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Chapter III
A Foreign Aid Bonanza for the Afghan Refugees
When money speaks, the truth keeps silent

(Russian Proverb)
Louis Dupree, an eminent American authority on Afghanistan used eight Rs in his article to characterize the political process in Afghanistan since April 1978: revolution, repression, rhetoric, reforms, revolts, refugees, Russians and Reagan.1 I would add five Islamic and local Ms- Muhammad, Madina (center of migration) Muslim, Muhajir, Mujahid, Masjid, Mullah, Malik, Masjid, Madrasa, Money, Moscow, Mortars, and now, Musharraf and MMA, in my study to present the case of the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and how the common Ms between the Afghans and Pakistanis were exploited by both the states and by both superpowers. Pakistan saw an opportunity in Afghan turmoil to steer the resistance along religio-political lines that fit its short term and long-term goals of having a friendly, even subservient, government in Kabul. Pakistans old traditional foreign policy dictated by two major constraints: the Indian threat in the east, and the Pashtunistan problem in the west which re-surfaced with the April

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Revolution and the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The Red tide was moving towards Khyber Pass. Pakistan had neither the power nor the ability to roll-back the Soviet juggernaut openly. A war by proxy or undeclared war as the PDPA regime called it was the only answer. The CIA and ISI prepared a grand plan to counter the Red menace in the region and to achieve its long cherished goals in the Afghanistan. Zia himself confessed in an interview with S.S Harrison shortly before his death that his goals, from the beginning of the war, were to destroy the Communist infrastructure, install a client regime, and bring about a strategic alignment in South Asia. We have earned the right to have a friendly regime there, he declared. We took risks as a frontline state, and we wont permit it to be like it was before, with Indian and Soviet influence there and claim on our territory. It will be a real Islamic state, parts of a Pan-Islamic revival that will one day win over the Muslims in the Soviet Union, you will see. 2 Akhtar A. Rahman, Director General Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), considered that if Zia was to covertly support the Afghan resistance in a massive guerrilla war, the Soviets could be halted, even rolled back. He believed that Afghanistan could be made into another Vietnam, with the Soviets in the shoes of the Americans. He urged Zia to take the military option.3 It would mean Pakistan secretly supporting the guerrillas with money, arms, ammunition, training, and operational advice. Most importantly it would entail offering the border areas of the NWFP and Baluchistan as a sanctuary for both refugees and guerrillas. In the entire anti- Kabul game of Pakistan, Quetta and Peshawar played an important central role. Quetta had branch offices of the Afghan Parties, warehouses, plus an ISI detachment, but they were on a

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smaller scale than in Peshawar. For ISI Peshawar was more important because, a. it was the heart of the Afghan resistance movement in exile, b. Peshawar Seven Tanzimat offices were in Peshawar, c. its bureaucracy was in Peshawar, d. almost all its leaders were living in Peshawar, e. its arms warehouses were there, f. it was from here the majority of its supplies were carried forward to border dumps and thence into Afghanistan, g. all commanders and Mujahideen used to come for replenishment and news to Peshawar, h. Peshawar attracted the journalists and the spies as a magnet attracts metal, i. Peshawar was the centre for the latest gossip, rumor, report or whisper.4

Why did Afghan refugees and resistance leaders mesh so well with the CIA and ISI plan of action, rather than planning a direct operation or some thing else of thee sort? The answer is simple; they (Afghan refugees) had all the basic attributes of successful guerrilla fighters- i.e. They believed passionately in their cause. They were physically and mentally tough. They knew their area of operations intimately well.

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They were extremely courageous with an inbred affinity for weaponry. They operated from mountainous areas which provided sanctuary and succor to them. to sink their differences for the sake of the Jehad, an unassailable base area, which President Zia provided in Pakistan, adequate supplies of effective arms to wage the war and Proper training and advice on how to conduct operations It was the responsibility of ISI to provide and coordinate the latter two.5

To defeat a superpower they needed four things:

An ISI officer assessed the Afghan Mujahid from his own ideological and strategic perception by stating that from the military point of view the trained and indoctrinated Mujahid possessed substantially advantages as compared to the average Muhajir for the following reasons: 1. Physically he was better able to withstand the extremes of the terrain and climate than his much softer Soviet opponent or refugee in camps. 2. He was fighting for his faith, his freedom, and for his family, which gave him an enormous moral ascendancy. 3. In practical terms, the Mujahid could live off the land, or

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rather from the villages, until the Soviet scorched earth policy became widespread. 4. The Mujahid could walk for days, even weeks, on the minimum of food; then, when the opportunity arrive, they would replenish themselves with huge quantities, stocking themselves up like camels for the next journey. 5. To him his rifle was a part of his body, a piece of clothing without which he feels uncomfortable. 6. A weapon to a Mujahid was like jewelry to a western woman. It is a symbol of manhood. 7. Afghans buy and sell weapons as Americans do cars. 8. In their life the gun was mightier than the pen.6 The ISI and other related agencies exploited the weakness of the Afghan commanders by offering training and better weapons to those who undertook specific operations inside Afghanistan. The Commander would receive instruction: On the tactics of where best to place the charges, how to approach the pipeline, how to distract or cover nearby enemy posts, where to lay mines to catch any repair parties, and on the likely Soviet reaction.

The net result was that this closeness to arms meant that the Mujahideen take readily to training on new weapons, and usually

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obtain startlingly good results. Like the majority of military forces the Mujahideen had their political bosses, from whom their Commanders were supposed to get their instructions, and who supplied them with the means to fight - money and arms. Behind this primitive command structure was the ISI, and its Afghan Bureau in particular. The ISI task was to keep the refugee parties stocked with supplies, and somehow get all the different parties and hundreds of Commanders, scattered all over Afghanistan, to fight effectively. In the new grand plan, the CIA and ISI weaved a net with the golden threads of foreign aid and painted it with religious rhetoric to trap the innocent and desperate refugees in the Jehadi labyrinth and pushed them as a Mujahideen or holy warrior, into the quagmire of blood and death.

The Aid Invasion:

The Soviet military "aid" and loans to Afghanistan up to 1979 amounted to $ 1.2 billion, almost as much as economic "aid" and loans. Meanwhile Afghanistan's debts from Moscow exceeded $ 4 billion. But once the Soviet forces moved in Afghanistan, their efforts were inevitably concentrated on the war and any thought of aid or development was put on the back burner.7 On the other hand, a country which was scarcely known until 1979 in the West became a major field of aid activity after the Soviet invasion. Pakistan became a chief player in the game, backed politically and financially by the US and China, with many other countries playing their part. Iran and the rich Gulf states had their own agendas in the Afghan imbroglio and their blatant interference within the refugee community as well as inside

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Afghanistan is no longer any secret. It is well known that "humanitarian aid" goes hand in hand with the political games and even international aid is inextricably involved with politics, and the story of Afghanistan in the 1980s was not exception. Many people from different walks of life were mobilized to work for the Afghans: Western anti-communist organizations, the UN, multilateral and bilateral agencies, particularly Western and Islamic governments following the American call to "make the Soviet bleed in Afghanistan". But there were also people who knew Afghanistan before the war, who had worked or researched there and who were sympathetic to the Afghan cause and wanted to play their part. Varying aid agencies with different interests and mandates were involved in various projects with refugees as well as inside Afghanistan. Although military aid was the main target for most of the Western and Islamic countries, humanitarian aid was in many ways used as a political tool. Foreign Aid for the Afghan Refugees was of two types: (1) Humanitarian Aid and (2) Military Aid.

Humanitarian Aid:
For nearly two years, from April 1978 to January 1980, the government of Pakistan bore the burden of the refugees care practically single handed. The UNHCR and WFP came in with their emergency program of assistance in January 1980, and later on joined by other UN agencies. During 1983-84 the total expenditure of the Pakistani government on the upkeep of 3 million refugees was $ 1.5 million a day. Some major external

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sources of Humanitarian Aid relief/aid assistance both in cash and kind were: UNHCR, WFP, FAO, WHO, Red Cross & UNICEF paid 55 percent of the expenditure. Private Voluntary Organizations: More than two dozen private voluntary organizations & NGOs were involved with refugees: PRCS, Pak. Medicos, ICRC, IRC, ARC, IAC, CWS, Idara Ahya-ul-Ulum, Friendly Countries: The USA alone provided six billion dollars worth of humanitarian & military assistance to Afghan refugees and the resistance. Some of the other contributors were: Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UEA, Italy, Indonesia, Bangladesh, USA, Australia, France, Canada, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, Islamic Solidarity Fund and Islamic Development Bank. All these countries contributed more than $ 750 million to Afghan Refugees in Pakistan. During these years 1980-87, USA granted 7.4 billion dollars to Pakistan. Private Individuals: A number of individuals both within and outside Pakistan provided relief assistance for the Afghan refugees.8

Military Aid:
The first official reaction of Pakistan on the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan (29th December, 1979) was amazingly mild. It described the entry of foreign troops into Afghanistan as a serious

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violation of the norms of peaceful co-existence and the sacrosanct principles of the sovereignty of states and non-intervention in their internal affairs, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.9 In addition, Pakistan denied any involvement in Afghan affairs, never officially admitting that Pakistan had given sanctuary to Afghan insurgents, nor that it had served as a conduit for arms from the West.10 The PDPA regime continuously and desperately charged the US and Pakistani governments for their blatant interference in Afghanistan. In national and international media against Kabul also complained that Pakistani territory has being used as a sanctuary for guerrilla forces and was the major conduit for the arms flow. The CIA was charged with organizing, arming, equipping and training Afghan counter-revolutionary gangs on the territory of Pakistan. As a matter of fact, one of the ring leaders of these bands was a US citizen of Afghan nationality, Zia Nassry. He visited Washington in March 1979 on the very eve of the wave of anti-government riots in Herat. He had long discussions with high- ranking officials of the US State Department, including R. Lorton, who was in charge of the Afghan desk. He also met the representatives of US Senators F. Church and J. Javits.11 Contrary to DRA and Soviet charges, there was no American involvement in supplying arms to the Mujahideen before the invasion, but immediately thereafter President Carter authorized a program of covert military assistance.12 That program continued and eventually expanded under President Reagan. Yet according to Zbigniew Brzezinski it was on July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the proSoviet regime in Kabul.13

