1.   American officials knew him well from his days as a commander supported by the United States in the Afghan resistance battle against the Soviet Union.

2.   American commandos organized Afghan resistance and directed airstrikes.

3.   And Saudi cash was critical to the Afghan resistance to the Soviet Union.

4.   Billions of dollars in U.S. weaponry and aid were funneled to Afghan resistance forces via Pakistani military and intelligence forces.

5.   Bin Laden soon allied himself with Abdullah Azzam, a charismatic Palestinian who gained prominence among the foreign Muslims who came to join the Afghan resistance.

6.   Bin Laden was helped in that effort by the United States, which supplied Afghan resistance fighters with many resources, including sophisticated Stinger missiles and other weaponry.

7.   Ahmed Shah Massood, the hero of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and the Taliban, was honored in the parade.

8.   Despite this Pushtun grumbling, the hard fact is that the northern allies are so far the only coherent Afghan resistance to the Taliban.

9.   During that period, the CIA was pumping billions of dollars into the Afghan resistance movement.

10.   He was most strongly allied with the most fundamentalist leaders of the Afghan resistance, particularly Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, head of the group called the Islamic Party.