The World Was Going Our Way (72 page)
Read The World Was Going Our Way Online
Authors: Christopher Andrew
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #True Accounts, #Espionage, #History, #Europe, #Ireland, #Military, #Intelligence & Espionage, #Modern (16th-21st Centuries), #20th Century, #Russia, #World
A country riven at the best of times by ethnic and regional rivalry, enduring wartime conditions so terrible that several million of its inhabitants were forced to leave their homes and seek a miserable refuge abroad, was ideal terrain for Service A’s well-practised techniques for stirring up mutual suspicion. In addition to using the Cascade units, the Centre exacerbated divisions within the
mujahideen
with the help of agents who were able, at least intermittently, to penetrate their bases inside Pakistan.
23
At the end of 1980 a forged letter from a member of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami left in the headquarters of a rival
mujahideen
leader, Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi, by an agent either of the KGB or its KHAD surrogate warned Muhammadi that Hekmatyar was planning to get rid of him. Simultaneously, bogus pamphlets by Muhammadi denouncing Hekmatyar were distributed in Afghan refugee camps in the Peshawar region. Among other Service A forgeries were copies of an apparently compromising letter by Hekmatyar which were distributed to both the Pakistani authorities and other
mujahideen
leaders.
24
Though the bitter divisions among the seven main
mujahideen
groups were not its own creation, the KGB undoubtedly made them more severe. Hekmatyar, in particular, was so prone to attack his rivals that some US intelligence analysts wondered if he might be on the Soviet payroll.
25
Even Zia ul-Haq, his main backer, once ordered the ISI to warn Hekmatyar - to no discernible effect - ‘that it was Pakistan who made him an Afghan leader, and it is Pakistan who can equally destroy him if he continues to misbehave’.
26
mujahideen
with the help of agents who were able, at least intermittently, to penetrate their bases inside Pakistan.
23
At the end of 1980 a forged letter from a member of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami left in the headquarters of a rival
mujahideen
leader, Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi, by an agent either of the KGB or its KHAD surrogate warned Muhammadi that Hekmatyar was planning to get rid of him. Simultaneously, bogus pamphlets by Muhammadi denouncing Hekmatyar were distributed in Afghan refugee camps in the Peshawar region. Among other Service A forgeries were copies of an apparently compromising letter by Hekmatyar which were distributed to both the Pakistani authorities and other
mujahideen
leaders.
24
Though the bitter divisions among the seven main
mujahideen
groups were not its own creation, the KGB undoubtedly made them more severe. Hekmatyar, in particular, was so prone to attack his rivals that some US intelligence analysts wondered if he might be on the Soviet payroll.
25
Even Zia ul-Haq, his main backer, once ordered the ISI to warn Hekmatyar - to no discernible effect - ‘that it was Pakistan who made him an Afghan leader, and it is Pakistan who can equally destroy him if he continues to misbehave’.
26
The KGB’s numerous tactical successes in disrupting
mujahideen
operations, however, could not disguise the fact that, overall, the war was going badly. The Afghan forces, which Brezhnev had been told before the Soviet invasion would bear the main brunt of the brief and victorious struggle to establish the authority of Babrak Karmal, became a liability. According to KGB statistics, 17,000 Afghans had deserted within four months of the Soviet invasion. There were another 30,000 desertions during 1981 and at least as many again in 1982. The Karmal government itself sometimes felt humiliated by the performance of its troops. One KGB report described the outraged reaction of the Afghan Defence Minister, Muhammad Rafi, when he inspected the 11th Division in February 1981, accompanied by the deputy chief Soviet military adviser, V. P. Cheremnykh. While inspecting a barracks, Rafi picked up a dirty blanket from one of the beds and told the commander of the regiment, Muhammad Nadir, that he would personally ram it down his throat unless he established order among his troops. As the inspection continued Rafi completely lost his temper, struck Nadir and ordered him to be tied up and imprisoned in a doubtless filthy latrine until 4 o’clock in the morning, when he sent him in disgrace back to Kabul.
