AFGHANISTAN: NO END IN SIGHT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201190001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 13, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/13: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201190001-1
ARTICLE APPEAgED CHICAGO TRIBUNE
18 May 1986
ON PAG
Perspective
Afghanistan = No End in Sigh
Resistance hits resolve in nightmare war likely to get more frightening
By Raymond Coffey
PESHAWAR, Pakistan-Fourteen killed
and a score wounded the other day, just
up the road from here in an artillery
barrage on an Afghan refugee center.
Nine dead a few days bcfore in a jet bomber
raid on the same sort of target.
And all that on this side-the Pakistani
side-of the border with Afghanistan.
The Afghan war, in which at least half a
million people have been killed, and in which
the major military force is a 120,000-man Sovi-
et army of occupation, now is deep into its
seventh year.
And the end is not in sight.
The accepted wisdom, in fact, in this baked
and dusty border town in Northwest Frontier
province, which has become the de facto head-
quarters for the Afghan nationalist anti-com-
munist resistance, is that the war is likely to
turn even meaner and bloodier.
That is the view expressed generally by
leaders of the Afghan resistance, by Western
diplomats and by a variety of other experienced
observers of the long-running war.
All those involved on this side of the border,
and all those interviewed here and in Islamabad
and Rawalpindi, tend, of course, to be in sym-
pathy with the resistance, which also has the
strong support of the U.S. government.
There also is wide agreement on three other
points:
? The new Soviet-selected leader of the
protege communist regime in Afghanistan is
bad news for the resistance and for U.S. in-
terests.
? Neighboring Pakistan, a principal foreign
supporter and burden-bearer of the anti-com-
munist resistance's war effort, may be wearying
of its role and looking for a way out.
? Both sides in the war are taking heavy cas-
ualties, neither can really be said to be winning,
and neither is prepared to call it quits.
Leaders of the Afghan resistance, called the
Mujahedin, are especially jittery right now that
both Pakistan and the U.S. might strike a deal
with the Soviets and abandon their cause.
But even if the Soviets did decide to cut their
losses and go home, it also is widely agreed
that the war would go on intramurally among
the Afghans themselves.
"We started our resistance against the com-
munist regime in Kabul," said Fazel Akbar, a
prominent and scholarly figure in resistance cir-
cles. "The Russians weren't even there then.
The resistance will not end when they leave."
Though casualties have been staggering on
both sides, and though the long conflict has
generated more than 4 million refugees, the war
often has all but faded from American con-
sciousness because it has dragged on now since
Christmas, 1979.
Two recent events have again focused atten-
First, the Soviets dumped Babrak Karmal as
leader of the Afghan regime in Kabul and re-
placed him as Communist Party chief with a
former head of the secret police who uses. only
one name, Najibullah, or just Najib.
Second, a United Nations mediator has con-
vened a seventh round of so-called "proximity
talks" in Geneva involving Pakistan and the
Afghan regime in pursuit of a "political solu-
tion" to the war.
Neither event has produced any great ex-
citement or optimism among those who live
with and deal with the war and back the Mu-
jahedin-or "freedom fighters," as President
Reagan calls them.
"Najibullah is very good for the Russians and
very bad for us," said Akbar, who was on duty
at Kabul Radio the night the Soviets invaded
and shot up the place and who is now associat-
ed with the respected Afghan Information and
Documentation Center here.
All the Soviets did in ousting Kannal and
anointing Najibullah is "substitute a young and
effective s.o.b. for an old and ineffective s.o.b.,"
said a well-placed Western diplomat.
Kannal, 57, allegedly asked to be replaced
because he is ailing. Western diplomats, howev-
er, say the change was less a matter of Karmal
being sick than of the Soviets being sick of him.
"They gave him more than five years to do
the work [create a native political-economic ap-
paratus that could survive the departure of the
Soviet army] and he didn't get the job done;
it's that simple," one diplomat said.
Najibullah is only 39 and by reputation,
among his foes at least, represents a considera-
bly greater problem for the Afghan resistance.
He is not only more ruthless and more efficient
than Karmal, but he has potential political ap-
peal among the Afghan people.
He is a Pushtun, for one thing, a member of
the largest ethnic group, and, according to
Akbar, who knew him long ago as a medical
student, he has "close relations with the tribal
people" in what is a tribal society.
"He is a tough Pushtun, a trained killer-type
from the secret police," said a diplomat, "and
he may bring a possibility of change but proba-
bly change in the wrong direction."
Referring to runaway rumors at the Novem-
ber U.S.-Soviet summit in Geneva that Mos-
cow intended to signal some new willingness
for a political solution in Afghanistan, this
diplomat added, "If they wanted to send a pos-
itive signal, this [Najibullah] doesn't do it."
Fundamentally, though, no one who is part
of the resistance or can claim any measure of
expertise on the war appears to feel that
Najibullah ultimately will have any more suc-
cess in crushing the resistance than Karmal did.
Unpalatable as they find Najibullah's
promotion by the Soviets, however, the Afghan
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Z
resistance leaders are more distressed over the
latest round of "proximity talks," so called be-
cause Pakistan and the Afghan regime refuse to
meet face-to-face and the UN mediator shuffles
back and forth between them.
That gives some idea of how successful the
talks have been so far. But the Afghan resis-
tance leaders are frankly worried that this time
the Pakistanis might cut a deal for a "political
solution"-and that, moreover, the U.S. might
gp along with it.
Pakistani President Mohammad Zia-ul Haq,
always a tough customer and an old army man,
has stood fast so far against the Soviet occu-
piers and their Afghan proteges. He has insisted
that the Soviets withdraw from Afghanistan on
a short timetable and all at once-not in a long
and phased pullout.
Zia has his own reasons. With old foe India
on one border, he is less than enthusiastic
about having a Soviet client on the other. And
he currently has a lapful of politi-
cal problems at home, the princi-
pal one being the presence of
about 3 million Afghan refugees
along the border here.
The refugees are a major econom-
ic and political burden and Pakistan
wants them to go home.
Akbar said the Afghan resistance is
worried that if a political solution is
arrived at in Geneva, "our help will
stop" from both Pakistan and the
U.S.
"We hear the U.S. is ready to give
guarantees," he said, referring to a
U.S. announcement in December
that it would be willing to serve as a
guarantor of a peace settlement that
included both a Soviet withdrawal
from Afghanistan and an end to
American aid to the resistance.
"Which kind of guarantees, to
which government?" Akbar asked,
reflecting a fear that an agreement
would grant status and permanence
to the communist regime in Kabul.
The concern about what Western
diplomats refer to as a possible
Pakistani "sellout" of the resistance
in return for getting rid of the ref-
ugees is not counted entirely unlikely
by experienced observers.
Nor surprising, given the fervent
and frequently repeated support
President Reagan has voiced for the
Afghan "freedom fighters," do in-
formed diplomats count out the pos-
sibility of the U.S. agreeing to a set-
tlement that left the communist
regime in power in Kabul and cut
the ground out from under the resis-
tance.
"Afghanistan was not even on the
[U.S.] radar screen until 1979 [when
the Russians invaded]," said one
Western diplomat. "If the Soviets
leave and Afghanistan becomes a
black hole, [the U.S.] couldn't care
less."
America's "strategic interests are
not involved" in Afghanistan, he
said, except for the Soviets being
there.
There is, in any case, no indica-
tion of a precipitate Soviet with-
drawal, and a more immediate prob-
lem for the Afghan resistance-and
a concern for the U.S.-is the con-
tinuing and glaring disunity among
the resistance groups themselves.
There are seven major groups [and
a flock of lesser ones] who are divide
roughly into "fundamentalist" and
"moderate" subdivisions, and rela-
tions among them are marked by
suspicion, feuding and bitterly com-
peting political objectives.
The "fundamentalist" groups are.
determined in varying degree to es-
tablish a strictly Moslem regime in
Kabul. The rhetoric from some of
them is distinctly anti-U.S. and has
an almost Iranian ring to it. Gulbud-
din Hekmatyar, leader of one major
group, takes the public position that
"both America and Russia are ene-
mies of Islam."
Iran, in fact, finances one of the
minor resistance groups, and one of
the big seven, led by Abdul Rasooll
Sayyaf, is bankrolled by Saudi Ara-
bia. Typical of the relations among
the groups was a crack by one
prominent resistance figure that
Sayyaf is always "too busy counting
his Saudi money" to contribute
much to the fight.
The largest, and probably most
westernized, of the "moderate"
groups is Sayed Ahmad Gailani's
National Islamic Front of Afghani-
stan.
They generally oppose establishing
a religious state run on strict Islamic
law and also generally favor bringing
back the deposed King Mohammad
Zahir Khan, now in exile in Europe,
not as a ruler but as a national sym-
bol in the British style.
