cluding several hundred loyal workmen and heavy construction tools--and set out to liberate the land from the infidel invader. Recognizing at once that the Afghans were lacking both infrastructure and manpower to fight a protracted conflict, he set about solving both problems at once. The first step was to set up an organized program of conscription. Together with Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood leader Abdellah Azzam, he organized a recruiting office--Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK-Services Office). MAK advertised all over the Arab world for young Muslims to come fight in Afghanistan and set up branch recruiting offices all over the world, including in the U.S. and Europe. Bin Laden paid for the transportation of the new recruits to Afghanistan, and set up facilities to train them. The Afghan government donated land and resources, while bin Laden brought in experts from all over the world on querilla warfare, sabotage, and covert operations. Within a little over a year he had thousands of volunteers in training in his private bootcamps. It is estimated that as many as 10,000 fighters received training and combat experience in Afghanistan, with only a fraction coming from the native Afghan population. Nearly half of the fighting force came from bin Ladens native Saudi Arabia. Others came from Algeria(roughly 3,000), from Egypt(2,000), with thousands more coming from other Muslim countries such as Yemen, Pakistan, and the Sudan. The war in Afghanistan was the stage for one of the last major stand-offs between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The Americans at that time had the same goals as bin Ladens mujahedin--the ousting of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. In what was hailed at the time as one of its most successful covert operations, Americas Central Intelligence Agency launched a $500 million-per-year campaign to arm and train the impoverished and outgunned mujahedin querillas to fight the Soviet Union....
