Osama Bin Laden: Difference between revisions

** Disputed. Osama himself has always denied it (even when he could have caused considerable trouble for his enemies with little cost to him by confirming it, if true), and there were multiple factions in Afghanistan fighting the Soviet Union. ''Some'' of those had US financial backing and arms transfers. Some of those had Saudi financial backing and arms tranferstransfers. Some of those were backed by the Pakistanis, some others by who-knows-what, and some others yet were just local opportunists. Given that Osama was never a combat type but instead a financier and organizer, and that at that time he was still a member in good standing (however distant) of the Saudi royal family, his most likely participation in Afghanistan would have been as a bagman between Saudi interests and the various mujahideen groups ''they'' were backing, not as one of the US-backed fighters.