UBL was "our man" in Kandahar for a long time after the Soviets evacuated Kabul. For years, Al-Qaeda operatives were constantly being moved in and out of the United States on "CIA visas." Al-Qaeda was a joint CIA-Saudi General Intelligence Division (GID) operation from the beginning until 9/11. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, both agencies worked together to destabilize and seize control the oil-rich Trans-Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions of the Former Soviet Union.
Even after George Tenet openly declared "all-out war" again bin Laden in '97, the organization was so riddled with double-agents and provocateurs that it was not unusual for known al-Qaeda terrorists to be given visas and admitted into the U.S. This is how the 9/11 hijackers were let in - it was routine. They were still on "the list", either as doubles or as persons under (loose, third-party surveillance) so they got visas and admitted, even without proper visas. Just the way the game got played.
Al-Qaeda may have been terrorists, but they were "our" terrorists. See,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/04/810764/-Erik-Prince:-American-Bin-LadenCIA-Asset,-MoneyGunmenAlternative explanation for the origin (inspiration) for the term is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/aug/24/alqaida.sciencefictionfantasyandhorrorIn October last year, an item appeared on an authoritative Russian studies website that soon had the science-fiction community buzzing with speculative excitement. It asserted that Isaac Asimov's 1951 classic Foundation was translated into Arabic under the title "al-Qaida". And it seemed to have the evidence to back up its claims. "This peculiar coincidence would be of little interest if not for abundant parallels between the plot of Asimov's book and the events unfolding now," wrote Dmitri Gusev, the scientist who posted the article. He was referring to apparent similarities between the plot of Foundation and the pursuit of the organisation we have come to know, perhaps erroneously, as al-Qaida.
The Arabic word qaida - ordinarily meaning "base" or "foundation" - is also used for "groundwork" and "basis". It is employed in the sense of a military or naval base, and for chemical formulae and geometry: the base of a pyramid, for example. Lane, the best Arab-English lexicon, gives these senses: foundation, basis of a house; the supporting columns or poles of a structure; the lower parts of clouds extending across a horizon; a universal or general rule or canon. With the coming of the computer age, it has gained the further meaning of "database": qaida ma'lumat (information base).
Qaida itself comes from the root verb q-'-d : to sit down, remain, stay, abide. Many people appear to think al-Qaida's name emerged from some idea of a physical base - a command centre from where Bin Laden and other leaders could direct operations. "We've got to get back to al-Qaida on that one," it's possible to imagine a footsoldier saying. Bin Laden himself has spoken, post-September 11, of being in "a very safe place". There have also been stories that his father had a vernal estate called al-Qaida in Yemen or Saudi Arabia. Could there be a sense in which the name of the organisation represents a notion of the eternal home in the consciousness of its fugitive leader?
On the surface, the most improbable explanation of the name is that Bin Laden was somehow inspired by a Russian-born writer who lived most of his life in the US and was once the world's most prolific sci-fi novelist (born in 1920 in Smolensk, Asimov died in New York in 1992). But the deeper you dig, the more plausible it seems that al-Qaida's founders may have borrowed some rhetoric from Foundation and its successors (it became a series) and possibly from other science fiction material.