DISINFO: The US funded and trained the 9/11 terrorists
SUMMARY
The US funded and trained the 9/11 terrorists, and this should be a lesson for Ukraine. While the US remembers the victims of the deadly 9/11 terrorist attacks, it is worth remembering that Washington deliberately helped to create the same extremists that planned them.
RESPONSE
This is a disingenuous and deliberate distortion of facts, aiming to promote a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the West’s alleged support for terrorist organisations.
While it is true that the US funded and backed Afghan Mujahedeen through the so-called Operation Cyclone during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, leading to some discussion about the degree of the US indirect responsibility or collateral effect in the past promotion of Islamic extremism, pro-Kremlin disinformation has taken this narrative a step further, promoting the baseless conspiracy theory that the West established many terrorist organisations and that it has full control over global terrorism, of which this disinformation story is a perfect example.
In fact, none of the 19 plane hijackers who took part in the 9/11 attacks set foot in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion as all of them were too young at the time, so the allegation that “the US funded and trained the 9/11 terrorists” does not match reality.
By establishing a parallelism with Ukraine, this disinformation narrative also tries to justify Russia’s brutal invasion of its peaceful neighbour by portraying it as an extremist force.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that a fresh FBI document reveals that CIA backed those responsible of the 9/11 attacks, that 9/11 was planned by US as a pretext to attack Afghanistan, that the US instigated, funded, backed and protected Al Qaeda and the Islamic State during the war on terror, or that the US is recruiting jihadists in Syria for terrorist attacks inside Russia.
This disinformation claim was broadcast on the date mentioned above. Due to the EU decisions to temporarily restrict the spread and dissemination of RT, Sputnik and other instruments used to manipulate information and promote disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine inside the EU, access to the link may not work inside the EU.