“Your Cause Is Right Because God Is On Your Side.”

Pakistan 1979, while speaking to Mujahideen rebels, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski confidently stated those words (outlined above) to just one of many Afghan rebel factions awaiting battle against the Communist invaders in Kabul, Afghanistan. After the Soviet invasion took place in 1978, by a communist backed coup led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) against Afghan President Mohammed Daoud Khan, the rest of the world took immediate notice.

Much like a chessboard, the Soviet Union was making a strategy for control of the Middle East. But it was not to last, as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played a significant role in asserting U.S. influence in Afghanistan by funding military operations designed to supplant the Soviet invasion of the country. CIA covert action worked through Pakistani intelligence services to reach Afghan rebel groups, this would also be known as Operation Cyclone.

What the Soviets didn't know was the covert operation led by the United States CIA, as well as British (MI6), were involved with its covert funding of the Afghan Mujahideen rebels thru such places like the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) or the Afghan Services Bureau. While Brzezinski and the State Dept. gave vigorous praise to upend the invasion, they secretly hid the notion of funneling arms and funding to (MAK) offices here and abroad (United States). The (MAK) office was also located in the Al Kifah Refugee Centre in Brooklyn run by a venerable imam named Mustafa Shalabi.

Later it would be taken over by a radical Islamist, (Blind Sheikh) Omar Abdel Rahman. This too would also see a change in Afghanistan after the war as the (MAK) office there would be run by Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri (compatriot to Abdel Rahman from Egyptian Islamic Jihad in Egypt) after the sudden death of Abdullah Azzam.

What would arise out of the ashes of the Soviet-Afghan war however would visit the United States and abroad in years to come, which would have devastating effects that are still felt today.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-was-operation-cyclone.html