Operation Cyclone

On July 3, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed a finding allowing the CIA to give nonlethal aid, such as cash and propaganda support, to Afghan rebels fighting the communist government in Kabul. After Soviet troops invaded that December, the program, later known as Operation Cyclone, expanded into a massive effort to supply weapons. The CIA bought arms, at first old Soviet bloc weapons that could not be traced to America, and delivered them through Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, which chose which mujahideen factions received them. Saudi Arabia matched American funding dollar for dollar.¹²

Under President Ronald Reagan, and pushed by Texas congressman Charlie Wilson, funding grew to several hundred million dollars a year by the mid-1980s. In 1986 the CIA began supplying shoulder fired Stinger missiles, which took a toll on Soviet helicopters and aircraft. The Soviet army withdrew in 1989. Because the ISI favored hardline Islamist commanders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, critics argue Cyclone strengthened forces that later fed the Afghan civil war and international jihadism, though there is no evidence the CIA funded Osama bin Laden, who raised his own money from Arab donors.²⁴