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Anthony Hyuman labels Carter's reaction to the Soviet invasion as one of "overreaction and bluff at the same time.14 Carter accused the Soviets of a "blatant violation of the accepted rules of international behavior", which indeed the invasion was, and he went beyond this denunciation to call it the most serious crisis since the end of World War II, a premise belied by the less-than-dramatic steps the Administration actually did take. Expanding the President's tough State of the Union message to Congress on January 23 in the month following the Soviet thrust, special U.S. envoy Clark Clifford told reporters in New Delhi that "The Soviet Union must understand that if they move toward the Persian Gulf that means war. The very same day, during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown sounded a more cautious note. We can't assure you that we would win a war there ... But to cast doubt on our ability to deter or fight effectively is ... unnecessarily damaging to U.S. security.15 In his State of the Union speech of 31 January, 1980, Jimmy Carter asserted: The destruction of the independence of Afghanistan government and the occupation by the Soviet Union has altered the strategic situation in that part of the world in a very ominous fashion. It has brought the Soviet Union within striking distance of the Indian Ocean and even the Persian Gulf. It has eliminated a buffer between the Soviet Union and Pakistan, and presented a new threat to Iran. These two countries are now far more vulnerable to Soviet political intimidation. If that intimidation were to prove

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effective, the Soviet Union might well control an area of vital strategic and economic significance to the survival of Western Europe, the Far East and ultimately the United States. It is clear that the entire subcontinent of Asia and especially Pakistan is threatened.16 A major concern was the Soviet threat to the Gulf, the reference and concern being of course the vulnerable oil lanes through which now pass several million barrels a day (MBD). Though down from the one time high of 18 MBD, the Gulf oil shipments will always be important. Significantly, Afghanistan's southern border is less than 300 miles (500 km) from Iran's port of Chah Bahar. From there the distance to the Strait of Hormuz, the so-called "choke point" through which all shipping must pass, is not great.17 Pakistani Foreign Minister Agha Shahis visit of the US in January 1980 was not so fruitful, and the Carter offer of 400 million dollars in assistance was rejected by Zia calling it peanuts18 Just two weeks after this offer, Zbigniew Brzezinski, US adviser of National Security led a high powered delegation to Islamabad and discussed in detail the consequences of Soviet threat to Pakistan, the region, and the world. 19 However, it was in May 1979 that Pakistan selected Mujahideen leaders for a meeting with a special CIA envoy in Peshawar.20 On 16 September 1981, the United States pledged a total of 3.25 billion dollars in aid to Pakistan, spread over a period of six years, half in the form of military assistance and half as economic aid. The 1.625 billion dollars of military aid and selling of forty F-16 fighters-bombers to Pakistan was sanctioned by US.

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The second package negotiated in 1987 for a period of six years, amounted to 4 billon dollars.21 Throughout 1979-82 the resistance forces armed themselves by capturing caches from the Soviet-Afghan forces and received limited supplies from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, the US and Egypt. Once the US-Pakistan axis became able after the delivery of the first US aid ($3.2 billion) package in 1982 then the Afghan resistance began receiving large quantities of weapons. China, Egypt, the United States, UK and Saudi Arabia were the major sources of weapons while Pakistan became a staging era for the guerilla operation.22 The resistance started receiving sophisticated weaponry (portable stingers surface-to-air missiles, surface-tosurface rockets, and artillery) only after 1986 when the tide had already turned in their favor and the Soviet forces were showing signs of war weariness.23 Zia-ul-Haq placed three absolute conditions for allowing shipment of the arms from Egypt, China and other points of origin, including the US, through Pakistan to the holy warriors fighting the Russians. First, the countries concerned-the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China and eventually Britain, France and even Israel, were to maintain absolute secrecy about the shipments. They would deny that they took place at all, repeatedly and whenever necessary. Second, arms and other war supplies were to be shipped to Pakistan by the fastest available means. Third, the shipments by air were to be limited to two planeloads per week.24

The CIA's tasks in the Afghan war were:

1. to purchase arms and equipment for the anti- Soviet resistance,

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2. to arrange transportation of arms and equipment to Pakistan, 3. to provide funds for the purchase of vehicles and transportation inside Pakistan and Afghanistan, 4. to train Pakistani instructors on new weapons or equipment, 5. to provide satellite photographs and maps for ISI operational planning, 6. to provide radio equipment and training, 7. to advise on technical matters when requested by ISI.25 Thereafter, ISI controlled virtually all foreign military aid destined to reach the resistance through Pakistan, which was the main access because of Irans anti- Western attitude and its focus on its war with Iraq. The entire planning of the war, all types of training of the Mujahideen and the allocation and distribution of arms and supplies were the sole responsibility of the ISI, and operational office in particular. The richest military contribution of the CIA to the Afghan war was in the field of satellite intelligence through photographs. Nothing above ground was hidden from the all-seeing satellite. It made both the planning of operations and the briefing of the Mujahideen commanders a comparatively a simple business. It enabled the ISI to select priority targets for rocket attacks, choose alternative firing points and consider the various routes to and from the target. The CIA would then transfer all the details on to a map with a list of possible targets, a description of each, together with recommended approaches, enemy dispositions, likely reactions to

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attack, and possible counter-attacks. This information, in conjunction with the local knowledge of the Afghan commanders, considerably enhanced the ability of ISI to conduct effective operations. The CIA also contributed substantially with the installation of wireless interception equipment. This was high-grade tactical information on the movement of units, and sometimes their intentions. Often the messages would be tense and dramatic, as when we heard operators under attack yelling their orders, or frantically calling for help. The ISI was in close contact with CIA for using its technical expertise in assessing how best to destroy a particular target, be it a bridge, a dam, a fuel dump or a pipeline in Afghanistan. The CIA would supply the photographs and a demolition expert would give ISI advice on the type of explosive, the amount required, the best method of detonation and the precise location at which to place the charges, together with the likely extent of the damage.26

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POLITICALPOLITICAL- MILITARY CONTROL 1984-1987 1984Inter Services Intelligence

Main HQ, Islamabad Afghan Bureau, Rawalpindi

NWFP Peshawar Seven Party Alliance

Hikmatyar Khalis Rabbani Sayaf Nabi Gailani Mujaddadi Fundamentalist Fundamentalist Fundamentalist Fundamentalist Moderate Moderate Moderate ISI PAKISTAN AFGHANISTAN Commanders Comds Comds Comds Comds Comds Comds Mujahideen Muj Muj Muj Muj Muj Muj

Baluchistan Quetta
Party Representatives ISI

Military Committee

Comds Muj

12

The Arms Pipeline to the Mujahideen:

Nevertheless, it was not the CIA's pipeline that provided weapons to the Mujahideen. As soon as the arms arrived in Pakistan the CIA's responsibility ended. From then on it was the ISIs pipeline and organization, that moved, allocated, and distributed every bullet that the CIA procured. But even the ISI did not actually give the guns and ammunition to the Mujahideen who were to use them in battle. The last stretch of the line into and across Afghanistan was in the hands of the seven Parties and the Commanders in the field. The pipeline was divided into three distinct parts.

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1. The first part belonged to the CIA, who bought the weapons and paid for their delivery to Pakistan; 2. the second stretch was the ISI's responsibility, getting everything carried across Pakistan, allocated to, and handed over to the Parties at their headquarter offices near Peshawar and Quetta; 3. the third and final leg of the journey belonged to the Afghans. The Parties allocated the weapons to their commanders, and distributed them inside Afghanistan. The larger parties owned up to 300 vehicles of all types. These were civilian-pattern trucks which blended with the normal crossborder traffic. The number-plates were that of the Afghan vehicles purchased in Kabul, which were used for the longer journeys by road. They were more numerous than ISI's transport as often these vehicles undertook journeys of several days or more, with no possibility of returning empty on the second day. The second method of arms transportation included camels, horses and mules provided by the CIA through ISI to the parties for commanders. They were quite separate from the contractors' own animals. Probably the most expensive leg of the journey was the last sector of the pipeline from the parties to the Mujahideen who would use the weapons. The arms transportation rate during those days was $15-20 per kilogram. This meant the cost of moving a mortar from the Pakistan border to the Mazar-i-Sharif area was approximately $1100, while just one bomb cost around $65. Little wonder, then, that the monthly expenditure by the parties on transportation and allied expenses was $1.5 million.27

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In 1983 some 10,000 tons of arms and ammunition went through the pipeline to the Afghan resistance. By 1987 this amount had risen to 65,000 tons, all of it handled by 200 men from the Ministry of Defense Constabulary (MODC) with four fork-lift trucks, working seven days a week, month after month.28

The CIA Secret War Game in Pakistan:

No one knows with certainty the number, nature, and origin of the arms that actually reached the Afghan resistance from outside sources except ISI, and even though its secrets were leaked when its former operational Director M. Yousaf published its two books. Even the official statements of Washington and Islamabad on the military aid to the Afghan resistance before the publications of Yousafs books were fabricated and concocted for obvious reasons but the refugee leaders in Pakistan were also falsely boasting in tune with their masters. In an interview in May 1984, Ishaq Gailani, an eminent refugee leader commented that the weapons with the Afghan resistance from internal sources constituted 80 percent of all arms, captured from DRA troops, desertions, or even barter.29 Deserting Soviet troops, particularly of Central Asian origin who shared languages, religion, and ethnicities with the Afghan resistance, found greater acceptance if they bring their weapons with them at the time of surrender. Numerous, though unverifiable, stories speak of troops bartering weapons and ammunition for hashish, heroin and even food. Most of the guerrilla leaders in Pakistan echo the same 80-20 ratio of weapons, although some guerrilla leaders such as General Ramatullah Safi have maintained that they received little or nothing in the way of foreign-supplied weapons.30 A similar assertion was