Gailani, a gray-bearded, hawk-
nosed man of powerful dignity, in-
sisted in an interview that the seven
major resistance groups have made
great progress toward putting aside
their differences and forming an ef-
fective coalition.
But, again typically, both he and
his son, who serves as interpreter-
spokesman, spent a large part of the
interview making and remaking the
point that their group is the "princi-
pal" and "largest" one and that
Gailani is the "supreme command-
er" of the resistance.
The fact appears to be that, as a
key Western diplomat put it, the
seven major groups, singly or in
combination, "have done very little
to establish themselves" as a "credi-
ble [political] alternative" to the
Najibullah regime in Kabul.
The real basis for their opposition
to a political solution based on a
Soviet withdrawal, he said, is that
such an arrangement would "not
give any of them an engraved invita-
tion" to move in and take over in
Kabul.
"The lack of real unity is one of
our big difficulties," Akbar.
"What we want is (politticcal) self-de-
termination. A religious [Moslem]
dictatorship is no more acceptable
than a communist dictatorship. . .
No one of them [the seven major
resistance groups] is entirely accepta-
ble."
Moreover, the shooting war inside
Afghanistan appears not to be going
especially well for either side.
The resistance suffered heavy loss-
es in late April in a major Soviet
offensive employing their most mod-
em weaponry that was designed to
set the stage for the new round of
Geneva talks, Western diplomats ac-
knowledge.
And lately, the Soviets have
stepped up air and artillery strikes
aimed mainly at Afghan refugee cen-
ters across the border in Pakistan.
These attacks clearly are designed to
"work on Pakistan's nerves," accord-
ing to diplomatic sources.
The Afghan resistance also is mur-
derously outgunned in what retired
U.S. Amiy Brig. Gen. Ted Metaxis
calls a Soviet "war of migratory
genocide."
Though the figure of 500,000 Af-
ghans killed has been acknowledged,
some say a million have died. And
in addition to the 4 million refugees
who have fled the country, another 4
million Afghans have been uprooted
and dislocated within the country.
Altogether, the dead, fled and
dislocated come to half the pre-war
population.
Resistance leaders claim to, have
killed more than 50,000 Soviets. The
more conservative estimate, still a
stiff price for the Soviets, is that at
least I U,000 have died and many
thousands more have been wounded.
Metaxis, who last week wound up
a second three-month stint observing
the war for the privately financed
American Committee for a Free Af-
ghanistan, said the resistance's most
urgent military need is "effective
anti-aircraft" weaponry.
TheCIA U.S. aistill handled
on an officially "covert"
a 've a few Stinger anti-
aircraft missiles to the resistance but
the remain at a great sa antage
against ' vretheelicop er guns M.
The resistance so ism sore need
of longer-range surface-to-surface
rockets, according to Metaxis, to
counter the current Soviet strategy
of extending the security perimeter
around their installations to a dis-
tance of about 10 miles.
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That is beyond the range of the
107 mm. rockets basic to the resis-
tance arsenal, and they need more
122 mm. rockets which have an ef-
fective range of about 12 miles,
Metaxis said.
Metaxis, Western diplomats, other
experienced observers of the war
and the Afghans themselves all
agree that the main thing the resis-
tance has going for it is simple de-
termination.
The Afghans pride themselves on
their prowess as warriors and their
bravery is, by all accounts,
awesome. The enormous Soviet oc-
cupation force has not been able to
crush them and, Metaxis said, "as
long as they [the Afghan resistance]
are willing to die, they'll keep it
going."
What if Pakistani support and
safe haven col apse an A arms
deliveries are c TO,
" `We' yo back inside
tanistan into the moun am
and we s t heir ovie ba
and take their ns e s sat .
"I think the Afghans can OF 7
longer than most people think they
can," he said. "The Vietnamese did,
remember?"
Akbar agreed that even if the
Soviets withdrew tomorrow, it would
be "impossible" for the resistance to
abandon the war.
"If we had quit in the first year,
there would have been no 1 million
dead, no villages destroyed-no Rus-
sian invasion," he said. "Now the
[Afghan) people would ask us why
we had 1 million killed, why their
villages were destroyed to leave the
communists in power in Kabul.
"For us, what's the difference be-
tween Karmal and Najibullah? Our
objective is self-determination for the
Afghan people."
Raymond Coffey is an associate editor of
The Tribune.
3
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