Many men from Middle East joined this war; Osama Bin Laden from Saudi and Abu Musab Zarqawi from Jordan, among them, came to Afghanistan to join the Jihad.
They didn’t like each other; Osama created Al Qaeda and Abu created his own group.
Soviets withdrew in 1988-89 & both men went to their homes; Osama grew Al Qaeda into a global network to fight ‘enemies of Islam’ but Abu failed to grow his group.
In 1994, Taliban emerged in Afghanistan and both Osama and Abu returned to Afghanistan; it became their base now.
In 2001, Al Qaeda attacked US (9/11), America invaded Afghanistan and Osama fled to Pakistan and Abu to Iraq.
US said Iraq developed weapons of mass destruction & supported terrorists such as Al Qaeda and in 2003, it invaded Iraq, toppled Saddam Hussain’s dictatorship and dissolved the Iraqi army.
The soldiers in the army became unemployed and very angry.
Many saw this as a repeat of Soviet’s invasion of Afghanistan (superpower trying to oppress a nation) and prepared for another Jihad; Abu Musab Zarqawi was among them and saw this as an opportunity to resurrect his group.
Abu, a ruthless Jihadist, became a superstar; with Al Qaeda’s leader in hiding, it had waned in power and wanted to form an alliance, which became known as Al Qaeda Iraq.
In 2006, Abu fell out of favour among his team and US killed him.
In 2011, US withdrew from Iraq but an alliance between Al Qaeda and Islamic State existed and now it became known as Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In the meantime, dictator President Assad had triggered a civil war in Syria and his people were fighting rebels who protested against Assad.
In 2012, Baghdadi sent his deputy Nusra to join rebels in Syria and form a branch of Al Qaeda in Syria.
In Nusra’s absence, Baghdadi freed Jihadists from Iraqi prisons, recruited more jihadists and declared merger of Syrian rebels with ISI and declared himself the leader of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq & Syria); Nusra was unhappy as he thought he was to lead the Syrian branch.
In October 2019, cornered in a tunnel by American canines & forces, al-Baghdadi died by self-detonating a suicide vest.
