AFGHANISTAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100300002-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 12
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 13, 2007
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: August 9, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068
PROGRAM The MacNeil/Lehrer Report STATION WETA TV
PBS Network
August 9, 1982 7:30 PM
Afghanistan
ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening.
Washington, DC
Tonight we have a new look at Afghanistan, where
resistance forces have been battling Soviet invaders for nearly
three years. The 100,000 Soviet soldiers, with tanks, jets and
helicopter gunships, have been unable to crush the resistance
offered by thousands of Afghan tribesmen, moved by equally fierce
nationalism and Islamic faith.
Western reporters, who've returned recently from long trips
with the rebel forces, have brought back a picture of increasing
military stalemate. On the official level, the U. S. State
Department says there's no evidence to indicate that the Soviets
have changed their position on Afghanistan. Yet other Western
observers have picked up faint hints that the Soviets might like
to find a face-saving way out of a situation many have likened to
the U. S. quagmire in Vietnam.
Tonight, with fresh eyewitness accounts of the fighting,
"Are the Soviets warying of the Afghan struggle.
Jim Lehrer is off tonight. Charlayne Hunter-Gault's in
Washington. Charlayne?
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, in May, the Soviets
launched another offensive against one of the toughest centers of
rebel resistance, the Panjshir Valley, a fertile farming center
40 miles noth of Kabul. Their daily attacks were witnessed by
two American reporters who had walked over the mountains with
rebel forces.
OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
Material supplied by Radio N Reports. Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited.
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Edward Girardet is a special correspondent for the
Christian Science Monitor. This was his fourth trip inside
Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion in December, 1979. He was
accompanied by Bill Dowell, a radio correspondent and writer who
covered the wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as the
revolution in Iran. He is now ABC Radio News' correspondent in
Paris.
First, Bill Dowell reports what he saw of the Soviet
offensive.
BILL DOWELL: Like countless invaders before them, the
Soviets have run into Afghanistan's two classic defenses, its
people and its terrain. The Soviets have made ingenious use of
helicopters, particularly heavily armored M124 gunships. But
Afghanistan's mountains are so high, the helicopters have to fly
at maximum altitude. Even then, an increasing number are being
shot down by guerrilla machine guns on mountain peaks.
The Soviets have not been able to get beyond their love
of heavy armor and massive deployments of tanks. But in
Afghanistan, where the rebels move swiftly over steep mountain
passes, armored vehicles are often relatively useless.
Weapons such as these Katyusha rocket launchers are some
of the most awesome in the Soviet arsenal. Each launcher can
fire 40 rockets simultaneously. In theory, a launcher can wipe
out an entire village in less than 30 seconds. But Afghanistan's
tall mountains and deep valleys provide natural protection,
blocking the rockets. The launcher, like many other Soviet
weapons, looks good; it just doesn't work in Afghanistan.
Few events underscore the pitfalls of fighting a war in
Afghanistan more than the recent Soviet offensive against guer-
rillas in Panjshir Valley, 40 miles north of Kabul. On May 17th,
after intensive bombing, Soviet helicopters landed Russian and
Afghan commandos at key points along the length of the 70 mile
valley. While the commandos tried to secure the valley floor,
Afghan tanks, followed by Soviet tanks, tried to enter the valley
from the south.
The guerrillas waited until the Afghan tanks had passed
a narrow gorge. Then they set off explosives, triggering a
landslide that buried dozens of Soviet armored vehicles.
Hundreds of Afghan troops, who found themselves trapped alone
inside the valley, defected to the guerrillas. They brought nine
tanks with them.
The Soviet and Afghan troops, who outnumbered the guer-
rillas nearly ten to one, were eventually able to take the floor
of the valley by sheer force of numbers. But when they did, the
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guerrillas simply moved into the side valleys and on to the
surrounding mountaintops. The Soviets stayed in the valley a
little more than a month fighting a curious kind of routine war.