27
mujahideen
operations, however, could not disguise the fact that, overall, the war was going badly. The Afghan forces, which Brezhnev had been told before the Soviet invasion would bear the main brunt of the brief and victorious struggle to establish the authority of Babrak Karmal, became a liability. According to KGB statistics, 17,000 Afghans had deserted within four months of the Soviet invasion. There were another 30,000 desertions during 1981 and at least as many again in 1982. The Karmal government itself sometimes felt humiliated by the performance of its troops. One KGB report described the outraged reaction of the Afghan Defence Minister, Muhammad Rafi, when he inspected the 11th Division in February 1981, accompanied by the deputy chief Soviet military adviser, V. P. Cheremnykh. While inspecting a barracks, Rafi picked up a dirty blanket from one of the beds and told the commander of the regiment, Muhammad Nadir, that he would personally ram it down his throat unless he established order among his troops. As the inspection continued Rafi completely lost his temper, struck Nadir and ordered him to be tied up and imprisoned in a doubtless filthy latrine until 4 o’clock in the morning, when he sent him in disgrace back to Kabul.
27
One of the few Afghan leaders to inspire confidence in Moscow was Najibullah. Vadim Kirpichenko’s memoirs make no mention of his sadism and pay instead an implausible tribute to him as:
a good organizer, a highly educated person, an opponent of . . . repression in the country, and indeed his [original] profession - a doctor - presupposed a humane quality in his character. Najibullah sincerely desired happiness and prosperity for his people and did everything within his powers to improve . . . the situation in Afghanistan.
28
28
During a visit to Afghanistan in 1983, however, Leonov, the head of Service 1, came to realize - as Kirpichenko and others did not - that Najibullah was a fantasist. He boasted that KHAD had 1,300 agents among the
mujahideen
, 1,226 in areas currently under
mujahideen
control, 714 in ‘underground counter-revolutionary organizations’ and 28 in the various branches of the Pakistani government. Leonov had begun to take notes of Najibullah’s account of KHAD achievements but later recalled that, as the account became increasingly fantastic, ‘I just put down my pen and ceased to write down what was obvious rubbish.’
29
mujahideen
, 1,226 in areas currently under
mujahideen
control, 714 in ‘underground counter-revolutionary organizations’ and 28 in the various branches of the Pakistani government. Leonov had begun to take notes of Najibullah’s account of KHAD achievements but later recalled that, as the account became increasingly fantastic, ‘I just put down my pen and ceased to write down what was obvious rubbish.’
29
The Red Army never deployed sufficient forces to compensate for the military weakness of its Afghan client-state and defeat an elusive guerrilla enemy. In Vietnam US forces at their peak had numbered over half a million. The Soviet Union, burdened by the problems of maintaining 565,000 troops in eastern Europe, 75,000 in Mongolia and 25-30,000 in other Third World countries, never felt able to station much more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, a country five times the size of Vietnam.
30
A force of this size could never hope to occupy the whole of Afghanistan. Nor were Soviet forces able to seal the frontiers with Pakistan (and, less importantly, with Iran) and so prevent the
mujahideen
resupplying their forces. As a result, most of the Red Army’s successes in driving
mujahideen
from areas of the countryside were only temporary. When Soviet troops withdrew, the
mujahideen
returned. Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev told the Politburo in 1986: ‘There is no single piece of land in this country which has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier. Nevertheless, the majority of the territory remains in the hands of rebels.’
31
30
A force of this size could never hope to occupy the whole of Afghanistan. Nor were Soviet forces able to seal the frontiers with Pakistan (and, less importantly, with Iran) and so prevent the
mujahideen
resupplying their forces. As a result, most of the Red Army’s successes in driving
mujahideen
from areas of the countryside were only temporary. When Soviet troops withdrew, the
mujahideen
returned. Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev told the Politburo in 1986: ‘There is no single piece of land in this country which has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier. Nevertheless, the majority of the territory remains in the hands of rebels.’