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made by leaders of the Hezb-e-Islami.31 In addition, the Mujahideen have captured 82 mm (Soviet) mortars and 60 mm Type 63 (Chinese) mortars. British manufactured 2-inch mortars are presumably supplied from Gulf sources. Such light anti-aircraft weapons as the Chinese copy of the Soviet ZPU-2, a twin-barreled 14.5 mm heavy machine gun, also have been seen. According to Bob Woodward, the American journalist and author of The Secret Wars of CIA, most crucial was President Zias willingness to allow the CIA to funnel growing amounts of paramilitary support to the Afghan resistance through Pakistan. The CIA and the Reagan administration all wanted Zia to stay in power and needed to know what was going on inside his government. The CIA station in Islamabad was the biggest in the world. CIA Director Casey, who used to visit Zia once or twice a year during the peak years of the civil war in Afghanistan, had the closest relationship with Zia of any member of the Reagan administration. Thus fully supported by Washington and protected by the worlds most powerful intelligence network, General Zia had been able to avoid return to democracy for eleven long years instead of the 90 days he had promised.32 The CIA had two officers on post in Pakistan in 1983 but these increased to five later on. They were anxious to set up their own operations office alongside the Director Operation of ISI at Rawalpindi but they were not permitted. There were other visitors and the countless paid agents of the CIA operating within the Mujahideen, the parties, the Military Committee, and even within ISI staff. Like any intelligence organization they were invariably devious in the way they went about things.33

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Large number of other CIA-sponsored visitors, officials, experts, technicians and analysts, who all felt they could help win the war visited Pakistan with commendable regularity every two weeks from Washington. Another interesting activity of the CIA, and indeed of the Western intelligence organizations from the UK, France, West Germany and elsewhere, was their scramble to buy captured Soviet weapons or equipment. In 1985 the new AK-74 rifle was being used by Soviet troops. It was smaller and lighter than the old AK-47 and fired a 5.45mm bullet, which tended to tumble inside a body, thus giving extensive internal injuries and a large exit wound. The first one captured was sold to the CIA for $5,000. Then the rush started. Weapons, armor plating, avionics equipment (particularly from MI-24 gunship), cipher machines, tank tracks, even binoculars, all had a commercial value soon appreciated by the Mujahideen. Embassy staff cars used to go up to the tribal areas near the border on buying trips, until the DG of ISI protested to the embassies that this must stop and that they should channel their requests through ISI.34 However, from 1984 onwards the CIA tried through their agents, to get an Afghan pilot to defect with an MI-24 Hind helicopter gunship. They had made contacts in Kabul but failed to get one. In the end it was ISI plan that gave the CIA not one, but two, MI-24s.35 Some of the CIA experts in Pakistan were advising ISI personnel on fuel contamination inside Afghanistan. He was of the opinion that Mujahideen sympathizers working at workshops or airports in Afghanistan should be given this contaminant to mix with the fuel in vehicle or aircraft tanks.36 Until 1985 it was a firm policy that only communist bloc

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weapons could be bought. This was part of pretense that the West and America in particular, were not backing the Mujahideen with material assistance. Until 1984 the bulk of all arms and ammunition was purchased from China, and they proved to be an excellent supplier, completely reliable, discreet and, at a later stage, even providing weapons as aid as well as for sale.

China:
In January 1980, just days after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Harold Brown, then visiting China, obtained an agreement with their government which permitted over flights of Chinese territory for planes carrying arms destined for the resistance. The Peoples Republic of China would supply Sam-7s and RPG anti-tank rockets. In the event the PakistanAfghanistan border was sealed the agreement would even allow unloading equipment in China and would facilitate the difficult transshipment by overland personnel. A Chinese arms supply was thus assured. Yet, the P.R.C. did not agree to a joint operation but rather, as one participant in the discussion put it, to "do things in parallel"37 The Kabuls regime reportedly alleged that the Chinese agents have been particularly active in the northern provinces of Afghanistan. They have turned the 74 kilometers Chinese-Afghan border into a source of permanent tension and provocation against Afghanistan. Almost every day armed bandits accompanied by Chinese instructors cross the border, kill local people, loot their property, seize their cattle and so on.38 However on January 30, 1985, Kabul regime expressed grave concern at Beijing's supplying the resistance with arms. In a letter addressed to its counterpart, the Chinese Communist party, the PDPA accused Beijing of what it

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referred to as "terrorist activities". According to this letter, published in the official Afghan media, "training camps are set up in Xingjian province for counter-revolutionary bands, as the Kabul regime styles the Mujahideen. Furthermore, it went on, "several hundred Chinese instructors are engaged in training Afghan bandits in the training centers inside Pakistani territory. It further alleged that the Chinese have supplied approximately 2,000 heavy machine guns, 1,000 anti-tank rockets and nearly half a million rounds of ammunition.39 Chinese weapons, particularly rockets and anti-aircraft guns, were available to the resistance leaders in sizable quantities. More effective than the heavier, costlier equipment from the West, Chinese arms effectively supplement the Soviet weapons captured by the resistance; and, in most cases, the parts and ammunition were interchangeable.40 The cost of the operation as late as 1983 was no more than $ 50 million, with the United States financing about half and Saudi Arabia most of the rest. By the late 1980, Washington alone was providing as much as $ 600 million in support. Through the decade, more than $ 2.5 billion was set aside by Washington for the Afghan resistance. The level of Saudi funds for its friends among the resistance grew to an estimated $ 400 to $ 500 million by 1990.41 During 1983 approximately 10,000 tons ammunition were received by ISI, rising to 65,000 tons in 1987, all of it handled by 200 men from the Ministry of Defense Constabulary (MODC) with four fork-lift trucks, working seven days a week, month after month. The type of weapons purchased ranged from small arms

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through to anti-tank and anti-aircraft (AA) rocket launchers and guns. The great bulk came from China, Egypt, and later on from Israel.42 In 1985, Pakistani government received 10,000 RPGs along with 200,000 rockets, but CIA failed to take into account all the RPGs Pakistan had already received since 1980 (minus an annual wastage rate of 15 per cent). It had not occurred to them that Pakistan needed ammunition for them as well. Similarly with antiaircraft ammunition, the CIA lists were often woefully inadequate as no account was taken of the very high rate of fire of these weapons. So much time and effort could have been saved had the CIA given Pakistan a ceiling on funds, some idea of costs, and left ISI to prepare annual requirements taking into account existing stocks, operational needs and wastage.43 The CIA would arrange and pay for shipment to Karachi, notifying the ISI of arrival dates of shipments. Once the vessel docked, the ISI took over storage and distribution. It had often been stated in the world press that China supplied arms overland via the Karakoram highway, the old Silk Route but constantly denied by Islamabad. However, the mules for Mujahideen were brought from China via the Karakorum highway. 44 Some time CIA even embarrassed ISI by sending ammunition to Karachi early. It happened in the middle of 1984 when an enormous shipment of 100,000, 303 rifles arrived at Karachi. When ISI officials protested that they had not requested this amount, and that they had no storage space, the CIA advised that they represented the 1985 supply in advance, as well as those for the current year. When pressed as to storage space, CIA men told

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in confidence that they had been bought at a rock-bottom price from India.45 In 1984, the Turkish authorities made an offer to supply weapons to Afghan resistance. Ankara supplied 60,000 rifles, 8,000 light machine guns, 10,000 pistols and over 100 million rounds of ammunition but most of the weapons were badly corroded or faulty and could not be given to the Mujahideen. In the mid-1984, the CIA came up with another offer of the Swissdesigned 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns. The ISI after certain queries declined the offer for technical reasons.46

Egypt:
Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt who, according to some accounts, approached the American authorities almost immediately following the Soviet incursion, and the United States quickly and readily responded. Nasser confidant and Sadat critic Mohamed Hassanein Heikal asserts that in 1980, the year after the invasion, Egypt's President faced allegations of corrupt deals in high places. To counterattack, he sought to mobilize the Egyptian people to the cause of Afghanistan, a fellow Muslim nation. Such a diversionary tactic was, in Heikal's view, ineffectual, counterproductive, and probably dangerous.47 Egypt was a logical choice for the covert arms flow. It had a large supply of aging Soviet weaponry dating from the Nasser years that was increasingly less useful, as Sadat had boldly expelled the Soviet technicians from his country in 1972. These arms were being replaced by modern American equipment following the 1974 resumption of relations. Furthermore, Egypt, with the oldest and most experienced military establishment in the Arab world, was

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beginning to manufacture spare parts and ammunition not only for its Soviet arsenal but also for export. Indeed, tons of replicated armaments have been manufactured on the outskirts of Cairo.48 On 3rd September 1981, Sadat in an interview with NBC on the: "Today" Program stated that Egypt's sending arms to the guerrillas in Afghanistan was due to the fact that they are our Muslim brothers and in trouble.49 President Anwar Sadat, shortly before his death on October 6, 1981, made known to a foreign correspondent and to the world that Egypt was funneling Soviet or Soviet-type light weapons by way of Pakistan to aid the Mujahideen in their struggle against the Soviet occupation. Coordinating and funding for this operation, he revealed, came from none other than the American Central Intelligence Agency.50 The disclosure of Egyptian arms aid to the Mujahideen and the CIA role in these shipments could only underscore the fact that Sadat only needed to restore his own legitimacy, to be gained through the helping of Afghan Mujahideen.51 Despite Sadat disclosures, the CIA started buying large quantities from Egypt. Some reports indicate the weapons arrived in Pakistan as air cargo in planes whose markings were continually altered. Which type of weapons they were, and in what quantities, were not always ascertainable? At the outset, the AK-47 Kalashnikov was the popular small gun. Although more sophisticated weapons, including a limited number of surfaces to air missiles, were being supplied, the weapons clearly remain in the small arms category. The quality of supply was not good because the rifles were rusted together, barrels were solid with dirt and corrosion, and some boxes were empty, while in others the contents were deficient. Even the Egyptian mortar were quality wise not good and the last

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thing ISI needed was the added complication of a different caliber weapon with different ammunition, different training and more logistic. The Egyptians had cobbled together arms that had been lying exposed to the atmosphere for years in order to make a substantial amount of money. Though Peshawar was the principal conduit for Egyptian and almost all other external weapons sources, especially small arms and ammunition, some experts (off the record) indicated that the shipments were also being ferried by the CIA via Oman to the Baluchi coast. Such arms were going through Iran and Pakistan, probably without Pakistani permission. Baluchistan was run by its own Mullahs apart from the rest of Iran and it was not difficult therefore to carry something through.52 Perhaps the best example of politics and money overruling military judgment was with the British Blowpipe surface-to-air missile (SAM). The CIA was well aware that ISIs overriding requirement was for an effective, man-portable, anti-aircraft weapon. Yet in mid-1985, CIA offered Blowpipe, but it was rejected on practical grounds by ISI. The same was the case of the Red Arrow, a Chinese anti-tank, wire-guided missile in late 1986. Once again the CIA was insisting that it would be effective, although they deliberately delayed sending the detailed characteristics of the weapon, urging ISI to take it on their assurances. By this time the Chinese had joined the CIA to get their weapon accepted. Tremendous political pressure built up from Washington for ISI not to reject this missile. The ISI conceded that a Chinese team could come and train Pakistani instructors and that, depending on the results; a final decision would be made after the course. The training lasted for eight weeks and was unique in that the Chinese brought an attractive young

