Noting that Al Qaeda was formed in 1988 in response to the Soviet-Afghan war, Reagan's last year in office. Al Qaeda didn't even focus on the US until some years later.
Al-Qaeda - Wikipedia
Al-Qaeda (/ælˈkaɪdə, ˌælkɑːˈiːdə/; Arabic: القاعدة al-Qāʿidah, IPA: [ælqɑːʕɪdɐ], translation: "The Base", "The Foundation" or "The Database", alternatively spelled al-Qaida and al-Qa'ida) is a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers during the Soviet–Afghan War.
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Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 had put the Kingdom and its ruling House of Saud at risk. The world's most valuable oil fields were within striking distance of Iraqi forces in Kuwait, and Saddam's call to pan-Arab/Islamism could potentially rally internal dissent.
In the face of a seemingly massive Iraqi military presence, Saudi Arabia's own forces were outnumbered. Bin Laden offered the services of his mujahideen to King Fahd to protect Saudi Arabia from the Iraqi army. The Saudi monarch refused bin Laden's offer, opting instead to allow US and allied forces to deploy troops into Saudi territory.
The deployment angered bin Laden, as he believed the presence of foreign troops in the "land of the two mosques" (Mecca and Medina) profaned sacred soil. After speaking publicly against the Saudi government for harboring American troops, he was banished and forced to live in exile in Sudan.