The Bear Trap (Afghanistan’s Untold Story)

by Mohammad Yousaf

  I believe the CIA must have done a deal with the British to buy this system as they insisted on their team coming to Pakistan later in the year to demonstrate the Blowpipe. It was a disaster. Even without the stress, excitement and fear of battle, the CIA experts obtained miserable results at gently descending parachute flares. Still they insisted we must accept it. They eventually got their way by bypassing General Akhtar and going to President Zia personally. He took the political view that acceptance of the Blowpipe would involve the UK directly as a supporter of the Jehad, and thus the Mujahideen cause would gain internationally, so we were compelled to accept several thousand of these missiles. Once again the Mujahideen were the losers while others, many miles from the fighting, made millions.

  This fiasco dragged on for months. We found that with the first batch of Blowpipes half of them would not accept the command signal, so the missile would go astray immediately after firing. The CIA were called in to watch. Then a British expert was flown out. He agreed that something was indeed very wrong, so all the missiles and launchers were flown back to the UK. Eventually, after modifications, we began receiving our Blowpipes, hut still there was too high a proportion of firing failures. The first four were captured by the Soviets when the Mujahideen firing party were compelled to withdraw in a hurry. They were later shown on Soviet television screens. During the rest of my time with ISI I do not recall a single confirmed kill by a Blowpipe in Afghanistan.

  Our solitary success in stopping the induction of a weapon system that we felt valueless occurred in late 1986. This involved the Red Arrow, a Chinese anti-tank, wire-guided missile. Once again the CIA were insistent that it would be effective, although they deliberately delayed sending us detailed characteristics of the weapon, urging us to take it on their assurances. After this deadlock had continued for some time, the information on Red Arrow arrived. We rejected it immediately. The wire guidance system, whereby the firer steers the missile on to the target by sending signals down a thin wire attached to the missile, had not worked well with the Pakistan Army in its wars with India. Obstacles between the firer and target, such as bushes, trees or rocks, tended to prohibit its use, but above all the training was long and, like the Blowpipe, frequent refresher training was necessary. By this time the Chinese had joined the CIA to get their weapon accepted. Tremendous pressure built up from Washington for us not to reject this missile. We 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 woman as their weapon-training interpreter. Despite her charm and efforts the results, watched by the CIA, were poor. Red Arrow was not bought.

  These are all examples of senior CIA officers, with no knowledge of battlefield conditions, let alone conditions pertaining in Afghanistan, succumbing to political and financial pressures. As one put it to me, “General, people sitting in America have no idea how the war is being fought by the Mujahideen.” The CIA staff showed little understanding of military logistics or battlefield time and space problems. Every two years their civilian logistics man would change over so there was a period when the newcomer was completely cold and inexperienced with regard to Afghanistan. They never seemed to grasp that April, when the snows melted, was always a critical time for us, as we needed to rush supplies forward in bulk. Invariably the CIA failed to meet our needs. Their system was such that they never knew what their allocation of funds would be in advance, and neither could they hold back a reserve to meet the Spring demands. I am sure these bureaucratic snarl-ups would not have been accepted had it been US troops in the firing line.

  Bright ideas were forthcoming about other things as well as weapon systems. One concerned sabotage. A CIA expert flew in to advise me on fuel contamination. He was of the opinion that Mujahideen sympathizers working at workshops or airports should be given this contaminant to mix with the fuel in vehicle or aircraft tanks. I explained that this would not kill many people or destroy equipment, and that the Mujahideen would never regard this as a way of fighting a Jehad. They demanded immediate results, preferably visible and noisy ones. Their idea of fighting involved much shooting, the inflicting of casualties, the opportunity to show off their courage and the possibility of war booty. It was hard enough for me to get them to blow up a pipeline covertly, let alone get them to pour a liquid into a fuel tank. It was not their way. If a person could put a contaminant in an aircraft’s fuel tank he could just as easily destroy the plane with a magnetic charge. To the suggestion that it could be put into fuel storage facilities, my response was to ask how the saboteur was to manhandle the drums of contaminant needed. There was no practical answer. Neither this suggestion, nor his second one of putting another chemical in vehicle batteries, were relevant or practical for the type of war being fought in Afghanistan.

  Neither was the suggestion that supplies be parachuted direct to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. This was a serious proposal to speed up the system and bypass Pakistan. No consideration had been given as to whose aircraft were to be used; if American, then the President was directly involving the US in operations against the Soviets. Had the proposers considered how many flights would be needed to dump 20-30 thousand tons at a time? Were they prepared for combat losses, or for up to 50 per cent falling into Soviet hands? What about overflying permission from Pakistan? It was a nonsensical idea, but it refused to go away for about six months.

  The headlines in the Washington Post of 8 May, 1987, typify the half-truths that so frequently became accepted as fact. “AFGHAN REBEL AID ENRICHES GENERALS—The Central Intelligence Agency 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.”