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woman as their weapon-training interpreter. Despite her charm and efforts the results, watched by the CIA, were poor. Red Arrow was not bought.53 It is very amazing that the US government had been, in a very small way, an arms supplier to a PDPA regime in Afghanistan. Michael T. Klare learned that between September 1976 and May 1979 the government of Afghanistan received for its police force use of 36,000 pistols and revolvers and 10,000 round of ammunition.54 Using data from the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1970-1979, he affirms that the government of Afghanistan received $ 478 million in arms, ammunition, and related equipment, excluding services and construction, $ 450 million of which was supplied by the Soviet Union while sources for the remainder are not indicated. Pakistan, by way of comparison, received $ 875 million during the same period at that time, principally from France followed by the United States.55 By 1984-85 the Soviet strategy achieved little more than a continuing stalemate. The war had cost the USSR about $ 12 billion with no substantial improvement in the politico-military situation in Afghanistan. 56 Yet throughout 1983-86 the SovietAfghan superiority remained absolute and the guerrillas were always vulnerable from the air. If much of the resistance controls 90 percent of the land, but the enemy controls 90 percent of the air.57 Nevertheless, wars have ultimately been won, history tells us, by the force controlling the land, not the air alone. Between 1982 and 86 Egyptian and Chinese SAM-7s (man portable anti aircraft missiles) and the British Blowpipes were used (without much effect) by the Afghan resistance. The resistance organizations had purchased some ancient SAM-7s from the Palestine Liberation Organization after it

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was forced to withdraw from Lebanon. Priced at a hefty equivalent of 26,000 British pounds each, few worked and most were unserviceable.58 By September, 1986 the first batch of stingers were sent by the US through the ISI. Training was imparted by ISI and immediately they had a telling effect in the skies over Afghanistan. The stinger was a key factor in the war which gradually tilted the balance in favor of the resistance. The resistance began shooting down an average of at least one Soviet-Afghan aircraft per day.59 In early April, 1988, a few days prior to the Geneva Accord, ISI lost the entire stock of arms and ammunition meant for Afghan resistance at Ojhri Camp (Rawalpindi) followed by the US cutback of supplies to Pakistan for the Afghan resistance. But by February 1988, the ex-Soviet Union lost 13,310 soldiers in Afghanistan while 35,478 wounded and 311 reportedly missing.60

The Peshawar Seven and Arms:

As discussed previously in Chapter Two, the Peshawar Seven parties were the most crucial link in the aid chain, in their role as intermediaries, both materially and ideologically speaking. It has been demonstrated how the refusal of the Pakistani services to deal with any unaffiliated individuals or organizations, along with the contacts enjoyed by the so-called fundamentalist parties and their leaders (especially Hekmtayar) with the Pakistani establishment, led to their increase in importance at the expense of parties espousing other ideological orientations. Selig S. Harrison is of the opinion that the lack of momentum in

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the UN efforts during 1984 made it easier for the ISI to build resistance operations around the fundamentalist groups, discounting the more moderate elements identified with Zahir Shah, who wanted to test the possibilities for a negotiated settlement. The fundamentalists were closer to ISI than their rivals, partly because they had been working for Pakistani intelligence agencies against the Pashtun dominated Afghan monarchy and the Daud regime even before the Communist take over and the Soviet invasion. More important, elements in the Pakistani military and the ISI high command shared their world view. General Akhtar (Director General ISI) like Zia, saw the Afghan crisis as a way to achieve a strategic depth in Afghanistan and a strategic alignment in which Afghanistan and Pakistan would be a part of an anti-Indian, Pan-Islamic regional bloc dominated by fundamentalist parties.61 According to US representative Wilson apart from their ideological affinity, by channeling weapons aid through the fundamentalists the ISI consciously minimized support for local Pashtun tribal leaders, who were largely allied with nonfundamentalist groups. This anti-Pashtun bias was rooted in the historic Pakistani conflict with Kabul over Pashtun areas straddling the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But the ISI rationalized its denial of aid to groups linked with the Pashtun tribal structure in military terms.62 Nobody knows exactly how much foreign aid both money and ammunition was received by the party leaders in Peshawar. By 1986 one thousand tons of weapons per week were shifted from Pakistan to Afghanistan. It means that in one year alone, 48 thousand tons of weapons were handed over to the Afghan resistance leaders and

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commanders. A report published in September 1984 by an authority on arms use in Afghanistan found a NIFA camp equipped with the 123.7 DShK heavy machine gun or "Dasheka" which possessed Soviet factory markings, vintage 1966; Chinese versions were also known. Although these tripod-mounted guns were the backbone of the Afghan resistance air defense, a smaller number of single or twin 14.5 Zp-I "Ziqriats" and Chinese-made 23 mm's were also known.63 Many Pashtun tribesmen along the Durand Line were plying their traditional double game to have a foot in both camps. Thousands participated in the Afghan jehad and supported the Mujahideen, but they had also been getting benefits from the Kabul regime. Local tribal Maliks demanded that members of any other tribe or band passing through his area would pay a tribute, usually in cash or weapons an old practice in the area. The US diplomats and intelligence officers on the scene acknowledged that sometimes the actual fighters were lucky if they got even 50 out of 100 guns sent to the Afghans, through the ISI, by CIA and its allies.64 The Afghan war provided to the local people other additional ways and means to make money. One of these was the smuggling of food into Afghanistan for sale to the garrisons of border posts. Pulses, flour, cooking oil, rice and items such - as petrol, diesel and kerosene for stoves or lamps were purchased by these isolated posts on a regular basis. They came to rely on this source of supply to survive. Even the concrete bunkers at some forts were constructed with cement and iron bars brought direct from Pakistan.

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Dr. Marwat with Afghan Mujahideen, Pehwar Pass, Afghanistan, 1984.

14

Misappropriation and Corruption:

Regarding the allegations of corruption one thing was clear that from common Afghan Mujahid, to party commanders, to leaders of almost all secret agencies including ISI and the CIA, all were involved in corruption in one way or the other. The arms shipments had a very long journey and involving various persons, before they ultimately reached the fighter in the field. The arms pipeline, meanwhile, had problems of its own. A lot of money and ammunition was wasted in Afghan war. Some of it was undoubtedly due to corruption or mistakes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but a larger proportion had disappeared into the

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pockets of unscrupulous governments, arms dealers, politicians and CIA agents, who through incompetence or dishonesty bought or sold millions of dollars worth of worthless or inappropriate arms and ammunition. The party leaders and other commanders were blamed for selling the arms and other material meant for refugees. Commenting on misappropriation in the foreign fund for refugee and the lust of the party leaders for money and power, the contemporary writer Azizur Rahman Ulfat stated: Under this leadership, usually the aid and reinforcements and other materials that were supplied for the holy war and the relief of refugees were misappropriated and used for personal comforts(the) dignified, nobles, honest and sober (people) became poorer, (while) shameless opportunists and crooked (people) started roaring business (es) and bought houses and lands in Peshawar.65 It should be noted that Azizur Rahman Ulfat was killed in by unknown assassin in Peshawar for his bold criticism on the refugee leadership. Apart from local news on the corruption charges in the refugee related institutions, the Washington Post of 8 May, 1987 appeared with headline: Afghan Rebel Aid Enriches Generals. The CIA has spent $3 billion on arms for Afghan rebels - half of it put up by the US taxpayers. Yet not a single American decides who gets the weapons. 'We have found that the CIA's secret arms pipeline to the Mujahideen is riddled with opportunities for corruption. The losers are the poorly equipped guerrillas fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan,

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and the American people whose congressional representatives have been betrayed by the CIA.'66 The US government also looked the other way when it received reports that elements of the Pakistans army and refugee administration were conniving with members of the Peshawar parties in the sale of weapons and relief supplies, as well as for other favors. As a matter of policy, the Pakistan military laid claim to a share of the weapons flow. Zias armed forces saw it as their right to appropriate weapons from CIA shipments, and the CIA in effect, condoned the theft as a sort of commission, as the way one does business with the government in Pakistan. It is believed that at least 20 percent of the arms and perhaps more than 30 percent were siphoned off from the supply pipelines.67 However, Brigadier Yousaf claimed that although corruption is a way of life in Pakistan, the military is perhaps the only organization in which it is minimal. He insists with arguments that the middle section of the pipe line was virtually corruption free and 'that the opportunities for diversion and corruption are far greater before the arms get to Karachi than after'.68 Replying to the charges that the ISI diverted arms to the Pakistan Army, Brigadier Yousaf states: These were correct to the extent that some 200 14.5mm machine guns, RPG-7s and SA7s were given to the Army to be deployed in emergencies on the western border when the Soviet/Afghan forces stepped up their air and artillery violations into Pakistan. I can say with absolute authority that no other weapon was so diverted. It was foolish of us to do it without taking the CIA into our confidence, as I am sure

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they would not have objected. As it was, they found out, so there was a flurry of accusations and denials which damaged our relationship unnecessarily69 The British author and arms trade specialist James Adams, who studied the wars progress, observed, The mixture of Pakistani corruption and the Afghan aptitude for making money by any means produced an industry which had little to do with a holy war against the infidel Soviet invaders and a great deal to do with profiteering. 70

Training Camps for Afghan resistance in Pakistan:

