CIA Transnational Anti-terrorism Activities - Intelligence and Terrorism in The 1990s

Intelligence and Terrorism in The 1990s

The 1990s were characterized by a wide range of terrorist activities, from a religious cult that used WMDs, to an attack on the World Trade Center by an ad hoc jihadist group, to coordinated al-Qaeda attacks.

Accounts differ on when the United States recognized bin Laden as an individual financier of terror, as opposed to when al-Qaida was recognized as a group.

In the early 1990s Ali Mohamed, who had been a United States Army Special Forces supply sergeant, returned to Afghanistan, where he gave training in al-Qaeda camps. According to FBI special agent Jack Cloonan, in one of Mohamed's first classes were Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other al-Qaeda leaders. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, he was involved in planning the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa