Time Magazine,
Caravans on Moonless Nights
How the CIA supports and supplies the anti-Soviet guerrillas
By Pico Iver. Reported by Dean Brelis/Karachi, With reporting by Dean Brelis
The Soviet army's seventh and most punishing assault on
Three weeks before the Soviet tanks began to roll, American spy satellites detected movements that allowed agents to warn the rebels of the impending attack. Massoud's radio performance was made possible by the use of more than 40 CIA-supplied portable transmitters. In response to a specific request from Massoud, the CIA also arranged to send hundreds of land mines by plane, ship, truck, camel and pony across three continents and through several intermediaries, so that they got into rebel hands just before Goodbye Massoud began. The thwarting of Goodbye Massoud was the most recent, and perhaps the most daring, success of the CIA's operation to assist the embattled guerrillas.
The
The mujahedin had some special help that enabled them to resist the formidable assault so well. Three weeks before the Soviet tanks began to roll, American spy satellites detected movements that allowed agents to warn the rebels of the impending attack. Massoud's radio performance was made possible by the use of more than 40 CIA-supplied portable transmitters. In response to a specific request from Massoud, the CIA also arranged to send hundreds of land mines by plane, ship, truck, camel and pony across three continents and through several intermediaries, so that they got into rebel hands just before Goodbye Massoud began. Says a Western diplomat: "Nothing would make the Soviets happier than breaking the back of the CIA pipeline in
The thwarting of Goodbye Massoud was the most recent, and perhaps the most daring, success of the CIA's operation to assist the embattled guerrillas. Like most of the world, the
So the existence of a CIA pipeline to the mujahedin has long been an open secret. President Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, publicly took credit for setting up the arms flow to the Afghan rebels in 1979. Shortly before his death in 1981, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat acknowledged that the
The CIA spends around $75 million a year supplying the rebels with grenades, RPG-7 rocket launchers and portable surface-to-air missiles, as well as with radio equipment and medicines. Although the guerrillas have their own stock of rifles, which they replenish with weapons captured during ambushes or taken from the Soviet dead, the CIA sends ammunition for AK-47s, together with machine guns and sophisticated snipers' rifles. Shipments of these goods arrive every few days, sometimes in the arms of messengers, but most often on caravans that travel on moonless nights to evade the powerful searchlights of low-flying Soviet helicopters. As a senior Western military attache told TIME, "Getting the material they need in to the mujahedin must be one of the most hazardous and difficult supply tasks ever undertaken in modern military history."
Massoud (2nd from left) signing agreement with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the most wanted criminal in
Politically the CIA's main challenge has been to avoid Unking its operation to the government of Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq. Burdened by the inflow of more than 3 million Afghan refugees, Zia has actively tried to negotiate a settlement to the war in the face of Soviet intransigence. He has also repeatedly denied Soviet charges that his country was directly supplying the Afghan rebels in any way. Evidence to the contrary would not only compromise the talks, which are being conducted through the United Nations, but could even give the Soviets a pretext for moving into
The CIA pipeline to the guerrillas, initiated by the Carter Administration, was stepped up by Casey soon after President Reagan's election. The new director wasted no time in ordering his station chiefs in
For nine months, the 100 Afghans underwent training at CIA schools around the
Some 30 Afghan agents took up positions in
In 1990 the CIA's secret relationship with Massoud soured because of a dispute over a $500,000 payment. Gary Schroen, a CIA officer then working from
The
Meanwhile, the majority of the Afghan recruits went to
The transportation of the land mines was a textbook example of the pipeline in operation. "It was a test," said an Afghan agent. "It made us feel that we were helping our brothers inside
Next the shipment was loaded onto a cargo plane, which a CIA crew flew to a secret landing strip in the
From there the mines were trans ported by ship to
A series of clandestine CIA teams carrying electronic intercept equipment and relatively small amounts of cash -- up to $250,000 per visit -- began to visit Massoud in the
The
Airdrops are possible in rare circumstances, but the Soviets have radar and fast interceptors."
The CIA has also taken care to set up swift and secure communication links with and among the rebels. Upon receiving intelligence, intermediaries in
The pipeline is probably working at close to its capacity, and the CIA is determined not to upset its delicate sys tem. For that reason, the agency has, in recent months, refused to increase the quality or quantity of
Sums up an Afghan agent: "Soviet at tempts to cut the pipeline have created some frustration and disappointment. But the struggle inside
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- Drug trade permeates Afghanistan
- 97 girl students, teachers poisoned in Afghanistan
- Afghanistan: NATO Should ‘Come Clean’ on White Phosphorus
- Karzai’s brother threatened McClatchy writer reporting Afghan drug story
- When big powers kill civilians in their wars
- Hundreds of students protest Afghan civilian killings
- Karzai in move to share power with Hekmatyar, warlord wanted by US
- Only small-time Afghan drug dealers serve time
- Tour with Tears in Afghan Bombed Village
- Angry Protest Against Civilian Casualties in Deadly US-led Strikes
- Civilians pay price of war from above
- ‘US air-raid kills over 100 civilians in Farah’
- Karzai ignored UN pleas, named notorious warlord as vice president
- AFGHANISTAN: Flood emergency
- Military Officials at Bagram Urge US Soldiers to Evangelize in Afghanistan
- ISAF troops kill civilian, wounds 2 more in W Afghanistan
- BOOK REVIEW: Behind the Afghan propaganda
- What do Obama’s First 100 Days Mean to Common Afghans?
- Father kills daughter, her paramour in Baghlan
- Thousands affected by floods, landslides, earthquakes in Afghanistan
- Three dozen girl students were poisoned in Afghanistan
- Girl school burned down in NW Afghanistan
- Taliban mean nothing to Afghanistan’s hungry farmers
- Army trying to stem increase in soldiers’ suicides
- School textbooks bogged down in Afghanistan
- AFGHANISTAN: Sanitation woes in makeshift IDP camps
- Shocking video footage shows UAE royal sheikh brutally torturing Afghan man
- UN warns of rise in Afghan hashish production
- AFGHANISTAN: Five million children not in school
- Insurgency Averts 200,000 Afghan Kids from Schooling: UN
- America’s Imperialism: We need to see the horrors
- Kabul’s doctors face daily struggle
- ISAF soldiers kill three civilians in Helmand
- Afghan quake survivors struggling without aid
[RAWA Homepage] [More reports from Afghanistan] [RAWA Photo Gallery]
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