At 5:00 in the morning, MiGs and helicopters would fly out to
bomb. They would return for lunch at around noon, fly out again
an hour later to bomb in the afternoon, and then return for
supper. Villagers, who would go to shelters like these during
the daytime, would go back to their houses at night.
Towards the end of June, the Soviets began pulling out
most of their troops, leaving a few Afghan troops behind. Radio
Kabul and Radio Moscow claimed that the offensive was a complete
victory. It clearly had disrupted the economic life of the
valley. But the guerrillas had also managed to destroy scores of
armored vehicles and to shoot down more than a dozen helicopters.
They managed to capture new weapons, like this Soviet grenade
firing minigun, and hundreds of the latest Soviet assault rifles.
Even if the guerrillas had not fired a shot, the
offensive, with its deployment of tens of thousands of troops and
hundreds of helicopters and armored vehicles, would have cost the
Soviets heavily.
More discouraging from a Russian point of view, this was
the fifth offensive the Soviets had launched against the Panjshir
Valley in less than three years. In the end, it was not clear
that they'd come any closer to whipping Afghan resistance.
HUNTER-GAULT: Now Edward Girardet reports on how the
rebels are organized and now they withstood the Soviet attacks.
Following that report, Robin talked with Girardet and Dowell just
before they left the United States.
EDWARD GIRARDET: The Soviet offensive was aimed at
crushing one of Afghanistan's most influential resistance
centers. The Russians were particularly determined to destroy
Ahmed Shah Masoud, the well organized resistance commander, who
has built himself a nationwide reputation as the Lion of
Panjshir. No one else has the guerrilla movement shown itself to
be stronger and more effective than in this fertile, high
mountain valley.
The Soviet and Afghan government forces failed to defeat
the Panjshir guerrillas. They have, however, made their presence
felt. Attacks against the valley forced hundreds of families to
seek refuge amid stone shelters and caves in the narrow side
valleys. Many of them lost their homes.
In Afghanistan, mud and stone houses can be easily re-
built, no more than a week or two. But the prolonged communist
occupation threatens to have a lingering impact on the valley's
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Farmers have been prevented from returning to irrigate
their fields and fruit orchards. Resistance leaders also fear
that the Soviets will use chemical defoliants to prevent the soil
from being cultivated for years to come. Food supplies in the
Panjshir are desperately short. Wheat, sugar and tea have
dribbled through from neighboring areas. Guerrillas have been
sharing their rations, hidden months earlier in secret mountain
caches, with local inhabitants.
Masoud warns that unless adequate outside aid can be
brought in, the valley's 80,000 residents will face severe
hardship. If food supplies fail, the resistance would face two
equally dismal choices: either force the Panjshirees to seek
help from the communists or send them to Pakistan as refugees.
In both cases, the Soviet-backed Karmal regime would enjoy a
propaganda victory.
Resistance in Afghanistan continues to be a vast patch-
work of independently run groups. But there are increasing
signs that the Panjshir resistance model is spreading. New
local commanders, many of them young, are emerging as potential
future leaders. Pushing out the older traditional chiefs and
mullahs, they're challenging the exile political organizations in
Pakistan. The past year or two has seen an increasingly sophis-
ticated resistance structure.
During the Panjshir offensive, hundreds of fighters from
regions as far away as central Afghanistan and the Soviet border,
walked down to help.
Another sign of improved guerrilla organization are
horse and carnal caravans. Carrying weapons ranging from Chinese
mines to the occasional anti-aircraft guns, they're now a common
sight along the old nomad trails. So are the resistance operated
trihanas (?), or teahouses. Normally used as rest hostels and
restaurants, they also serve as local resistance headquarters.
They've become part of a simple, but effective communications
system. Archaic as it may seem, news bulletins with the latest
on ambushes, bombings or offensives are read aloud to both
guerrillas and villagers alike. Copies are made, and the news is
then whisked away by messengers on foot to other parts of the
contry.