  Regarding the allegations of corruption, I can only speak with authority on my own office and staff. I am certain that there were no deals struck, no arms sold, and that allocations were strictly in accordance with operational priorities, the agreed percentage allocation to each Party, and combat effectiveness. General Akhtar was utterly ruthless on this. Although corruption is a way of life in Pakistan, the military is perhaps the only organization in which it is minimal; but I cannot speak with certainty on what happened once supplies left ISI control.

  If the sum spent was $3 billion then half would have been Saudi Arabian government money. Many additional millions were contributed by Arab organizations and rich individuals, mostly from Saudi Arabia. These funds were channelled directly to the Party of the donor’s choice, usually a Fundamentalist one. The allocation policy is discussed further in the relevant chapter so I would merely emphasize here that the ISI distributed in accordance with strict criteria of military effectiveness and the overall campaign strategy. The Washington Post was correct in stating that no American decided who got the weapons, and was close to the mark when the writer concluded “that the opportunities for diversion and corruption arc far greater before the arms get to Karachi than after”.

  Relations between the CIA and ourselves were always strained There was never really a feeling of mutual trust. I, and my staff, resented their never-ending probing to interfere in the allocation of weapons, accusations of corruption and pressing to take over both the training of the Mujahideen and to advise on operations. They were anxious to set up their own operations office alongside mine at Rawalpindi. This they were never permitted to do; in fact I resorted to trying to avoid contact with the local CIA staff as much as possible. I never ever visited the US Embassy, and only went to the CIA safe house three times during my four years.

  One of these visits illustrated some CIA officials’ infuriating inability to grasp the basic elements of how the guerrilla war was being fought. In early 1984 General Akhtar’s staff officer rang me at midnight to say that the CIA wanted me urgently at their safe house, on a matter that could not be discussed on the telephone. I said I would be there in half an hour (I never spoke pe
rsonally to the CIA on the telephone). My driver was late coming so I decided to drive myself, but could not find the safe house in the dark, so it was over an hour before I finally arrived. The message was that the Soviets had spotted a Mujahideen supply convoy in the Helmund Province of western Afghanistan and had laid an ambush for it. What was I going to do? I was flabbergasted. Helmund was over 1000 kilometres from Rawalpindi; as the CIA were well aware, I had absolutely no means of communicating with Mujahideen groups in Afghanistan by radio because they didn’t have any, nor had I the faintest idea which group was about to be attacked. I did not wait to hear the CIA officer’s suggestions.

  I could not, however, prevent the ceaseless stream of CIA-sponsored visitors from Washington who arrived with commendable regularity every two weeks. They appeared to have a never-ending supply of officials, experts, technicians and analysts, who all felt they could help win the war. Some did make valuable contributions—but not all. I remember one man who spoke at length on the benefits of the use of electrical power by the Mujahideen in their bases in Afghanistan. He felt it was valuable for the radios. He showed no knowledge of the environment, no comprehension of the lack of repair facilities for generators, shortages of fuel, the effects of winter on operations, or the total absence of trained technicians in the field.

  The CIA had two officers on post in 1983 but these increased to five by the time I left. These were the permanent and acknowledged staff which excluded the visitors and the countless paid agents operating within the Mujahideen, the Parties, the Military Committee, and even, I suspect, within ISI staff. Like any intelligence organization they were invariably devious in the way they went about things. It amused me that after we had refused to accept a particular weapon, within a week or so a Party, or a member of their Military Committee, would suddenly start pressing for its induction and extolling its virtues, although the CIA never met them face to face.

  Part of the problem was that the CIA were under great pressure from Washington, from Congress, and ultimately from the American public whose money they were spending. Like their Director, they resented political constraint, tending to blame politicians when things went wrong. In this vein a senior CIA official alleged to me that President Carter had been briefed with the aid of aerial photographs on the Soviet’s impending invasion of Afghanistan. “But the bastard refused to accept the evidence because he did not want to react—if he had you would never have had this problem.” One thing I was never in doubt about was their single-minded determination to make the Soviets suffer in Afghanistan. “We must make the bastards burn,” was a favourite CIA catchphrase.

  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 AK74 rifle was being used by Soviet troops. It is smaller and lighter than the old AK47 and fires a 5.45mm bullet, which tends 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, armour plating, avionics equipment (particularly from M1-24 gunships), 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 General Akhtar protested to the embassies that this must stop and that they should channel their requests through ISI.

  From 1984 onwards the CIA had been trying, through their agents, to get an Afghan pilot to defect with an M1-24 Hind helicopter gunship. They had made contacts in Kabul and time after time I would be told at short notice that the helicopter was arriving, so would I identify a suitable landing place, warn the PAF to receive it, not shoot it down, and ensure it was not destroyed on the ground by Soviet aircraft once it had landed. Needless to say, the plane never came and I gave up alerting the Air Force for these disruptive false alarms. The problem was that the CIA expected the pilot to conform exactly to some prearranged date and time schedule for his escape. They found it hard to understand that such a plan must be simple and allow the defector complete freedom to chose the time and place.