31
In March 1983, after discussing the report of a high-ranking mission of enquiry, the Politburo Afghanistan Commission came close to acknowledging that Soviet military intervention had reached an impasse. Gromyko told the Politburo, ‘The number of gangs [
mujahideen
groups] is not decreasing. The enemy is not laying down its weapons.’ He struggled none the less to find some grounds for optimism. ‘Yes,’ he declared, ‘the situation is stabilizing.’ Gromyko then immediately contradicted himself: ‘But the main trouble is that the central authorities have not yet reached the countryside: [they] rarely interact with the masses, about one-third of the districts is not under the control of the central authority, and one can feel the fragility of the state government.’
mujahideen
groups] is not decreasing. The enemy is not laying down its weapons.’ He struggled none the less to find some grounds for optimism. ‘Yes,’ he declared, ‘the situation is stabilizing.’ Gromyko then immediately contradicted himself: ‘But the main trouble is that the central authorities have not yet reached the countryside: [they] rarely interact with the masses, about one-third of the districts is not under the control of the central authority, and one can feel the fragility of the state government.’
As the most influential original advocate of the Soviet invasion, Andropov, who had succeeded Brezhnev as General Secretary four months earlier, was anxious both to justify the original decision to intervene and to remind other members of the Politburo of their collective responsibility: ‘You remember how arduously and cautiously we decided the question of deploying troops in Afghanistan. L. I. Brezhnev insisted on a roll-call vote by members of the Politburo. ’
32
No member of the Politburo presumed to remind Andropov that the real decision to intervene had been taken at a private meeting of himself and the other members of the Afghanistan Commission with Brezhnev, and then rubber stamped by the rest of the Politburo. The sycophantic deference which the Politburo traditionally extended to its General Secretary also ensured that no one drew attention to the striking contradiction between his optimistic assurances at the time of the Soviet invasion and his assessment in March 1983. In December 1979 Andropov had assured Brezhnev that Soviet forces already in Kabul should be ‘entirely sufficient for a successful operation’. He had told the Politburo in February 1980 after a visit to Kabul that all available intelligence demonstrated that ‘the situation in Afghanistan is stabilizing now’.
33
In March 1983, by contrast, he implied that there had never been any prospect of a rapid victory over the
mujahideen
: ‘Miracles don’t happen . . . Let us remember our [interwar] fight with [Islamic]
basmachism
. Why, back then, almost the entire Red Army was concentrated in central Asia, yet the fight with
basmachi
continued until the mid-1930s.’
34
32
No member of the Politburo presumed to remind Andropov that the real decision to intervene had been taken at a private meeting of himself and the other members of the Afghanistan Commission with Brezhnev, and then rubber stamped by the rest of the Politburo. The sycophantic deference which the Politburo traditionally extended to its General Secretary also ensured that no one drew attention to the striking contradiction between his optimistic assurances at the time of the Soviet invasion and his assessment in March 1983. In December 1979 Andropov had assured Brezhnev that Soviet forces already in Kabul should be ‘entirely sufficient for a successful operation’. He had told the Politburo in February 1980 after a visit to Kabul that all available intelligence demonstrated that ‘the situation in Afghanistan is stabilizing now’.
33
In March 1983, by contrast, he implied that there had never been any prospect of a rapid victory over the
mujahideen
: ‘Miracles don’t happen . . . Let us remember our [interwar] fight with [Islamic]
basmachism
. Why, back then, almost the entire Red Army was concentrated in central Asia, yet the fight with
basmachi
continued until the mid-1930s.’
34
Andropov and the Centre placed most of the blame for the impasse in the war on foreign - especially US and Pakistani - arms supplies and other assistance to the
mujahideen
. For the first three years of the Reagan administration (1981-83) US assistance, mostly channelled by the CIA through Pakistan, ran at a level of about $60 million a year, a sum matched by the Saudis. In 1982 Zia told Reagan’s Director of Central Intelligence, Bill Casey, that he thought the existing level of support was about right - though the
mujahideen
lacked the ground-to-air weapons to defend themselves against Soviet and Afghan air attacks. The objective, in Zia’s view, should be ‘to keep the pot boiling [in Afghanistan], but not [make it] boil over’ and provoke a Soviet attack on Pakistan. By 1984, however, both the CIA and Zia believed in the possibility of a
mujahideen
victory. CIA covert aid increased several times over and ‘Zia opened the floodgates, taking his chances with Soviet retaliation’.
