AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T01058R000406360001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 21, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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,~??;; ~~. Directorate of ? ~`~ TO Secret
Intelligence ! ~ .
79-.87. INlC/CB
Afghanistan Situation Report
21 May 1985
State Dept. review completed
Top Secret
NESA M 85-IOIOOJX
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CONTENTS
AFGHANISTAN: RESISTANCE SUPPORT TO THE LOCAL POPULATION
Some insurgent groups have attempted to bolster
their support among the local population by
providing services, building schools, and
organizing local governments.
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FRANCE-AFGHANISTAN: FRANCE AND THE AFGHAN RESISTANCE 7 25X1
France has provided humanitarian aid and limited
military support to the Afghan insurgents. While
French interest in Afghanistan is high, budgetary
constraints mean French aid will remain limited.
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This document is prepared weekly by the Office of
Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis and the
Office of Soviet Analysis. Questions or comments
on the issues raised in the publication should be
Unless major developments warrant otherwise, we will
not publish the AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT next
week. .The next report will appear on 4 June 1985.
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PAKISTAN.
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AFGHANISTAN: RESISTANCE SUPPORT TO THE LOCAL POPULATION
by NESA
Some insurgent groups in Afghanistan have attempted to
retain and build support from the local population in
their areas of operation by supporting food production
and distribution .system, operating schools, providing
medical and other services, and even organizing local
governments. Groups with ethnic or other established
ties in their -areas most often seek to provide such
services.
Food Production and Distribution
Local people provide most food for the insurgents.
Some commanders, such as Panjsher Valley commander
Masood, pay the locals for food supplies; others
promise to pay. Some groups steal food from villagers,
and some even destroy crops of farmers who do not
support them.
Some insurgent groups are trying to increase food
production, mainly to ensure their own supply, but in
the process are providing local farmers with security
and services. Insurgents have assisted farmers--
particularly in Wardak and Qandahar Provinces--by
helping repair canals and planting and harvesting
crops. Local commanders have also encouraged refugees
in Pakistan to return and farm their land when the
weather was favorable.
Medical Care
Despite the increase in medically-trained insurgents,
civilians receive little care from insurgent medical
personnel. Care is primitive except when foreign
doctors provide the services--and sometimes even
then.
Insurgents transport doctors, most of whom are French
or other foreigners, and provide security and a place
to practice. Foreign doctors in Afghanistan are most
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i ur ~tcrct e
concerned with treating the civilian population,
training Afghan nurses and first aid workers, and
bringing serum to inoculate, children against
tuberculosis and measles.
The number of .European doctors inside Afghanistan has
declined in recent years, but insurgents are receiving
increased medical training. Red Cross officials told
US diplomats that 1,250 Afghans took a one-day first
aid course, and 79 took a four-week paramedic course
between October 1984 and February 1985; 20 Afghan
paramedics recently completed a one-year course,
Several Afghans learned
surgical procedures from French doctors in the Panjsher
Valley and treated insurgents and civilians after a
Soviet offensive drove the doctors out of the valley.
Education
The insurgents have established .schools, mostly for
religious training:
The Jamiat has about 30 schools that teach
reading and religion and indoctrinate children
in antiregime and pro-Jamiat propaganda near the
city of Balkh.
Herat Province insurgent councils, under the
leadership of Jamiat commander Ismail Khan, run
schools in their areas.
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Media
Insurgents have increased their use of media for
propaganda and entertainment, but their efforts are
still small. Three clandestine radios broadcast
criticism of Soviet and Afghan regime policy, and the
resistance also distributes cassette recordings. 0
tapes distributed by
Panjsher insurgents are popular, but scarce. One group
of insurgents claims it publishes a newspaper in
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Baghlan Province featuring general news, insurgent
operations, and criticism of the Afghan regime.,
Other Services '
In some areas the insurgents have worked with the.
population to establish local governments. The Tajiks
of the Panjsher Valley under Masood created a
functioning local government by 1982, despite intense
Soviet military pressure. Insurgents in Balkh Province
established "commands" with responsibilities for
education, health, and political affairs. They also
helped resettle villagers forced from their homes by
Soviet and regime military operations. Ismail Khan
heads a Provincial Council that addresses financial,
religious, agricultural, and medical issues in Herat
Province.