  The opportunity, when it came, would be fleeting and had to be seized at once without telling the CIA in advance. In the end it was our plan that gave the CIA not one, but two, M1-24s.

  I merely explained to the Party Leaders that we needed to acquire such a helicopter. They simply let it be known in Kabul that a defector would be welcome. One afternoon in mid-1985 I received a call telling me that two M1-24s had landed at Miram Shah, just inside Pakistan. Apparently, on arrival, the startled border security force officer had explained to them that they had made a mistake and landed in Pakistan; if they so wished he would turn his back while they took off again. They stayed; although one co-pilot had no idea that his captain was defecting when they took off from Kabul. Within hours we started receiving congratulatory messages; every embassy wanted to examine the helicopters. For two weeks they were kept securely at an air base before experts from the UK, West Germany, France and China were permitted to examine and photograph them. After a few weeks they were transported to the US, as, eventually, were four of the six crew members. There were other defections by Afghan pilots. The first was an MI-8 helicopter pilot early in the war. This was followed by a light aircraft. During the flight the pilot had told the co-pilot that he was heading for Pakistan to defect. The co-pilot objected violently, so the captain pulled out his pistol and shot him dead in the cockpit. The CIA also got their hands on a SU22 fighter aircraft through the defection of an ace Afghan pilot, Captain Nabi, who for some time fought as a Mujahideen commander until petty bickering with his Party led to his opting to go to the US.

  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. The pictures, taken from such enormous height, showed up tanks, vehicles, bridges, culverts and damage caused by bombing or rocket attacks with a clarity that amazed me. It made both the planning of operations and the briefing of the Mujahideen Commanders a comparatively simple business. It enabled me to select priority targets for rocket attacks, choose alternative firing points and consider the various routes to and from the target. I was able to ask the CIA for photographs of a particular area and within a short time they would be brought to my office for study. The CIA would then transfer all the details on to a map which we could retain. A typical example of such a map upon which an operation was planned is that of Sherkhan on the Amu River on page 196. With every photograph or map we would be supplied with a list of possible targets, a description of each, together with recommended approaches, enemy dispositions, likely reactions to attack and possible counter-attacks. This information, in conjunction with the local knowledge of the Mujahideen, considerably enhanced our ability to conduct effective operations.

  I was always fascinated by the Americans’ technical ability. In the communications field this was truly astounding. I was told. for example, that in the US their computers would record the conversation of a Soviet pilot in his aircraft on flights around Moscow. Seemingly all pilots have certain recognizable ways of speaking, either of accent, pauses, words used or expressions. It is their signature. The Americans would give each pilot a code number, so if pilot X was later picked up speaking in Kabul, intelligence would know that either the individual had been posted or his squadron had moved. It was a simple matter to establish which. In such a way an updated Soviet Air Force order of battle in or near Afghanistan was maintained.

  We also used their technical expertise when assessing how best to destroy a particular target, be it a bridge, a dam, a fuel dump or a pipeline. The CIA would supply the photographs and a demolition expert would give us 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. Ag
ain, invaluable information for planning.

  The CIA also contributed substantially with the installation of wireless interception equipment. I was not involved directly with this type of aid, although I know it was generous and gave me a reliable, up-to-the-minute source of both Soviet and Afghan intercepted radio messages. 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. It was listening in to some of these exchanges that confirmed the high level of mistrust that existed between the Soviets and Afghans. Once the Mujahideen had acquired Stingers we would hear Afghan pilots objecting to being sent on risky missions, while the Soviet helicopters remained at base. In one instance a Soviet headquarters was threatening to court-martial a junior officer who was insisting he must withdraw from his post. It was also radio interception that gave us feedback on the success or otherwise of some of our Mujahideen attacks in terms of damage caused or casualties inflicted.

  In the summer of 1985 I visited the CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, not far from Washington, after repeated invitations to do so. I was keen to go, feeling I would learn a lot from the experience. Unfortunately, I gained little professionally from the trip. In reality it turned out to be more of a holiday break, but one from which I returned with my personal regard for the CIA greatly diminished.

  I understand the need for the CIA to surround their activities and facilities with a sophisticated security system. Nevertheless, I was at first surprised at the lengths to which they went, and then hurt and affronted by their applying petty rules to somebody who was an American ally and himself a senior officer in a friendly intelligence organization. My surprise came when I was taken to the CIA headquarters and was ushered into the director’s own special lift. On my entering, the lift operator smiled at me and his face seemed familiar. On the way down the same man asked it I did not recognize him, as he was a member of Mr Casey’s personal security team. It surprised me that even the director’s lift had a personal security guard manning it at all times, even, as was the case then, when he was out of station.