The guerrillas still complain about the lack of anti-
aircraft weapons. Most arms have to be captured. Those that
come from the outside must be purchased. Nothing is free. Many
mujahedeen see their dependence on the Pakistani based political
organizations as a means for the exiled leaders to maintain
control of their fighting compatriots inside.
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Islam, however, remains the greatest strength of the
resistance. They also harbor a bitter hatred of the Soviets.
Once or twice, I've been momentarily mistaken for a Russian. It
was not just an uncomfortable feeling; it was an ugly one. The
Afghans are willing to defend their homeland and willing to die
for it.
MacNEIL: Those two reporters are with us now in New
York, Edward Girardet and Bill Dowell.
Ed, what is the net effect of what you've seen over the
three years and your four trips to Afghanistan? Is the situation
stalemated, or can you say that one side gradually appears to be
gaining an advantage?
GIRARDET: Well, I think the guerrillas have definitely
begun to improve. I think now we're beginning to see a situation
whereby guerrilla groups are improving in certain areas. It's
still very much of a situation of a patchwork of resistance
groups. But you are finding a lot of these young leaders who are
beginning to emerge. Weapons have improved greatly. And one is
really beginning to see more -- you know, more tactics. And I
think particularly now the Panjshir has become such a prominent
area and is spreading. For example, it spread up to the north,
to Badakhshan Province. It's spreading to the south. There're
now groups now penetrating Kabul with urban guerrilla attacks.
And I think the Soviets are really beginning to have more
problems now than before, and I think this is proved by the
Panjshir offensive, which was really an attempt to try and
crunch, crush finally this resistance, which failed.
MacNEIL: Are the losses, in any way you can measure
them, relatively equal on both side? If you can't see one
significantly winning, can you at least see the things they're
losing and count that up?
DOWELL: Well, we talked with doctors who were in the
Panjshir Valley from the first day of the offensive. And they
said there were practically no guerrilla losses at all. The
guerrillas knew that the Soviets were going to attack. They knew
where the bombing was going to take place. They warned the
villagers. And most of them had already left for the mountains
by the time the fighting took place.
MacNEIL: So you would say very few losses on the part
of the guerrillas....
MacNEIL: ...than the losses that you reported on the
part of the Soviets.
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GIRARDET: I think more with civilians. For
example,
Masoud received news beforehand, of course, that the
invasion
would take place. And therefore, he was able to move his troops
outside.
asking
MacNEIL: Do you have now an opinion -- I remember
you this a couple of years ago when you first went in
--
but do
you now have an opinion, with your added experience,
on
whether
the Soviets can defeat the rebels militarily?
GIRARDET: Well, I think certainly with the present number
of troops in Afghanistan, no way. No way. They'd have to bring
in more. And even then, I think it'd be really an impossible
situation, because, as last year, you know, we walked in, and you
really thought you were not in a war situation. And I think
whenever we saw a helicopter, it would fly over us, and we just
stood. And it's virtually impossible to see men walking around
the desert in the rocks from, you know, 2,000 feet. It's
virtually impossible. They would really have to move in many
more troops; they'd have to move out into the countryside,
sustain more casualties, which they're not doing, and which I'm
not sure they really want to do.
MacNEIL: Yeah. Do you agree with that, that without a
much bigger commitment they could not defeat the rebels?
DOWELL: It would take a tremendous commitment,
probably the size of the U. S. commitment in Vietnam, to really
get into these valleys and traps the guerrillas.
The Russians didn't appear to me to be trying to really
control the countryside. We walked 150 miles, through four
different provinces, and every single village we passed through
was under a guerrilla administration. And we saw no sign whatso-
ever of any Kabul government presence, or of any Soviet presence.
MacNEIL: Well, if the Soviets can't just wipe out this
resistance without a significantly greater commitment there, can
the rebels drive the Soviets out and force the rebels -- the
Soviets to get out, do you think?