35
mujahideen
. For the first three years of the Reagan administration (1981-83) US assistance, mostly channelled by the CIA through Pakistan, ran at a level of about $60 million a year, a sum matched by the Saudis. In 1982 Zia told Reagan’s Director of Central Intelligence, Bill Casey, that he thought the existing level of support was about right - though the
mujahideen
lacked the ground-to-air weapons to defend themselves against Soviet and Afghan air attacks. The objective, in Zia’s view, should be ‘to keep the pot boiling [in Afghanistan], but not [make it] boil over’ and provoke a Soviet attack on Pakistan. By 1984, however, both the CIA and Zia believed in the possibility of a
mujahideen
victory. CIA covert aid increased several times over and ‘Zia opened the floodgates, taking his chances with Soviet retaliation’.
35
By the spring of 1983 Andropov privately accepted the need for a settlement which fell well short of a Soviet military victory. He told the UN Secretary-General, Javier Pérez de Cuellar, that the war was damaging the Soviet Union’s relations with the West, ‘socialist states’, Islamic states and the rest of the Third World as well as its internal social and economic development.
36
A way out of the conflict remained impossible, however, because Andropov saw the war in Afghanistan within the context of a world-wide struggle for influence with the United States. Under existing circumstances withdrawal from Afghanistan would be an unacceptable blow to Soviet prestige. Andropov told the Politburo in March 1983, ‘We are fighting against American imperialism . . . That is why we cannot back off.’
37
The threat from ‘American imperialism’, he believed, was greater than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. During the final year of his life, Andropov was obsessed by the delusion that the Reagan administration had plans for a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union and insisted that operation RYAN, which was intended to collect intelligence on these non-existent plans, remain the first priority of both the KGB and the GRU.
38
36
A way out of the conflict remained impossible, however, because Andropov saw the war in Afghanistan within the context of a world-wide struggle for influence with the United States. Under existing circumstances withdrawal from Afghanistan would be an unacceptable blow to Soviet prestige. Andropov told the Politburo in March 1983, ‘We are fighting against American imperialism . . . That is why we cannot back off.’
37
The threat from ‘American imperialism’, he believed, was greater than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. During the final year of his life, Andropov was obsessed by the delusion that the Reagan administration had plans for a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union and insisted that operation RYAN, which was intended to collect intelligence on these non-existent plans, remain the first priority of both the KGB and the GRU.
38
No solution to the grave problems either of East-West tension or of the war in Afghanistan was possible during the brief and ineffectual period in office of Konstantin Chernenko, who was already gravely ill when he succeeded Andropov as Soviet leader in February 1984.
39
In the spring of that year Leonid Shebarshin, who had been put in charge of Afghan intelligence operations at the Centre in the previous year, accompanied a military mission headed by Marshal Sokolov, then Deputy Defence Minister, on a tour of inspection following what the 40th Army Command in Afghanistan claimed was a major victory over the
mujahideen
forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud in the Panjshir Valley. The mission found the valley deserted, with Soviet and Afghan tanks dotted around fields of unharvested wheat. ‘Where is the enemy?’ asked Sokolov. ‘Is he hiding in the gorges nearby?’ ‘Yes, Comrade Marshal of the Soviet Union,’ the briefing officer replied. ‘We have outposts, patrols and helicopters to follow his movements.’ He claimed that 1,700 of Massoud’s 3,000 ‘bandits’ had been killed. The remainder had fled, carrying with them the bodies of their comrades.
40
Sokolov reported back to Moscow that the 40th Army had inflicted ‘a serious defeat’ on the enemy and was proving ‘a decisive factor in stabilizing the situation in the DRA’.
41
Shebarshin, however, was unconvinced. When he asked the briefer how 1,300 defeated ‘bandits’ could have carried away 1,700 corpses as well as all their weapons, he received no coherent reply. He later discovered from KGB and KHAD intelligence that Massoud had been forewarned of the 40th Army attack, probably by a sympathizer in the Kabul Defence Ministry, and had pulled most of his fighters and supporters out of the Panjshir Valley ahead of the Soviet sweep, strengthening his reputation as the ‘Lion of the Panjshir’. Shebarshin learned to be generally sceptical of 40th Army body counts.