The border areas of Pakistan had grown into a vast, sprawling administrative base for the anti-Kabul resistance. The Mujahideen came there for arms, they came to rest, they came to settle their families into the camps, they came for training and they came for medical attention. The main bases for military training were in Peshawar, Chitral, Bajuar, Miran Shah and Quetta. In Peshawar area the important training camps were reportedly in Jamrud, Warsak Dam, Landi Kotal and Chirat. In Landi Kotal and Jamrud, the camps specialized in subversive activities and sabotage with the use of bombs and mines, as well as a large stock of all sorts of weapons, ammunition and food stuffs.71 Some fifty-five border bases were located just inside Pakistan, mostly clustered around the main entry points near Parachinar and Chaman, to the north west of Quetta. Each camp had a staff of 2-3 officers, 6-8 JCOs and 10-12 NCOs, assisted by about ten soldiers for administrative and guard duties. Most of the instructors were Pashto speaking and in some cases Dari (Afghan Persian) and Uzbek translators were hired. 72

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Close to the border, especially around Parachinar, Miram Shah and Chaman, everybody was involved in the war in some way or other. There were tens of thousands of refugees in their camps, the bases teemed with Mujahideen, hundreds of transport contractors milled around with their animals, and scores of trucks were being loaded for their final journey to the end of the supply pipeline. Every day of each month, winter permitting, arms and ammunition were on the move. These areas contained the main jump-off points from the Mujahideen's base of supply. The Durand Line was to the Mujahideen what the Amu River was to the Soviets. Here commanders came to collect their supplies, here the trucks from Peshawar and Quetta were off-loaded, and here the pack trains of animals assembled and loaded up. Like all other activities, the Afghan Bureau of ISI maintained complete secrecy in its war game. Pakistani public, the politicians, enemy agents, the Pakistan Army and Soviet spy satellites had to be kept in complete ignorance of the whereabouts of each training camp. The camps had to be within a nights drive from Peshawar or Quetta, as all trainees were brought by truck during darkness so they would have no ink of their location. The camps were not located near Army base or exercise area and not close to public areas. The locations of the camps were frequently changing and for secrecy and security reasons the telephone or wireless sets were not in use. Later on CIA provided secure radio sets for communication.73

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Training of the Afghan Refugees Youth

24

Training of the Afghan Refugees:

A Pakistani retired brigadier very innocently trying to convince the readers that the men ISI sent into Afghanistan were not spies, they were soldiers from the Pakistan Army, serving with the Afghan Bureau of ISI.74 The ISI sent Pakistani military personnel into Afghanistan from 1981 to 1986 on mission to accompany Afghan Mujahideen for special operations inside Afghanistan. Normally a team would consist of an officer (usually a major), a JCO and an NCO, one of whom had to be a Pashto speaker. These officers and NCOs had to live and fight as the Mujahideen, enduring the same privations and hardships. They had grown

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beards, were dressed as Mujahideen, so that they were indistinguishable from their guerrilla companions. 75 They acted as advisers, assisting the Afghan Commanders in carrying out subversive activities. Usually two Pakistani teams in Afghanistan were operative throughout the period May to October, in the field from one to three months. No team had the knowledge of the other team. In 1984, no less than eleven such teams operated in Afghanistan, seven against Kabul, two against Bagram airfield and two around Jalalabad. 76 The CIA instructors were responsible to train Pakistani Army instructors in case of new weapons, particularly anti-aircraft weapons. After completion of training, the Pakistani instructors were responsible to train the Mujahideen. At the end of 1983 we were operating two camps in Pakistan, each with a capacity of 200 trainees. By mid-1984 we were putting over 1000 a month through the system, and by 1987 we had seven camps operating simultaneously- four near Peshawar and three around Quetta.77 By the end of 1983 only 3,000 refugees had received any formal training at the two camps that had been established in Pakistan. This ratio was increased up to 1,000 Mujahideen in a month (in one year 12,000). Some time the ISI organized Mobile Training Team (MTT) along with a syllabus and training aids for various teams of guerrilla on the requests of party leaders. This crash program necessitated more staff and more money, both of which quickly provided by ISI, so the resultant statistics were startling. In 1984, 20,000 Mujahideen were trained, with 17,700 completing courses in 1985 and 19,400 in 1986; in total, by late

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1987 at least 80,000 Mujahideen had received training in Pakistan over a four-year period, and many thousands more had done so in Afghanistan.78

Three features of the ISI strategy:

First, there was a concerted effort on the part of the Director Operation of ISI to coordinate attacks aimed at cutting off Kabul from supplies or facilities coming from outside the city. This involved ambushes on convoys on roads leading to Kabul, the mining of dams that provided water, or cutting its power lines. Second, was sabotage and assassination from within. The latter included placing a bomb under the dining-room table of Kabul University in late 1983. The explosion, in the middle of their meal, killed nine Soviets, including a woman professor. Educational institutions were considered fair game, as the staff were all communists indoctrinating their students with Marxist dogma and turning them away from the true faith of Islam. Among other victims were the rector of the Kabul University and General Abdul Wadood, the commander of the Central Corps, who was killed in his office. The ISI reportedly even made numerous attempts to kill Dr. Najibullah, both when he was head of KhAD (Khidmat-eItlati-e-Daulat) and after he became President. The third way of hitting Kabul was by stand-off long-range rocket attacks. This was by far the most common method. Tens of thousands of rockets have fallen on the city and its environments during the war. ISI targets were always military or associated with the Communist government in some way but mostly the victims were innocent civilians or Mujahideen supporters. A revealing

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comment on the unintentional killing of civilians was made to Mark Urban, the author of War in Afghanistan, by Abdul Haq, a Commander who operated against Kabul. He said, 'their [the Mujahideen] target is not the civilians ... but if I hit them I don't care.... If my family lived near the Soviet Embassy I would hit it. I wouldn't care about them. If I am prepared to die, my son has to die for it, and my wife has to die for it.' The ISI list of potential targets suitable for rocket attack in Kabul ran to over seventy. 79

The Petro -Dollar Invasion:

The CIA supported the Afghan anti-Kabul resistance by spending the American taxpayers money, billions of dollars of it over the years, on buying arms, ammunition and equipment. A high proportion of the CIA aid was in the form of cash. For every dollar supplied by the US another was added by the Saudi Arabian government. The combined funds, running into several hundred million dollars a year, were transferred by the CIA to special accounts in Pakistan under the control of ISI. All this money was spent in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but the bulk of the CIA/ Saudi Arabia funds were spent outside these countries, on buying arms and ammunition. The type of weapons purchased ranged from small arms to anti-tank (AT) and anti- aircraft (AA) rocket launchers and guns. 80 The CIA was paying the rents of refugee party offices, construction and maintenance of warehouses, purchase of software (rations, clothes), subsistence allowance for leaders, salaries for party officials/employees, and transport. This latter included buying vehicles, and paying contractors to carry all supplies forward into Afghanistan, but not the purchase of mules from

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China (or later of horses from Argentina) which the CIA did themselves. Normally every party had exhausted this source of money within 10-12 days. Without cash, supplies got stuck in the pipe, which meant in party warehouses at Peshawar or Quetta. Eighty per cent of all arms and ammunition was allocated to the parties for onward distribution. Commanders had to belong to a party in order to get weapons, the only exception being when they came for training for special operations, but, even though they were then given the weapons direct, they came from their Parties' allocation.81 Almost all Peshawar Seven parties employed permanent staff, often Western-educated men who were not satisfied with the meager $100 a month salary. They demanded, and got, three times this amount, plus free housing. There was an ever-present temptation to sell weapons they had been given at 100 per cent profit to make up cash shortfalls. 82 In 1987, certainly the fundamentalist parties got lions share from ISI round about 67-73 per cent. Parties and commanders did have other sources of finance. Until late 1984 local taxes were levied by commanders in their valleys in Afghanistan, but as the Soviets progressively pounded the villages, smashed the irrigation systems, burnt crops and drove survivors into refugee camps, these taxes became impossible to collect. Captured weapons were used, sold or bartered. According to Islamic law war booty must be divided so that a fifth goes to the state (Party).83 For every US dollar that was supplied by the Americans to the CIAs arms buying fund, the Saudis equaled it. Other rich Arab individuals from all over the Middle East have also contributed

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very substantial sums to particular parties. Prince Turkie, the then head of the Saudi intelligence service, was a frequent visitor to Islamabad, and his relations with the ISI Director General were excellent. Both believed fervently in the importance of an Islamic brotherhood which ignored territorial frontiers.84

THE MONEY FLOW

USA SAUDI ARABIA ARABS

CIA
ARMS PURCHASE CHINA EGYPT ISRAEL USA UK PAKISTAN PAKISTAN

ISI RAWALPINDI & QUETTA

ISI ISLAMABAD

REFUGEES PARTIES
MONEY ARMS & SOFTWARE

11

Arab Money:
Though CIA and ISI managed logistical framework tried to supply and pay the Afghan refugees and guerillas through each of the seven main political parties, in practice pay and logistics for fighters in the field often had to come directly from outside donors.

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Arab journalists who visited Arab voluntaries in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1980-85 revealed that full-time fighters were getting $ 100 to $ 300 per month. The commanders and their deputies were getting more.85 It should be noted that being a lecturer during 80s my (Dr. Marwat) monthly salary was less than $ 200.86 It was largely Arab money that saved the entire anti-Kabul pyramid/web. The rich individuals and private organizations in the Arab world lavishly contributed to the Afghan refugees generally and particularly went to the four fundamentalist parties out of Peshawar Seven. Even among the fundamentalists, Sayaf was getting more because of his old personal contacts in Saudi Arabia. Naturally in the war-game as well as in political discourse the moderates were less affective, and were lagged behind their fundamentalist compatriots. Even the role of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), headed by Pakistani tycoon, Agha Hassan Abedi in the privatization of Jehad and its links with black money is no longer secret.87

Arab Afghans:
During the late 1980s, new phenomenon which developed in and around Afghanistan was the arrival of Arab volunteers for the Afghan Jehad with their own motives. Barney Krispin, a military officer who worked for the CIA during Afghan war in an unpublished essay, summoned up the relationship between Afghan and non-Afghan fighters at that time in an unpublished essay: The relationship between the Afghans and the