GIRARDET: Well, I doubt that very much. For example,
as just mentioned before concerning the Russians, they really
have not got the support of the Afghan forces. When we walked by
a number of Afghan forts, and these forts have made agreements
with the rebels not to attack. So we walked by; we shook hands
with them. And it was really a somewhat absurd situation.
But I think the guerrillas themselves, until they can
organize themselves better -- I mean you have areas which are
very, very good. You have other areas which are really totally
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incompetent. I mean the guerrilla fighters have no idea about
real guerrilla warfare. For example, one group fired mortars
without taking the pins out of the mortars. And they had no
tactics whatsoever in attacking Afghan or Soviet forts.
MacNEIL: Have there been significant defections of the
Afghan Army, that is the Soviet-backed army of the Soviet puppet
regime there? Have there been significant defections?
DOWELL: I think there've been very significant defec-
tions and defections in place, because the doctors we talked to
said that Masoud, the guerrilla commander in the valley, had
brought them Soviet battle plans and asked them if they could
recognize what the symbols meant. They had been given by members
of the Kabul government. So I said how is that possible. And
they said, well, some of the officials in the Kabul government
are not sure the Soviets are going to make it. They want to
cover their bets on both sides.
MacNEIL: You mentioned Vietnam, and of course you were
in Vietnam as a correspondent. What are the Soviet tactics like
and their strategy to kind of combat this? And what's going
wrong for them?
DOWELL: Well, I was amazed. There was no effort
whatsoever by any of the Soviet forces to interdict supply
routes. We were moving in broad daylight with tremendous
caravans. I mean sometimes 50 men, maybe 20, 30 horses.
Helicopters would pass overhead. They would make no effort to
stop us.
MacNEIL: Those would be easy to see from the air.
DOWELL: They certainly were. And I looked to me as
though the Soviets weren't -- the Soviet soldiers on the ground
were not really trying to win the war.
We passed by Baghlan, the major Soviet air base, in
broad daylight. There were no patrols out. As far as we could
tell, there's no evidence the Soviets go out on the ground at
all.
Now if this had been in Vietnam with the American Army,
there would have been constant patrolling and very tight
security. So I was really very shocked.
MacNEIL: What do the rebels expect is going to happen
in the end? Do they think that the Soviets are just going to get
tired and find a way out of this, or they're going to be beaten,
or what's going to happen?
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GIRARDET: Well, last year Masoud told me that he was
going to step up attacks. In fact, they had planned more attacks
against Kabul before this recent attack. And now they're be-
ginning to do that again. In fact, they've planned quite a few
operations, which I think will really hit rather hard against the
Russians in Kabul.
They realize they have to make a counteroffensive,
because, for one thing, they have to impress the local popula-
tion. And secondly, they want to really make the situation
totally insecure for both the Afghan government and the Soviets.
But I think they're realistic enough to -- you know, to realize
that they cannot throw the Soviets out. There's going to have to
be a political solution eventually. But I think they're just
going to keep trying, keep hitting as hard as they can.
I think one particular point is that their weapons are
improving, and so far their tactics, and the guerrillas can only
improve. I think that's the major thing.
DOWELL: I think time is definitely on the side of the
guerrillas. And on April 25th, the guerrillas in the Panjshir
and Kobahar (?) just south of the Panjshir attack Baghlan Air
Base, cut through the perimeter, destroyed 25 helicopters,
machine-gunned the barracks and the base installations. And the
effect of that on the Soviets -- this was the first really major
attack I think of this kind -- was really very traumatic.
MacNEIL: So you think time is on the guerrillas' side.
Well, Bill Dowell and Ed Girardet, thank you very much.
HUNTER-GAULT: The fighting in Afghanistan has prompted
diplomatic efforts to seek a negotiated settlement. The United
Nations is taking the lead role. Its Undersecretary-General,
Diego Cardova, has recently met with the Afghan and Pakistani
foreign ministers for a round of talks in Geneva. The U. N.
official is reportedly planning a series of visits this fall to
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to continue the discussions. The
U. S. State Department also reported that it has held talks with
the Soviets aimed at convincing them to withdraw from Afghanistan.