42
39
In the spring of that year Leonid Shebarshin, who had been put in charge of Afghan intelligence operations at the Centre in the previous year, accompanied a military mission headed by Marshal Sokolov, then Deputy Defence Minister, on a tour of inspection following what the 40th Army Command in Afghanistan claimed was a major victory over the
mujahideen
forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud in the Panjshir Valley. The mission found the valley deserted, with Soviet and Afghan tanks dotted around fields of unharvested wheat. ‘Where is the enemy?’ asked Sokolov. ‘Is he hiding in the gorges nearby?’ ‘Yes, Comrade Marshal of the Soviet Union,’ the briefing officer replied. ‘We have outposts, patrols and helicopters to follow his movements.’ He claimed that 1,700 of Massoud’s 3,000 ‘bandits’ had been killed. The remainder had fled, carrying with them the bodies of their comrades.
40
Sokolov reported back to Moscow that the 40th Army had inflicted ‘a serious defeat’ on the enemy and was proving ‘a decisive factor in stabilizing the situation in the DRA’.
41
Shebarshin, however, was unconvinced. When he asked the briefer how 1,300 defeated ‘bandits’ could have carried away 1,700 corpses as well as all their weapons, he received no coherent reply. He later discovered from KGB and KHAD intelligence that Massoud had been forewarned of the 40th Army attack, probably by a sympathizer in the Kabul Defence Ministry, and had pulled most of his fighters and supporters out of the Panjshir Valley ahead of the Soviet sweep, strengthening his reputation as the ‘Lion of the Panjshir’. Shebarshin learned to be generally sceptical of 40th Army body counts.
42
Of all the problems awaiting Gorbachev on his election as General Secretary in March 1985, writes his aide, Anatoli Chernyaev, ‘The Afghanistan problem was the most pressing. As soon as the new “tsar” came to power the Central Committee and
Pravda
were flooded with letters. Very few of them were anonymous. Almost all were signed.’
43
With Gorbachev’s accession the war in Afghanistan ceased for the first time to be a taboo subject. Under Brezhnev the Soviet media had acted as if there was no war in Afghanistan, publishing pictures and stories of smiling soldiers distributing food and medicine to the grateful Afghan people, but making almost no mention of fighting the
mujahideen
. Some mention of the fighting had been permitted under Andropov and Chernenko but Soviet troops were invariably said to have delivered devastating blows to the perfidious robber bands who were seeking to overturn a popular revolution. At the Twenty-seventh Party Congress in February 1986, however, Gorbachev described the war as ‘a bleeding wound’.
44
Pravda
were flooded with letters. Very few of them were anonymous. Almost all were signed.’
43
With Gorbachev’s accession the war in Afghanistan ceased for the first time to be a taboo subject. Under Brezhnev the Soviet media had acted as if there was no war in Afghanistan, publishing pictures and stories of smiling soldiers distributing food and medicine to the grateful Afghan people, but making almost no mention of fighting the
mujahideen
. Some mention of the fighting had been permitted under Andropov and Chernenko but Soviet troops were invariably said to have delivered devastating blows to the perfidious robber bands who were seeking to overturn a popular revolution. At the Twenty-seventh Party Congress in February 1986, however, Gorbachev described the war as ‘a bleeding wound’.
44
At the Politburo on 17 October 1985, Gorbachev had told his colleagues that it was time to come to ‘a decision on Afghanistan’ - time, in other words, to find a way of bringing the war to an end. By now, following the deaths of Andropov and Ustinov in 1984, Gromyko was the only surviving member of the troika which almost six years earlier had won Brezhnev’s consent for a military intervention, the consequences of which he had not begun to comprehend. The change in the Politburo’s mood, Chernyaev noted, was evident as soon as Gromyko spoke: ‘You had to see the ironic expression of his colleagues - Gorbachev’s glare was truly withering. Those looks said it all: “You ass, what are you babbling about, giving us advice? You got us into this dirty business, and now you’re pretending that we’re all responsible!” ’
45
45
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