Afghan Arabs (also known as Arab-Afghans) were Arab and other Muslim Islamist mujahideen who came to Afghanistan during and following the Soviet-Afghan War to help fellow Muslims fight Soviets and pro-Soviet Afghans. Observers and journalists covering the war have cast doubt on their significance as a fighting force, but within the Muslim Arab world they achieved near hero-status for their association with the defeat of the militant atheist, anti-religious Communist superpower that was the Soviet Union.
Many returned to their home countries to wage jihad against their governments. Their name notwithstanding, none were Afghans and some were not Arabs, but Turkic, Malay or from some other Muslim non-Arab ethnicity. The most famous among their ranks was Osama bin Laden.
Read more about Afghan Arabs: History
Famous quotes containing the word arabs:
“When I think of some of the Persians, the Hindus, the Arabs I knew, when I think of the character they revealed, their grace, their tenderness, their intelligence, their holiness, I spit on the white conquerors of the world, the degenerate British, the pigheaded Germans, the smug self-satisfied French.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)