For more on the diplomatic efforts and their prospects,
we turn to Selig Harrison, a senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. He is also the author of the
book In Afghanistan's Shadow.
Mr. Harrison, why do you think the Soviets seem willing
to talk now? Are they getting tired and feeling trapped?
SELIG HARRISON: Well, we should be quite clear that at
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this stage, it's too early in the negotiating process to be sure
how serious they are. It could be that they're trying to make
some propaganda and draw the Pakistanis into a negotiation which
would give implicit recognition to their regime in Kabul. But
when we look at the situation described so forcefully by Ed
Girardet and Mr. Dowell, it's easy to see that the Soviets can
well be having an agonizing reappraisal. They're trying to see
what kind of a deal they might be able to get. And they --
certainly when they got into Afghanistan, they never expected it
to be as difficult as it has turned out to be, either militarily
or politically.
First of all, at the political level, they thought they
could get together a unified communist party, and they thought
that they would find more support for the more moderate wing of
the Communist Party that they were installing when they brought
their troops in. And that hasn't proved to be true. They don't
have a solid political base. And the resistance, with some
useful help from the outside, has been able to make the military
costs of their occupation increasingly great.
So what they see is a rather -- a situation in which
they cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. They....
HUNTER-GAULT: So that they cannot see the light, for
example, of a military victory.
HARRISON: No, that's right. They can't be forced out.
But neither can they see a situation in which they might con-
solidate a regime that they could keep in power without the
suppression of the people in a very, very bloody way. And every
time they are seen suppressing people in the way that they've had
to in this tragic episode in the Panjshir Valley, the Islamic
world is extremely upset: Iran, in particular, right nextdoor,
where they have important political stakes; Pakistan; the non-
aligned countries; India, in particular, where they've put a lot
of their political emphasis. Even among the communist parties,
Mexico and France, they've had a very outraged reaction. And
world public opinion, in general, still has them on the defen-
sive. So they're paying a very high political and diplomatic
price.
But we shouldn't be under the impression that that is
enough or that the military costs are enough to force them to
surrender or retreat and lose Afghanistan with their tail between
their legs.
HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Well, I mean in that case
then, based on the talks that have proceeded so far, do you get
the impression that there are concessions that they would be
willing to make in order to extricate themselves from this whole
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thing, quote, unquote, with honor?
HARRISON: Well, they made some concessions to get these
talks going. And that's what's interesting, and that's what's
important.
HUNTER-GAULT: You mean just the fact that the talks
have begun is a concession.
HARRISON: They dropped their demand that the government
in Kabul be recognized by Pakistan. They have agreed to the U.
N. taking a very active role, an initiating role, instead of the
mere ceremonial role. And I think that they -- you can't
approach this at the superpower level, because if the United
States goes to the Soviet Union and says you should get out of
Afghanistan, we're trying to make them the defendant at the bar.
They won't leave, it seems to me, under those circumstances. But
they're trying to see whether, in a more face-saving way, through
the U. N. framework, they might be able to strike a deal that
would gradually make it possible to withdraw by stages, with the
recriprocal cessation of what they call foreign interference from
Pakistan and Iran, with the help of the Western and Middle
Eastern countries that are helping the resistance.
HUNTER-GAULT: All right, thank you.
MacNEIL: We have another view now from a woman who's
been studying Afghanistan since the early '50s, since she lived
and worked there. Rosanne Klass is Director of the Afghan
Information Center at Freedom House, a nongovernmental organi-
zation which monitors political, civil and human rights around
the world. Miss Klass is the author of a book and many magazine
articles on Afghanistan.
Miss Klass, do you see signs that the Soviets may be
looking for a way out?
ROSANNE KLASS: I think that they are looking to solve
certain of their problems, but I don't think that they are that
anxious to get out of Afghanistan at this time.
