Richard Clarke and his White House counterterrorism group had grown frustrated by the quality of intelligence re…

• CIA begins Eagle drone reconnaissance program whole source

  As early as 1987 the CIA secretly adapted kit airplanes manufactured in California to carry cameras in a highly classifed project called the…

• CIA deploys Predator drones to Bosnia whole source

  The Predators deployed secretly to Bosnia in 1995 were designed to loiter over targets for twenty-four hours and could fly as far as five hu…

• CIA locates bin Laden at Helmand hunting camp whole source

  They hoped to solve the primary problem that had dogged their hunt for bin Laden since the winter of 1999 when they had stared day after day…

• CIA's first secret plan to kidnap bin Laden whole source

  Tarnak had been the target of the CIA’s first secret plan to kidnap bin Laden, back in 1998.

• USS Cole attacked by al Qaeda suicide bombers in Aden, Yemen whole source

  October 12, a small tender boat packed with explosives glided alongside a 505-foot, American Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer do…

• Clinton approves Predator missions over Afghanistan whole source

  President Clinton approved a limited “proof of concept” mission to launch Predators over Afghanistan in September.

• Terrorism barely registers as campaign issue in U.S. presidential race whole source

  Terrorism barely registered as an issue during the 2000 contest.

• Bush asks George Tenet to stay as CIA director whole source

  His cell phone rang in the midst of a boisterous pep rally. “I want to talk to you about George Tenet,” president-elect Bush said over the n…

• Taliban announces plan to destroy Afghan statues whole source

  On March 1 the movement announced its intention to destroy all the statues in Afghanistan that depicted human form.

• Mullah Omar warns Musharraf in private letter whole source

  Omar wrote the Pakistani leader a private letter on January 16, 2001, urging him to “enforce Islamic law . . . step by step” in order to app…

• Deputies committee prioritizes bin Laden and Afghanistan whole source

  Chaired by Stephen Hadley, the deputies committee held its first meeting on bin Laden and Afghanistan on April 30. “There will be more attac…

• State Department meets Taliban in Pakistan whole source

  Following a mechanical ritual, State Department diplomats met Taliban representatives in Pakistan on June 26 and warned they would be held d…

• CIA warns Bush of imminent al Qaeda attack whole source

  The CIA prepared a briefing paper on July 10 for senior Bush administration officials: “Based on a review of all-source reporting over the l…

• CIA threat reporting about bin Laden surges to extraordinary levels whole source

  THREAT reporting about bin Laden surged that spring to levels the Counterterrorist Center had rarely seen.