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Internationalists was like a varsity team to the scrubs. The Afghans fought their own war and outsiders of any stripe were kept on the sidelines. The Bin Ladin's of this Jehad could build and guard roads, dig ditches, and prepare fixed positions; however, this was an Afghan Jehad, fought by real Afghans, and eventually won by real Afghans.88 Milton Bearden, the former CIA station chief in Pakistan, was equally blunt, in writing: Despite what has often been written, the CIA never recruited, trained, or otherwise used the Arab volunteers who arrived in Pakistan. The idea that the Afghans somehow needed fighters from outside their culture was deeply flawed and ignored basic historical and cultural facts.89 Bearden continued to explain though that while the Afghan Arabs were "generally viewed as nuisances by Mujahidin commanders, some of whom viewed them as only slightly less bothersome than the Soviets," the work of Arab fundraisers was appreciated.90 The Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Coordination Council organized both the new recruits, and disbursement of assistance. In Pakistan, Arab volunteers staffed numerous Saudi Red Crescent offices near the Afghan frontier in Peshawar. The Arab volunteers also disproportionately gravitated to Sayyaf group. His party preached and propagated a strict Salafi version of Islam, critical of manifestations of both Sufism and tribalism in Afghanistan. Arab volunteers, and some Christian missionaries, rushed to open

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their missions in the name of `humanitarian assistance' or `the holy war against the infidels', and tried their best to propagate their ideologies, creeds and beliefs. The Arab NGOs succeeded in conversion of a good number of orthodox Hanafites to Wahabism, separating their mosques and Madrassas in the refugee camps, and building grand mosques and Madrassas in some cities to educate and indoctrinate the Afghans. The Christian missionaries did not make any mentionable headway. Whatever belief, faith, code, and ethics the Afghans had in Afghanistan was shattered by gold and guns in Pakistan.91 Even without a central role in the Afghan resistance movement, though, the Arabs did establish a well-financed presence in Afghanistan and along Pak-Afghan border. Ahmed Rashid, eminent Pakistani journalist reported that between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Islamists would serve in Afghanistan. 92

Drug & War:

One of the main and deleterious features of the Afghan War was the unchecked spread of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan along the Durand Line. In 1979, this region grew opium only for regional markets and produced no heroin. Within two years, however, the Pak-Afghan borderlands became the world's top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of the U.S demand. A.W McCoy admitted in his book that: American Cold warriors embraced a military anticommunist ideology. In their mind the entire world was locked in a Manichaean struggle between godless communists and the free world. In this desperate struggle to save Western civilization,

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any ally was welcome and any means was justified. The CIA became the vanguard of Americans anticommunist crusade and it dispatched small members of well-financed agents to every corner of the globe to mould the local political situation in a fashion compatible with American interests. He further states: During the 1980s the CIAs two main covert operations became interwoven with the global narcotics trade. The Agencys support for Afghan guerrillas through Pakistan coincided with the emergence of southern Asia as the major heroin supplier for European and American markets. Although the US maintained a substantial force of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in Islamabad during the 1980s, the unit was restrained by US national security imperatives and did almost nothing to slow Pakistans booming heroin export to America.93 In September 1981, Dr. Najibullah, as Intelligence Chief of Afghanistans KhAD, offered facilities to tribal heroin-makers and smugglers inside Afghanistan, to launch what was then called "the heroin war" against Pakistan, USA and the West, which eventually showed signs of embarrassment in the target countries. In a statement, Dr. Najib had pleaded that if alcoholic beverages formed an industry in the western world, why should opiates not flourish as an industry in the eastern world?94 As the anti-Kabul Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside

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Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, the Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan authorities operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests. In May 1990, as the CIA operation was winding down, The Washington Post published a report on the front-page charging that Gulbudin Hekmatar, the ClA's favored Afghan leader, was a major heroin manufacturer. The Post argued, in a manner similar to the San Jose Mercury News's later report about the contras, that U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies "because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there." The article further states that the US had failed to take action against Pakistans heroin dealers, claiming that: US official had ignored Afghan complaints of heroin trafficking by Hekmatyar and ISI an allegation that at least one senior American official confirmedHekmatyars Commanders close to ISI run heroin laboratories in south west Pakistan. 95 The CIA and ISI along with Afghan Mujahideen were not only eager to finance the anti-Kabul and anti-Soviet war through drug money, they even succeeded to addict the Russian soldiers. One Mujahid was quoted as saying: We try to poison the Russian with it the Mujahideen were selling opium and hashish mostly but now also heroin to the Russian soldiers in

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exchange for guns and to poison their spirit.96 A Soviet soldier from Estonia was quoted as saying, Often regular Afghan Army soldiers exchanged their Russian arms for food and drink from the peasants. So we did the same thing, because in the chaos of war to explain the loss of a weapon is easy.... We used to buy all kinds of food and drink, and even bread in exchange for our weapons....Some soldiers got hashish and other drugs. Our Asian soldiers were very often drug addicts because hash and other things grow on their land.97 The UN representative for Afghanistan Diego Cardoviez, while discussing the CIA efforts to demoralize the Communists, writes: Moscow had its own growing worries about Afghanistan as illness and drug abuse spread in the ranks of Soviet forcessome reports indicated that half of the men in certain combat units were ill at any given timeIn January 1987, out of six people in Moscow surveyed in a government sponsored opinion poll openly criticized the war, blaming it for widespread drug addiction and juvenile delinquency.98 A UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) survey claimed that in 1994 Afghanistan had produced 3270 tones of opium, thus displacing Myanmar (Burma) as the world's largest supplier. The "Golden Triangle" on the border of Burma, Thailand and Laos in South East Asia and now the "Golden Crescent" on the borders of

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Afghanistan, NWFP and Baluchistan is emerging as major drug centre. The opium harvest of Afghanistan which used to be exported to Iran stopped altogether with the rise of Islamic Revolutionary government there. With the missing of Iranian market and political crisis in their own country, the Afghan Poppy grower along with tribal people began to set up heroin manufacturing laboratories in the tribal area along the Pak-Afghan border. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979 to 5,000 in 1981 and had risen past 3.0 million by year 2,000.99 In 1995, Charles Cogan, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. "Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade," he told an Australian television reporter. "I don't think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan."100 It is reported that besides other things heroin money has been spent in the election campaigns and horse trading in Pakistan's parliament. The heroin culture developed to such an extent in Pakistan and particularly in the tribal areas that it became a fashion to smuggle heroin. This heroin malignant money changed the over all socio-economic and political order in the tribal belt. Persons like Wali Khan Kuki Khel and Nadir Khan Zaka Khel-once the protagonist of Pakhtunistan movement were overshadowed by persons like Ayub Afridi with wealth and power. Even in Orakzai Agency Late Maj. General (retd) Jamaldar Khan was defeated by

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an ordinary but wealthy contractor in the election.101 Interestingly in the formative phase the Taliban regime in Afghanistan legalized the opium production by imposing the usur tithe, with the result that in 1997, Afghanistan alone produced 2,800 tones of opium, half of it in Helmand, the seat of the Taliban. The Taliban needed hard cash to maintain its army. The lucrative trades in narcotics and Talibans hunger for arms have brought many criminal elements- the Russian mafia and the Asian drug lords - into the region. The opium trade is not only routed through Pakistan but finds ready market in Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan's main cities.102

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Politico-Religious cobweb for Afghan Refugees

Afghanistan

Migration

Mujahid Holy warrior

Muhajir Refugee

ISI

Mullah

Masjid

Afghan Refugees
Madrasa Maktab

Peshawar Seven

ARC
25

The Afghan Jehad and Religious Extremism:

In this new politico-ideological Jehadi backdrop, new sociocultural trends and traits developed with extreme political or religious agendas in the name of religion, sect or ethnicity in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The unholy alliance of the CIA, ISI and Islamic fundamentalist parties with the three Asian actors- Deng Xiaoping, Sadat and Zia at the forefront opened the Pandoras Box of extremism, fundamentalism, and drug trafficking in combating the menace of Soviet Communism. By financing and training the Afghan

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Mujahideen, the United States created what it now regards as a major threat to its own security. "Sensing (an) its enormous opportunity, traders in guns and drugs became linked to the phenomenon, creating an informal but extraordinary cartel of vested interests in guns, gold, and god," Eqbal Ahmad wrote in 1999. "The Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989 . . . but the idea of Jehad--an armed struggle of Muslim believers that had all but died out by the twentieth century--had been fully resuscitated," the late Pakistani scholar Eqbal Ahmad explained.103 A month before his enforced seclusion, Dr. Najabullah had given one of his last interviews to a US reporter: We have common task-Afghanistan, the USA and the civilized world- to launch a joint struggle against fundamentalism. If fundamentalism comes to Afghanistan, war will continue for many years. Afghanistan will turn into a centre of world smuggling for narcotic drugs. Afghanistan will be turned into a centre for terrorism. 104 More than 100,000 Islamic militants were reportedly trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by the CIA and Britain's MI6, with the British SAS trained future al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders were trained at a CIA camp in Virginia. This was called Operation Cyclone and continued long after the Soviets had withdrawn in 1989.105 Selig Harrison, a leading US expert on South Asia said in a conference on "Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in Asia."

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"I warned them that we were creating a monsterThe CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan." The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan's demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.106 Harrison also recalled a conversation he had with the late General Zia-ul Haq of Pakistan. "Gen Zia spoke to me about expanding Pakistan's sphere of influence to control Afghanistan, then Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and then Iran and Turkey," Harrison said. That design continues, he added. According to Harrison, Gen. Mohammed Aziz, who was involved in the Zia plan, has been elevated now to a key position by Chief Executive, General Parvez Musharraf. He further stated: "The Taliban are not just recruits from madrasas but are on the payroll of the ISI". The Taliban are now "making a living out of terrorism The creation of the Taliban was central to Pakistan's "pan-Islamic vision," Harrison said. The creation of the Taliban had been "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," and "Pakistan has been building up Afghan collaborators who will sustain Pakistan," he stated.107 A Jehadi culture made a way into in the overall political and social structures of the Afghans and Pakistanis. Almost all political parties of the refugee as well as religio-political parties of Pakistan with varying names have their own militant armed wings. Jehad and smuggling of weapons has become big business fueled largely by anti- Indian struggle in Kashmir, anti-American resistance in

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Afghanistan, Iraq and even in tribal areas of Pakistan. Sectarian terrorists have killed or injured thousands of Pakistanis over the last 10 years, even attempting to murder former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President General Parvez Musharraf.108 The armed groups, many of them with battlehardened Taliban (religious students), are in the vanguard of sectarian killings throughout Pakistan, which are on the increase; killings of members of rival sects, Sunnis against the Shia, Deobandi Sunnis against Barelvi Sunnis and so on. They have also begun to issue threats against the state itself and the society in Pakistan. Assassinations, machine-gun attacks on mosques and explosions have claimed 581 lives and over 1600 injured between 1990 and 1997.109 In addition, the Taliban Islamic Movement (TIM) austere militancy and its drive to consolidate power over Afghanistan provided the sectarian forces with a model to follow. For instance, the Tehrik-e-Taliban-Zargari (Taliban Movement of Zargari) of the religious students operated in the Orakzai Agency in tribal area of Pakistan. In December, 1998, the leaders of the movement established a Shariat court and ordered the execution of a group that it found guilty of criminal activity. The executions were carried out in public and the houses of the executed were raised to the ground.110 In January 1999, the Tehrik launched a movement on the Taliban model in Hangu district of NWFP against television, dish antennae, music and unveiled women. 111 Even Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (Movement for the enforcement of Islamic laws) of Sufi Muhammad in Malakand took its new form into a militant uprising under the shadow of

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Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan. Sufi Muhammad declared Jehad against America and offered his services to Amir ul- Momaneen Mullah Umar. Sufi Muhammad and some of his followers were sentenced to three years imprisonment in November 2001 and his outfit (TNSM} and four other Jehadi organizations were banned by President Parvez Musharraf of Pakistan on January 12, 2002. Though legally TNSM is banned yet unofficially it is still active in Malakand. 112 Last but not the least, the CIA and ISI along with the Afghans won the war at large, but lost the peace in the region as well as in the world.

