Not sure about the Latin American part but the Middle East. It was Hillary Clinton who started the Taliban in Afghanistan. Its main aim was to remove the threat or Russia from Afghanistan but later it got out of hand and now we have The Terrorists. They were brainwashed into believing they were doing "Jihad" the Islamic term for Upholding Righteousness.
A) It belonged to a War General at the time
The ultimate goal was to brutalize the African Americans they felt that the African Americans had ruined the culture of America and cause problems for the US
The house of wisdom was located in Baghdad during the Islamic Empire.