“Since 2001, the United States and its allies have been on a rampage. In Iraq, at least 700,000 men, woman and children are dead as a result. The rise of jihadists – in a country where there was none – is the result. Known as al-Qaeda and now the Islamic State, modern jihadism was invented by US and Britain, assisted by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The original aim was to use and develop an Islamic fundamentalism that had barely existed in much of the Arab world in order to undermine pan-Arab movements and secular governments. By the 1980s, this had become a weapon to destroy the USSR in Afghanistan. The CIA called it Operation Cyclone; and a cyclone it turned out to be.”
http://johnpilger.com/articles/breaking-the-last-taboo-gaza-and-the-threat-of-world-war