US aid created the mujahideen it later designated terrorists.

Evidence

The “Islam strategy” would eventually lead to America’s financial support of Osama bin Laden’s mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union—the same ones who later planned the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. When it benefited US interests, the United States sent military aid to the mujahideen and Osama bin Laden, calling them “freedom fighters” against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. But as soon as they were no longer useful to the United States, that is, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the same group of mujahideen—Al-Qaeda—was designated a terrorist group. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 648

Categorization

• XREF: State-sponsored labeling shifts (freedom fighter to terrorist) mirror how the law relabels categories by interest—relevant to the MOC thread. — connects to: The US trained the mujahideen from which al-Qaeda later emerged — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 396