Question: Why did the United States invade Afghanistan in 2001? The Taliban viewed Western culture as too far from the strict Sharia laws it favored. Another fundamentalist group in the region shared these views. This group was called al-Qaeda. Although al-Qaeda had been organized in the late 1980s, it reemerged in the 1990s in Afghanistan where it had the Taliban's support. The leader and co-founder of al-Qaeda was a wealthy activist from Saudi Arabia named Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda's Aims Like the Taliban, al-Qaeda believed that people should follow strict Islamic laws. The group had its origins in the fight to oppose the Soviet Union, when it had trained people to fight against the Soviet forces. After the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda turned its attention toward governments in the Middle East that it felt were not religious enough or had too much Western influence. Al-Qaeda agents declared jihad, or holy war, against them. These jihads are an example of cultural conflict between the strictly Islamic al-Qaeda and the more westernized Arab governments in the Middle East. Need Assignment Help?