I would agree that it's proved more costly than they
expected. But since Moscow has spent almost 200 years trying to
gain control of Afghanistan, I don't really think that three
years of trouble are enough to change their minds.
MacNEIL: In other words, this isn't just the present
Soviet regime; it goes back into tsarist times.
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KLASS: Oh, yes. In 1838, at least, they then began
active efforts. And reportedly, I believe the first Russian
plans on Afghanistan are attributed to Peter the Great and
Catherine the Great.
MacNEIL: Well, what would you see the present -- would
you devine the present Soviet motivation might be?
KLASS: I think they're looking for ways to defuse the
international price they've had to pay. They have not had to pay
a very heavy price. Nevertheless, in the Third World, in the U.
N. and in terms of propaganda, it has presented a problem for
them.
MacNEIL: Well, haven't they had the most unanimous
opposition that they've ever had in terms of world opinion and U.
N. resolutions?
KLASS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. No question about that. I
think that what they are looking for is a cosmetic solution that
the world will accept, and perhaps a regime that will be recog-
nized internationally, that will nevertheless leave them in
power. I've seen signs for more than a year now that they are
looking for a way to put together a sort of popular front govern-
ment involving nationalist figures who are not communists. Their
problem has been that they've only been able to find one turncoat.
And I suspect that we may see a few carefully selected defectors
planted as potential returnees who might form part of the govern-
ment, which, if it were accepted by the outside world, could then
turn around and, on the basis of various treaties, ask the Soviet
army to stay, or ask Cubans to come in as surrogates. The Cubans
have been in; the Vietnamese have be in Afghanistan. They're
signing all kinds of treaties with the Bulgarians. But in any
case, set up a situation in which the Russians could maintain
effective control. And once such a government was recognized by
the international community, the international community could
not protest their inviting in or agreeing to certain things.
MacNEIL: There's some speculation I've seen reported
that
exile
the former Afghan King, Zahir Shah, who's now
in Italy, might be the person who could both
living
unite
in
the
--
unify
Afghanistan and be acceptable to the Soviets.
What's your reaction to that?
KLASS: If the King were to become involved -- at
present, he has declined to become involved. I should say that
most of the Afghan leadership, the experienced leadership, was
murdered since 1978, I mean about twenty-five to fifty thousand
people, an entire educated class wiped out. There are surviving
experienced political figures, of whom the King is one. And
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there might be a point at which he would have a role to play.
But he is a very cautious man, and it is not likely that
he would initiate something. He might come in on something if it
was going.
MacNEIL: Finally, let me ask each of you -- we just
have a short time -- would you guess that there would be, in the
next year or so, a political solution, or are we going to go on
with this military situation for a long time?
HARRISON: Well, I think when you say a year or two,
you're talking about the kind of time frame that this negotiating
process will have to take. What the U. N. is going to do is not
going to be accomplished in six months, or even eight months.
It's going to stretch out over a period of time, during which
time I think assistance to the resistance should continue. But
if the Soviets get the....
MacNEIL: Including the presumed U. S. assistance .....
HARRISON: Yes, that's right. I think both military and
diplomatic options and diplomatic pressure and military pressure
have to be put on the Soviets. But if they're given some realis-
tic options for negotiations through this U. N. framework, we'll
find out what's possible.
And I think that a year, 18 months, will be the time
frame within which this has to unfold.
MacNEIL: Do you expect there to be a political settle-
KLASS: If you mean a political settlement that would
give Afghanistan back some control of its own destiny, which is
what the resistance is fighting for, then I would say we're a
long way from it. The resistance will have to up the price a
good deal. The international political price will have to be
upped a great deal. And the resistance will have to get signi-
ficant aid from outside, which it has not been getting, in order,
over a long, long haul, to bring the Soviets to the table.
MacNEIL: Thank you. We have to end it there. Miss
Klass, Mr. Harrison, thank you very much for joining us.
Good night, Charlayne.
HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Robin.
MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back
tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.
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