FRONTLINE

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia had decreed the war a jihad, and encouraged thousands of Saudis to become holy warriors. One of the first to go to Pakistan and join the Afghan cause was this man. >> When bin Laden came to Pakistan, his first job, which was given to him by the C.I.A. and Pakistani intelligence, was actually to create ammunition dumps and arms dumps on the Pakistan-Afghan border but just inside Afghanistan. And he dug out these caves, which eventually became, of course, the famous caves of Tora Bora, where he escaped to after the Americans bombed him and invaded Afghanistan. >> The last major convoy of Soviet troops from Kabul has crossed the border from Afghanistan into the Soviet Union on its way home. The last Soviet soldiers... >>

SMITH

By 1989, after ten years of fighting, the mujahedeen had succeeded. >> 13,000 Soviet soldiers killed and the Afghan guerrillas stronger today than when it all started. >> The moment the war ended, the Americans handed over Afghan policy to the Pakistanis and the Saudis, and literally told them, I mean, "We're out of here now. You do what you will. You do what you want." And what we had then was Pakistani-Saudi joint support for bringing in extremist Afghan mujahedeen into power. And, of course, everything stems from there. If you see the growth of Al Qaeda and the acts of terrorism against the West, it all stems from this original cardinal sin whereby jihad is elevated, and is then supported at the global level by everyone. >> Many of the jihadists trained for the Afghan war would mature into the jihadists of Al Qaeda and ISIS, encouraged by Saudi Wahhabi teachings. Why was it that this extremism came from your schools and from your mosques? >> It was the provocation of the Iranian revolution created a reaction in the Sunni world that then translated into extremism and violence on our streets. >> So you blame the Iranians? >> In part, yes. And in part I blame ourselves also, in hindsight. Because are there things that we could have done? Probably. But at the time that... that this was all... that all these forces were being unleashed, you deal with them at the time. 30 years later, you can go back and say, "Could things have been done differently?" Of course. >> That's an important reflection on your part, I think. I think a lot of Americans feel that they never hear that from the Saudis. >> But that's the reality. That's the nature of life. You learn as you go.