References and Notes

1

Louis Dupree, The Marxist Regimes and the Soviet Presence in Afghanistan: An Ages-old culture responds to late twentieth century Aggression. pp. 58-73; cf. also www. Institute for afghan-studies.org/economy / return. 2 Diego Cordovez & Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, P. 92. 3 Mohammad Yousaf & Mark Adkin, The Bear Trap: Afghanistans Untold Story, Jang Publisher, Lahore, 1992, P.25; In General Ziaul Haq's government, it was widely believed that through the Afghan Mujahideen's victory, Pakistan would gain "strategic depth". Commenting on this plan of Pakistan Eqbal Ahmad (eminent Pakistani scholar) stated: I first encountered this view in 1988, during a meeting with the late General Akhtar Abdur Rahman Khan. I argued then, as I would now, that this is a skewed idea; we are after a shadow which would lead us into unrelieved darkness. See his article In Afghanistan, Cease Fire Please in the daily Dawn, Karachi, 7th April, 1991. 4 Ibid, P. 38 5 Ibid, pp.37, 138. Our (ISI) interest in the camps was that they provided a safe refuge from the war for the families of the Mujahideen, who could fight in Afghanistan in the knowledge that their relatives were immune from reprisals.

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They also acted as places to which the Mujahideen could return for a rest and to see their families without compromising themselves. Also, inside these camps was a huge reservoir of potential recruits for the Jehad. Thousands of young boys came to the camps as refugees, grew up, and then followed their fathers and brothers to the war. 6 Ibid, P. 35 7 Nassim Jawad, Role of the International community in future Afghanistan, Defence Journal, Urdu Bazar Karachi, Vol: xvii, no: 9, 1991, P 25 ; Soviet military aid to Afghanistan in 1989 was $ 4 billion and in 1990 it reached to $ 6.4 billion. Izvestiya, 25th May, 1992. 8 See for details and the figures: Mr. Shah Zaman, Humanitarian Assistance Program for Afghan Refugees in North West Frontier Province Pakistan, Afghan Refugee Commissionerate, NWFP, Peshawar, December, 1985; Defence Journal, Karachi, Vol. IX, No. 12, 1983, pp.37-46 and the same journal of 1011, 1983. 9 Frederic Grare, Pakistan and the Afghan Conflict: 1979-1985, Oxford University Press, 2003, P. 45. 10 Ibid, P. 44 11 Edited Undeclared War, Armed intervention and other forms of interference in the internal affairs of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Information Department DRA Ministry of Foreign affairs Kabul, 1980, P. 25; See also The Truth about Afghanistan: Documents, Facts, Eyewitness Reports, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1980 for US, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabias blatant interference in Afghanistan. 12 Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective, ArnoldHeinemann publishers, India, 1987, P.118. 13 Indy Media site, Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski Le Nouvel Observateur (France), January, 15-21, 1998, P.76. 14 Anthony Hyman (1982), pp 170-172; (1984), pp. 170-171, provides a useful summary from which the following summary is drawn. The analysis is mine. 15 Ibid. 16 Grare Opcit, P.56 17 Grant M. Farr & John G. Merrian, Afghan Resistance: The Politics of Survival, Vanguard Books (Pvt) Ltd, Lahore, P.75 18 Grare Opcit, P. 57

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Ibid, P. 57 Hennery S. Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet intervention, Oxford University Press, Karachi, 1999, P. 183 21 Amin Saikal & W .Maley, The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, Cambridge University Press, UK, 1989, 22 Brig (Retd) Mohammad Yousaf, The Silent Soldier, The Man Behind the Afghan Jehad, Jang Publisher, Lahore, P.34. 23 Ibid, p.16-17 24 John Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, London, Pluto Press, ,1999, P.54 25 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, PP 78-96. 26 Ibid, P. 94 27 Ibid, P. 106. The aforementioned was the London spokesman of Talibans government. 28 Ibid, P .98 29 John Fullerton, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Far Eastern Economic Review Ltd, Hong Kong, 1984, P. 197; Syed Ishaq Gailani though reportedly developed some differences with his uncle but he along with his wife was very active in social and political activities in Peshawar. Currently (2004) he is a presidential candidate in Afghanistan. 30 Grant M. Farr & John G. Merrian Opcit, P. 72; General R. Safi later on wrote books in Pashtu against the Northern Alliance and Ahmad Shah Masud. In his books, he tried to prove Ahmad Shah Masud as an agent of the KGB and Soviet Union. In the year 2000 he was the spokesman of Talibans government in London. 31 Ibid, P.98 32 Murtaza Malik, The Curtain Rises: Uncovered Conspiracies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Royal Book Company, Karachi, 2002, P.157 33 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, pp .91-92 34 Ibid, P. 92 35 Ibid, P. 92 36 Ibid, pp. 89-90 37 Grant M. Farr & John G. Merrian Opcit on P. 74 quoted Carl Bernstein, Arms for Afghanistan, The new Republic, July, 1981, pp. 8-10. 38 Undeclared War, Armed intervention and other forms of interference in the
20

19

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internal affairs of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Information Department DRA Ministry of Foreign Affairs Kabul,1980, P. 27 39 Grant M. Farr & John G. Merrian Opcit, P. 74 40 Ibid. P. 74 41 Marving G. Weinbaum, Pakistan and Afghanistan: Resistance & Reconstruction, Pak. Book Corporation, Karachi, 1994, P.30. 42 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, P. 83. 43 Ibid, P.83 44 Ibid, P. 84 45 Ibid, P. 85 46 Ibid, pp. 87-88 47 Grant M. Farr & John G. Merrian Opcit, P.81 48 Judith Perera, But does it have military muscle?, The Middle East, February, 1984, PP 14-16.Carl Bernstein disagrees that Sadat was the initiator. He says that the US President affirmed a "moral obligation" to arm the Afghan resistance at a meeting of the National Security Council on hours after the Soviet incursion. See Carl Bernstein, Arms for Afghanistan, The New Republic, July 18, 1981, PP 8,9,10 49 Grant M. Farr & John G. Merrian Opcit, P. 72 50 Ibid. P.72 51 Interview with some Arabs in Peshawar, dated July 18, 1980 52 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, P. 85; Some references comes from an interview in Washington, D.C., on April 19, 1984. For a probably inaccurate and overblown account of CIA activities; See Time, June 11, 1984. 53 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, pp. 88-89. 54 T. Michael Klare, American arms supermarket, University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1985, P 263. The source cited is Export Licenses issued to U.S. arms firms by the office of Munitions Control, U.S. Department of State. 55 Ibid, pp. 210-211, Using data from the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures (1982). 56 The daily Frontier Post, Peshawar, 29th December, 1989. In 1980s the Soviet cost in Afghanistan was estimated $ 96 billion to $152 billion. Henry S. Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999, P. 252. Moscow lost 13833 personnel from armed forces, 572 from border guards and other KGB units, 28 official and 20 others (total 14453)

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and 417 servicemen were missing. Bradsher Opcit. pp..251-259. Grant M. Farr & John G. Merrian Opcit, P. 86 58 Ibid. P.88 59 Strategic Survey 1988-89, International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1989, P.140. 60 Yousaf,, Silent Soldier, pp. 9, 10, 21; See Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, P.105 61 Diego Cordovez, & Selig S. Harrison, P.162. 62 Ibid., P.162. 63 Grant M. Farr & John G. Merrian Opcit, P.87 quoting from David Isby, Harassing the bear: New Afghan tactics stall Soviet victory, 1984. 64 John Cooley Opcit, P.55 65 Aziz Rahman Ulfat, The Crisis of Leadership, published by the founder of the Islami Entiqam Party, Peshawar, 1981, P. 5 66 The Washington Post, 8th May, 1987 67 Marving G. Weinbaum Opcit, P 31 68 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, PP. 90, 102 . 69 Ibid, P.102 70 John Cooley Opcit, P. 55 71 Interview with S. Hassan Pacha and Janan, Peshawar, 1985. 72 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, P .120 73 Ibid, P. 118 74 Ibid, P.113 75 Ibid, P. 114 76 Ibid, P 113. 77 Ibid, P 117 78 Ibid, pp. 116, 117; According to Pakistani source from 1980 to 1989 the total aerial violations of Pakistani territory by Afghan government causing 2362 casualties, including more than 550 killed. 79 Ibid. pp. 146-7; On page 64 of the same book Brigadier Yousaf proudly confessing by writing: I was now cast [in ISI] in the role of overall guerrilla leader. I ran over in my mind the recognized criteria normally necessary for an armed resistance movement to succeed: First, a loyal people who would support the effort at great risk to themselves, a local population, the majority of whom would supply shelter, food, recruits and information. The Afghan people in the thousands of rural villages met this
57

