Complications in Afghanistan
John Colvin
THE BEAR TRAP by Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, and Mark Adkin Leo Cooper, £18.50, pp. 243 The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan either as a 'defensive-offensive', to protect her Islamic Republics from a resurgent Islam, or, as some supposed, to approach the Persian Gulf in stages, or, even, as the preliminary move to a major Drang Nach Osten. Whichever, the invasion eventually persuaded the US that if a line had to be drawn somewhere, Afghanistan was the place, and the Mujahideen should be the instruments.
The author of this lucid and well-planned book was Head of the Afghan Bureau of the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI). Whilst acknowledging US, Saudi and other contributions to the Mujahideen effort against the Soviets, it is his remarkable contention that, after Gorbachev's decision in 1989 to withdraw his forces, the US which had accomplished its simple aim of `avenging Vietnam', albeit by proxy sought actively to avoid the forcible replacement in Kabul of a Communist by an Islamic regime, through the reduction of CIA aid, encouragement of Mujahideen dissension, promoting an unacceptable interim Government, advocating the King's return, and so on.
In 1983, ISI believed that guerrilla action could destroy the Soviet Army. Their first task was to persuade the dissidents toward unity, finally achieved in 1984 in the seven- party Alliance by fiat from Zia himself. Thereafter, Brigadier Yusaf, with US, Saudi and other arms and equipment, sought to harness the courage and faith of the Mujahideen in exchange for vital bases in Pakistan and without compromising Afghan independence from the US (Hekmatyar, for example, refused to meet President Reagan), or pretending that Mujahideen actions were always other than mercenary. The strategy was, `by 1000 cuts,' to tie down the Soviets on static security, eventually to force them to withdraw, but without permitting actions so grave as to promote a Soviet invasion of Pakistan.
As for the Soviets, their original inten- tion was to mount a counter-insurgency campaign exploiting the Afghan Army. (Soviet numbers never greatly varied from 85,000 men in-country against the 250,000 needed to suppress the Czechs). By 1980, however, the Afghan army, largely through defection, had fallen from 100,000 to 25,000, rising to only 40,000 after 1983 under unpopular Soviet supervision.
The Soviet troops, with the exception of Speznaz and the paratroopers, were very badly trained, and paid even worse, selling their weapons for drugs and alcohol. No more than 12,000 could be put into the line at any one time. On the other hand, Soviet subversion, artillery and air bombardment brought millions of refugees to Pakistan with predictable effects on that country's economy and security.
Soviet strategy in Afghanistan was defensive, to hold lines of communication, airfields, dams, industrial sites, natural resources, gas, copper, iron, gold and pre- cious stones in the North, much of which they stole. Their order of battle was based there for those reasons, and also because of the contiguous Uzbek, Tadzik and Tur- coman borders. It was also concentrated on the Salang Highway and on the Kabul- Bagram complex. Their external strategy was sabotage in Pakistan, to make support for the Mujahideen too expensive for Zia.
Despite dissident feuding, and despite Soviet successes in Paktia and elsewhere, Mujahideen attacks at Bagram, on the oil- pipeline, on electricity pylons, in the Pansjer Valley, on Kandahar, on the Amu river, against Kabul and, after Stinger's arrival, against Soviet aircraft, grew inexorably. Cross-border attacks into the USSR itself, if not the destruction of the Salang Tunnel or the taking of Kabul began to justify ISI's cautious planning. One operation, indeed, nearly brought down the feared direct Soviet intervention.
In the meanwhile, however, the master- plan to surround Kabul, block the Salang Tunnel and deny support to the Afghan army was frustrated by the explosion at the main Mujahideen base at Ojhri. The Soviet withdrawal started the next month, in May 1988. Zia died in an air crash in August. The CIA cut supplies, the Soviets had left by February 1989, and the Mujahideen pre- maturely adopted conventional warfare with disastrous results at Jalalabad. The Jihad never recovered.
It is, as we have said, the Brigadier's view that, after the Soviet withdrawal, it was not US policy for the Mujahideen to achieve military victory. The consequence, in his view, is
the danger that the situation will be exploited by the KGB, the Afghan and Indian Intelli- gence Services to bring about another Lebanon, with serious fighting between the umpteen rival factions.
A united Afghan Government is certainly difficult to envisage; the Brigadier, as a trained observer, deserves a hearing.
John Colvin was Consul-General in Hanoi 1965-67 and Ambassador to Mongolia 1971-74.
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