Groups in several areas collect taxes to support the
insurgency. .Some taxes are levied quasi-officially by
the insurgent governments; others are exacted as an
insurgent group moves through an area. Villages
sometimes complain they are taxed by more than one
insurgent group.
the Harakat-i-Ingilab-i-Islami and Hizbi
Islami Gulbuddin faction) were taxing families-with
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PERSPECTIVE
FRANCE-AFGHANISTAN: FRANCE AND THE AFGHAN RESISTANCE
by NESA and EURA
France has provided humanitarian aid and--since 1984--
limited military support to the Afghan insurgents.
French support for the resistance grows out of strong
anti-Soviet feelings within President Mitterrand's
ruling Socialist Party, public opposition to Soviet
aggression We
believe that French military and economic .aid to the
insurgency is likely to remain modest because of
budgetary constraints.
Military Aid for the Insurgency
Paris has given limited amounts of technical assistance
and military training to several insurgent groups,
Humanitari an Aid
Paris has contributed to several private
organizations--including the well-known Medecins Sans
Frontieres group--that send European medical and relief
personnel inside Afghanistan to aid insurgents and
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civilians. These organizations, run for the most part
by French civilians, have sent more than 200 young
Europeans, many of whom are French; into Afghanistan.
Fifteen Europeans are currently inside the country,
volunteers provide the best medical care available to
rural Afghans; they often perform major surgery,
establish innoculation programs, treat, lesser
illnesses, and train Afghan paramedics.
Beyond its medical efforts, France has also funded
Afghan refugee programs. Paris has donated about
15,000 tons of wheat and has encouraged the Common
Market to increase its shipments of butter and oil
during the last several .years, according to the US
Embassy in Paris.
France's Socialist Party has also lent support to
efforts to publicize the cause of the Afghan
insurgents.
PS officials are organizing a conference of European
Socialist Parties for late-June, tentatively. entitled
".The European Left and Afghanistan." This effort is
almost certainly an attempt to compensate for the PS's'
failure to persuade the Socialist International to
issue a statement in 1984 supporting the Afghan
resistance.
Behind the French Support
The government's support for the Afghan resistance
stems largely from President Mitterrand's generally
anti-Soviet views and strong opposition within his
Socialist Party to Soviet adventurism. Mitterrand
believes the expansion of Soviet influence is the
gravest threat to the development of the Third World
and to international stability,
he views the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan as a particularly brutal manifestation of
Soviet expansionism. Mitterrand's own participation in
the French Resistance during World War II, we believe,
may also contribute to a personal affinity with the
Afghan cause.
Longstanding French scholarly interest in Afghanistan
has also spurred French support for the insurgents,
most importantly by arousing opposition to Soviet
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IOi' StGREI
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actions within influential intellectural circles. A
number of well-known French intellect:urals--especially
the anthropologist Oliver Roy--are outspoken. backers of
the resistance and travel frequently to-Afghanistan to
report on the state of the insurgency. :There are also
a large number of French journals covering
Afghanistan--Les Nouvelles Afghanistan is the most
prominent--and the insurgency receives an in-depth and
almost universa.ll.y s-ympathethic coverage in most major
French dailies.
Outlook
Although French diplomatic support for the resistance
will remain strong, Mitterrand is unlikely to increase
aid to the Afghans significantly. Domestic economic
constraints have forced sharp reductions in foreign
military assistance and have strained the French
military budget,
Most French officials probably believe that
France must concentrate its limited financial and
military resources on higher priorities in Africa and
the Middle East during this period of economic
austerity. Most importantly, French aid is constrained
by the pancity of direct French interest in Afghan
affairs; lacking commercial or longstanding cultural
ties--such as exist in Africa, for example--a more
active French role in support of the Afghans is
unlikely. The influence of those who would support
increased aid to the insurgents is, moreover, probably
counter-balanced by the views of long-time Mitterrand
confident and new Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas.
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Dumas believes that Afghanistan is not a major problem
for the~Soviets and that, in any event, France can do
little ~to help the resistance succeed against Moscow's
superior strength,
Paris also probably assumes the US will play the major.
role in assistance programs and can be counted on to
take up any slack. French officials. decided recently
not to mount a major food aid program in 1985, for
example, because they believe US assistance will meet
current needs, according to the US Embassy.
The French right, which stands a good chance of winning
control of the National Assembly in 1986 and the
presidency in 1988, is unlikely to boost French aid
substantially. Although some conservatives would
almost certainly favor a larger role and some, such as
Centrist leader Francois Leotard, have taken a strong
personal interest in the insurgency, the right will
probably be restrained by the same fiscal
considerations as the Socialists.
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