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requirement. Second, the need for the guerrilla to believe implicitly in his cause, for him to be willing to sacrifice himself completely to achieve victory. The Afghans had Islam. They fought a Jehad, they fought to protect their homes and families. Third, favorable terrain. With over two-thirds of Afghanistan covered by inhospitable mountains known only to the local people, I had no doubts about this. Fourth, a safe haven - a secure base area to which the guerrilla could withdraw to refit and rest without fear of attack. Pakistan provided the Mujahideen with such a sanctuary. Fifth, and possibly most important of all, a resistance movement needs outside backers, who will not only represent his cause in international councils, but are a bountiful source of funds. The US and Saudi Arabia certainly fulfilled this role. General Akhtar had been right; the ingredients for military victory were all there. I needed to give careful thought to where, and how, to apply the thousand cuts to bring down the bear. Yousaf proudly confessed that in 1984 we (ISI) instituted a series of successful attacks on Bagram Air Base (Kabul) during which some twenty aircraft were destroyed on the ground. The story of how one of them was carried out illustrates the system of training and tactics working in practiceOur biggest success was in 1984 when we succeeded in destroying eighty pylons in one night in the Sarubi-Kabul sector. Kabul was plunged into darkness. The operation was filmed by some American journalists and later shown on television under the title Operation Blackout. 80 Ibid, P .83; See also Brig (Retd) Mohammad Yousaf, The Silent Soldier, The Man Behind the Afghan Jehad, Jang Publisher, Lahore, P.42 81 Ibid, pp. 103-104 82 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, P.105 83 Ibid, pp. 105-106 84 Prince Turkie Al-Faisal was the official representative of the Saudi government on Afghan Jehad. He used to visit Pakistan secretly at least twice a year to discuss the Afghan situation with General Akhtar, Director General ISI and the Afghan refugee leaders. His education and experience in the West made him completely free of the common Arab prejudices towards the non Arabs. Prince Turkie and General Akhtar had developed a special liking for each other

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and as a result, Saudi government provided full support to the Afghan cause. 85 Cooley Opcit, P.107 86 Dr. Marwat Personal observation in Kurram, Mohmand Agency and Kabul; and discussion with Afghan commanders in Peshawar in the years 1981, 1982, and 19 85. 87 Cooley Opcit, P .111 88 By Michael Rubin, adjunct scholar The Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Middle East Review of International Affairs, March, 2002 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid. 91 Barnett Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995, pp. 223224. 92 Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil, and the New Great Game in Central Asia. London and New York: I.B. Tauris and Company, 2000, pp. 85,130. According to another estimates the foreign Muslims were between 15000 and 35000. Many wanted a chance to participate in a Jehad but some were more interested in gaining military experience than in fighting Afghan or Soviet Communists. Even after the fall of Najibullah regime in 1992, Muslim radicals continued to arrive for military training in special Afghan camps. The US authorities alleged that Afghanistan was in 1993 a breeding ground for terrorist activities around the world. See for details New York Times of 28th March and 11th August, 1993, pp. 14 and A8; Interview of Warren Christopher, Secretary of State in CNN, 28th May, 1993. 93 Journal of Law and Society, Faculty of Law, University of Peshawar, Vol. XXIII, No: 36, July, 2000, P 87, quoted from A W McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Trade, New York: Harper & Row, 1972 and 1994, pp. 7 & 491. By 1971, 34 percent of all U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam were heroin addicts, according to a White House survey. There were more American heroin addicts in South Vietnam than in the entire United Stateslargely supplied from heroin laboratories operated by CIA allies, though the White House failed to acknowledge that unpleasant fact. Since there was no indigenous local market, Asian drug lords started shipping Golden Triangle heroin to the United States, where it soon won a significant share of the illicit market.

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Dr. Sher Zaman Taizai, Life Sketch of Dr. Najibullah, (Unpublished), 19 May, 1986, See also Appendix-C of this book. 95 The Washington Post, Washington, May 13, 1990, P.1 96 Journal of Law and Society Opcit, P. 88 97 Yousaf & Mark Adkin Opcit, P. 56 98 Diego Cordovez & Selig S. Harrison Opcit, PP.151, 247; Abubaker Saddique in an article quoted figures from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes(UNDOC) that nearly 40 percent of drug users in Afghanistan began their habit in neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran as refugee. See Friday Times, Lahore, April 23-29, 2004, P. 3 99 The daily Mashriq, Peshawar, January 14, 2001; In the 1990s, the official figure was between 3 to 5 million addicts, of these two million were heroin users in Pakistan. See Peter Blood, ed, Pakistan: A Country Study, Washington, Federal Research division, Library of Congress, 1995. On June 25, 2002, PTV put the figures of heroin addicts in Pakistan as four million. 100 Alfred McCoy Excerpted from Drug Fallout, Progressive Magazine, August 1997. The protracted civil war in Afghanistan boasted virtually no economic activity, so naturally drug and drug related industry was the only way to raise cash." See Ahmad Rashid, Dangerous Liaisons, The Far Eastern Economic Review, April 16; During my (Marwat) visit of Afghanistan in May, 2004, a taxi driver told me that he was involved in drug trafficking during the reign of Mujahideen and Taliban. The Taliban authorities were very careless and unmindful of checking drugs in my car, while very particular about audio videos tapes in the vehicles. Even as late as July, 2004 the major crop in the Ningrahar province of Afghanistan was poppy. 101 Muhammad Ramzan Bhettani allegedly used drug money in the constituency of Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman, (a chief of JUI (F) and currently (2004) opposition leader in the National Assembly of Pakistan) in the election of 1992 with the aim only to defeat the Maulana. Akbar Khan Hoti, son of Abdul Ghaffur Khan Hoti, the then Governor of NWFP and Waris Khan Afridi, an exFederal Minister were sentenced for Drug trafficking and Amanullah Kundi, an ex-provincial minister has been arrested in Karachi for heroin smuggling in 90s. See for more details Fazal-ur-Rahim Marwat, The Impact of Afghan Crisis on the North-West Frontier Province, Emerging Central Asia and Pakistan, Area Study Centre, University of Peshawar, July, 24-28, 1992.

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102

However, in the year 2000, Taliban regime banned opium production with strict actions against violators. But amazingly the IRIN special report on drugs and refugees in Pakistan ( April 7th.2003) revealed following picture: Seventyyear-old, Maryam was sitting on a broken wooden bench in her mud hut at the Kababian Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), looking dazed. "My son introduced me to opium. He used to take it, and offered it to me when I had a cold and cough. It helps me sleep," she told IRIN at the camp. With a total camp population of some 13,000, of whom around half are women, at least 35 percent are addicted to drugs. The program was established following a survey carried out by Dost between February and June 2002 at 22 camps in the NWFP. "We found that 90 percent of women were using tobacco and tranquillizers. There was also a high proportion of residents consuming opium in Chitral and Dir in the NWFP due to poor health services and lack of availability of medicine," Muhammad Ayub, the project manager for Dost, told IRIN in Peshawar. The medicinal use of opium has been common among Afghan refugees for years due to the non-availability of conventional medicine, coupled with high levels of stress associated with loss of family and displacement. "Children have told me that their parents take these drugs, and they often give it to them too," Wahida, the principal of the school at the camp, told IRIN. The aid workers said the main supplier of drugs remained neighboring Afghanistan, which is the world's biggest opium producer, according to the latest UN drug report. It is believed that Afghan refugees who earlier left Pakistan are now returning bringing drugs with them across the porous border. Despite reports of a resurgence of poppy cultivation in the NWFP, after the country being declared almost poppy free, Aziz said the country was on the right track to beating the problem. In 2000, Pakistan sharply reduced poppy cultivation, dropping from 1,670 to 515 ha, a 67 percent decrease from 1999. However, the country, along with Iran and Tajikistan, remains a vital route for smuggling drugs. 103 The daily Dawn, Karachi, 31 January, 1999. 104 Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan, London, Pluto Press, , 2001, P. 5 quoted from International Herald Tribune, 11 March, 1992.

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105

John Pilger, The Guardian, September 20, 2003. Harrison, who has written five books on Asian affairs and US relations with Asia, has had extensive contact with the CIA and political leaders in South Asia. Harrison was a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace between 1974 and 1996. John Pilger, The Guardian, September 20, 2003; See also an article of Sanjay Suri CIA worked with Pak to create Taliban, India Abroad News Service, March 6, 2001. 107 Ibid 108 Pakistan's most wanted sectarian terrorist, Riaz Bazra has spent at least part of his time hiding out at an Afghan camp that trains Mujahideen for Kashmir, according to Pakistani officials. The sectarian terrorists arrested in connection with the plot to assassinate Nawaz Sharif had reportedly been trained at a camp at Khost, which the Jehadi group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen used to train Mujahideen for Kashmir. 109 The Economist, 10th May, 1997, P. 34; see also The Herald, Karachi, September, 1996, P. 78 ; Just in one incident, a five- day war between Sunni and Shia sects involving mortars, rocket launchers, and anti-aircraft missiles in Parachinar (Kurram Agency) in 1996, alone claimed hundreds of lives and many more injured. The monthly Newsline, Karachi, October, 1996, pp.71-72 110 The Herald, Karachi, February, 1999, P. 60 111 Christopher Jaffrelot, Pakistan: Nationalism without a nation?, MANOHAR Centre De Sciences Humaines, ZED Books Ltd, 2002, P.125 112 The TNSM organized a protest procession in Mingora (Swat) in September, 2001 for raising a voluntary army for anti-US Jehad in Afghanistan. While addressing the rally the TNSM Chief Maulana Sufi Muhammad said that the US was the biggest terrorist country in the world that wanted to harm Islam on the pretext of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. On October 27 from Bajaur area about 10,000 armed cadres led by the TNSM chief, Sufi Mohammed, crossed the Pak-Afghan border followed by convoy comprising 300 vehicles. The TNSM had set up three FM radio stations in the Bajaur area bordering Afghanistan, to campaign for funds and volunteers to fight alongside the Taliban militia. These radio stations were also used to air TNSM leaders' addresses to pro-Taliban rallies. The daily News, Islamabad, April 23, 1995. Most of these Jehadis were either killed or arrested by anti-Taliban militias and detained in their own jails among these round about 82 Pakistanis and round about 80
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Afghans supporters of Taliban are in the Guantanamo Prison. The Review Dawn, Karachi, July 29, August 4, 2004, P. 7.