It is a combination of both.....US exploited the growing unrest among the ppl in Saudi who were opposed to the soft dictatorship that exists there... US welcomed them..trained and equipped them to fight against the Russians in Afghanistan during the cold war...in return US was to have helped the saudi's in their cause but once the cold war was over...these ppl were discarded by the US and were labelled as rebels...and having been used by the US, and seeing US openly support Israel as a slight against their religion....it was just a matter of time for al-qaeda to gain lot of sympathy and supporters.

us is just an instant cause.its due to the growing popularity of mullas n maulanas in muslim society n inadequate way of muslim rulers.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia!

Bin Laden offered the services of his mujahedeen to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi army. as the Saudi monarch refused bin Laden's offer....opting instead for the US and Allied Forces to deploy on Saudi territory, it angered Bin Laden, as he believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. so it can be said that this was the beginning of the saga that gave rise to wat Al-Qaeda is now....then of course the strong urge to remove the US and Allied influence form the most important economic zone of the Gulf was there. and acquiring overall power on the Islamic and non-Islamic countries and setting them up under the fundamentalist rules of the Sharia drove them on to "terrorizing" the whole world since the killing of bystanders and civilians is "Islamically" justified in JIHAD.

as indira gandhi was to blamed for the rise of bhidarawal the same is the case with laden as american govt. gave him the lift and when u make abad man friend he will definitely turn out to be the worst enemy one day.

US policy in the Mid-East
example of Iraq is infront of us

As I mentioned in another question, when the time comes, the tyrant, the dictator and the rebel or terrorist, all come. All are different aspects of the same Universe.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan set the perfect ground for these elements to come together, as all attempts at forging an united front against the Israelis, post 1967 and 1973 wars, were dissipating one way or other, after the PLO was weakened first by the way they were thrown out of Jordan first and later from Beirut by the Israeli invasion. Plus, the various organisations were so faction ridden and involved in violent fatricidal battles of their own to establish their supremacy. For whatever resaons, inspite of the cause being of muslim palestinians, not many Arab states really lent their support to the cause and it lacked the religious punch as one may call it, for the reason that the mainstream Palestinians and their leadership at no time was religiously fanatic, was never orthodox and was more of a society open to changes and able to draw the fine distinciton between religion and their own cause for the misery.

Everything changed with the collapse of Soviet Union, or start ...more

Islam believes in soverignty of allah almighty and appreciates democracy - a welfare state subject to rules as per sheriah -as stated in quaran and not contrary to quaran or Hadish - but real source is not the Saudi monarchy.
It was allied powers who won World war I & II mainly Europe lead by British US- who also devided India and as on today also we are suffering in India for that devision of 1947.
Israel was the product of a partnership that seems unlikely at first blush, between Western Jews and the Western world. Zionist project to create a Jewish entity in Palestine possessed the unique power to convert two historical antagonists, Jews and Gentiles, into allies united in a common imperialist enterprise against the Islamic world. The Zionists harnessed the negative energies of the Western world -- its imperialism, its anti-Semitism, its crusading nostalgia, its anti-Islamic bigotry, and its deep racism -- and focused them on a new imperialist project, the creation of a Wester ...more

The history of cold war.
It is said that CIA wanted to avenge its defeat in Vietnam engineered behind the curtains by the KGB so, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the CIA blindly pumped in funds & combat arms into the region thru Pakistan. In their zest to defeat the USSR, CIA didn't bother to keep an account of the arms freely distributed to the Mujahidins which, eventually fell in the hands of the dreaded Talibanis & their allies, Al Qaida. Today, US is worried that their own Stinger Missles, distributed once upon a time to Talibanis, can be used to shoot down passenger aircrafts.

Basically, all these despots viz. Idi Amin, Paul Pot, Co. Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Gen. Noreaga (Panama), Col. Mangistu, Gen. Zia-Ul-Haque et el, could reach & stay at power due to support either from USA (CIA) or the estwhile USSR (KGB).

Half of the world's problems today are a direct result of that cold blooded COLD WAR.

Regards / Cocktail Raj