Yes, Al Qaeda was funded by the CIA all through the 80's when they were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was to the Soviets what Viet Nam was to the U.S.
Fighting through proxy.
The best-known mujahideen were the various loosely aligned Afghan opposition groups, which initially rebelled against the incumbent pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) government during the late 1970s. At the DRA's request, the Soviet Union intervened. The mujahideen then fought against Soviet and DRA troops during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. After the Soviet Union pulled out of the conflict in the late 1980s the mujahideen fought each other in the subsequent Afghan Civil War.[35]
Afghanistan's resistance movement was born in chaos and, at first, virtually all of its war was waged locally by regional warlords. As warfare became more sophisticated, outside support and regional coordination grew. Even so, the basic units of mujahideen organization and action continued to reflect the highly segmented nature of Afghan society.[36] Eventually, the seven main mujahideen parties allied themselves into the political bloc called Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen.
Many Muslims from other countries assisted the various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. Some groups of these veterans have been significant factors in more recent conflicts in and around the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden, originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab Islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the Muslim world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments.[37] These foreign fighters became known as "Afghan Arabs" and their efforts were coordinated by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahideen
