PESHAWAR: MANY LURED BY INTRIGUE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580005-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: May 12, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580005-4
MlTKLE LOS ANGELES TIMES
ON PAGE 12 May 1986
Afghan Rebel Gateway
Peshawar:
Many Lured
by Intrigue
By RONE TEMPEST,
Times Staff Writer
PESHAWAR, Pakistan-Rud-
yard Kipling described this dusty
frontier capital near the Khyber
Piss as a "city of evil countenanc-
es." Other cities lived, Peshawar
lurked. Even the shadows here had
shadows.
In his 19th-Century stories and
ballads, Kipling painted Peshawar
as a place peopled by tribal war-
riors, smugglers, soldiers of for-
tune, spies-the playground for the
great game of espionage between
imperial Russia and its enemies.
. Peshawar (pronounced pesh-
AH-wur) has not changed. It is still
murky with intrigue and corrup-
tion. Cold black eyes peer out of the
narrow alleys of Qissa Khani, the
centuries-old "storytellers' ba-
zaar.'
Last month, the provincial gov-
ernor was forced to resign after his
son was charged with running
large shipments of heroin between
Peshawar and New York. Among
its many vices, Peshawar is one of
the world's heroin capitals.
Thriving Drug Commerce
According to U.S. drug enforce-
ment agents based here, as much as
half of the American supply of
heroin passes through this city in
Pakistan's North-West Frontier
province, only 35 miles from the
Khyber Pass that leads from Af-
ghanistan.
The opium poppies from which
heroin is made are grown in Af-
ghanistan and remote areas of
northern Pakistan. Big-time drug
dealers have added the Merce-
des-Benz to the traditional Pesha-
war street chaos of Land Rovers,
camel carts and horse-drawn car-
riages.
Kipling's fearsome tribal war-
riors-Pathans and Afridis and
Ghilzais-still strut through the
streets. They are, for the most part,
inarticulate men who express
themselves in the ancient Pesha-
war way, by firing their rifles into
the air.
Not long ago when a cocktail
party was interrupted by a burst
from a Kalashnikov rifle, Moham-
med Gailani observed that "some-
one is celebrating a new baby or
they are happy for some reason."
Rebel Stronghold
Gailani is an American-educated
commander with the National Is-
lamic Front of Afghanistan, one of
more than a dozen moujahedeen
rebel groups based here. Over the
last decade and a half, the popula-
tion of Peshawar has nearly tripled,
to an estimated 700,000 people.
Afghan refugees live here, and
their moujahedeen leaders use the
city as a base for carrying on the
war against the more than 100,000
Soviet troops in Afghanistan-and
often against one another in the
streets of Peshawar.
There are soldiers of fortune and
adventurers here too, drawn irre-
sistibly to the war.
And spies. Except for Berlin, this
might be the spy capital of the
world. It is field headquarters for
the largest covert CIA operation
since the Vietnam War. Accordi
to published reports, the CIX
poured more than $400 million into
Pakistan last year to support the
Afghan resistance.
The war has given military ana-
lysts their first opportunity since
World War II to study Soviet
weapons and tactics. The analysts
were delighted last year when
deserting Afghan officers landed at
an air base near here in the
latest-model Soviet MI-24 helicop-
ter.
he were not so pleased, how-
ver, w when an American-supplied
? ghan rebel base was town u
near Badaber. the site of the o
CIA air base from which Francis
Gary Powers took off in 1960 in a
U-2 spy plane that was shot down
deep inside the Soviet Union. In the
Badaber explosion, 12 imprisoned
Soviet solders were killed and the
force of the blast scattered weap-
ons across the countryside.
The explosion was heard in Pe-
shawar, 20 miles away, where such
sounds are not unusual. There are
bombings here perhaps every other
week, and Soviet secret agents and
their colleagues in the Afghan
secret police are usually blamed.
Many of the bombings are proba-
bly the work of one of the rebel
groups. There is fierce competition
among the groups for U.S. money
and equipment, not all of which
makes it into Afghanistan.
The Saudi Arabian, Chinese and
Japanese governments also pro-
vide military support for the rebels,
reportedly about $200 million
worth a year. As in all wars, there
are fortunes to be made.
The rebel groups are also divided
by natural animosities that go back
to tribal divisions in Afghanistan.
The 350,000 or so refugees who
have lived in Peshawar since the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
1979 include royalists seeking the
return of King Mohammed Zahir
Shah, who is in exile in Rome;
Maoists; Farsi-speaking Shia Mus-
lims; obscure Sufi sects and dozens
of tribes speaking dozens of lan-
guages and dialects.
Diners Take Care
Peshawar is a place, like Beirut,
where it is unwise to sit near a
window. When a bomb disrupted
dinner last month at Lala's Grill, a
popular restaurant at a hotel front,
the only people hurt were those
sitting near windows.
A few days after the bombing,
Lala's was patched up and waiters
were hustling platters of mutton, a
river fish called tikka, spiced quail
and Russian salad. The place was
crowded with its usual cast of
unusual characters-Afghans in
turbans the size of bed sheets,
French nurses, mysterious charac-
ters in dark glasses studying maps,
local politicians, even tourists. Pe-
ter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet
would feel right at home.
Lala's is the gathering place for
the flotsam of the war zone-re-
porters and would-be reporters,
dope dealers and would-be dope
dealers, rebel commanders and
would-be rebel commanders. And
there are the war freaks.
."There are plenty of Walter
Mitty types," Theodore C. Mataxis,
a retired U.S. Army officer who is
here promoting the rebel cause,-
said the other day, "and a lot of
young men who drift in here and
want to grab the elephant by the
tail. They are on their way to
Afghanistan to test themselves.
They want to see how they will
react under fire."
Among the regulars at Lala's,
past and present, have been:
-Tanaka, a Japanese martial
v-t
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580005-4
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580005-4
arts champion who recently went
into Afghanistan to teach mouja-
hedeen rebels how to kill Soviets
with their bare hands. He was
stricken with dysentery and had to
come out before completing his
mission. Still, there are several
photographs scattered around Pe-
shawar that show him leaping high
in the mountain air to demonstrate
his lethal kick, with an Afghan
rebel looking on uncomprehend-
ingly.
`Freedom Fighters' Varied
-Lech Zontak, deceased, a Pol-
ish-Australian with a fierce hatred
for Communists, particularly Pol-
ish Communists. According to Aar-
on Einfrank, a reporter for Radio
Free Europe who knew him, "Lech
had a dream of bombing the Polish
Embassy in Kabul," the Afghan
capital.
"He wanted to form an interna-
tional brigade of East Europeans to
fight against the Communists in
Afghapistan.." Einfrank said. "It
was a go4 idea, but Lech was the
only member." Last fall, Zontak
was killedItraction:
-Ahmed'ind Kareem (not their
real names), two American Black
Muslims who sympathize with the
rebel cause and came here to fight.
Unfortunately, their fighting was
not always,limited to the battle-
field. Christian Destremau, who is
based in Peshawar with a French
aid group, said he ran into Ahmed
and Kareem in Afghanistan when
he was visiting the big rebel base at
Zhawar, in Paktia province.
"They accused me of being an
infidel," he said, "and the next
thing I knew I was on the ground
and one of them was kicking me."
Destremau said he had not made
the dangerous trip into Afghani-
stan to be beaten up by two
Americans. He said the Afghan
fighters, who have a high standard
of hospitality, finally stopped the
attack.
-Mataxis, an amiable, decorated
veteran of World War II, Korea
and Vietnam who retired from the
U.S. Army in 1972 as a brigadier
general. He is known affectionately
in the Peshawar expatriate com-
munity as "General Ouzo," pre-
sumably because his name resem-
bles a well-known brand of the
Greek liqueur.
Mataxis, 69, bald and extremely
fit, is the field representative here
for the Committee For a Free
Afghanistan, a Washington lobby-
edge of weapons and guerrilla
tactics, he is often consulted by
rebel commanders. Before retiring
from the Army, Mataxis served as a
consultant to the Singapore De-
fense Ministry and as commandant
of cadets at Valley Forge Military
Academy in Pennsylvania.
"I feel very sorry for the Af-
ghans and what has happened," he
said. "I'm of the school that says
the Russians are driving through
(Afghanistan and Pakistan) to get
to the warm water of the Arabian
Sea. I thought rather than sitting
around grousing at the club,
watching the pine cones fall. I
would try to do something to help."
Mataxis coordinates a program
that provides humanitarian aid
(seeds and medicine, for example)
to rebel groups. He also arranges
publicity visits to the United States
for rebel leaders.
"Politically, we don't have much
trouble here," he said, recalling
that this was not the case during
his two tours in Vietnam. '"this is a
good war-mother and apple pie
and all that-defending the poor
Afghans against the Russians."
In fact, this once-remote outpost
at the fringe of the British Empire
is now a favorite stopping point for
Western VIPs, particularly Ameri-
can congressmen. Ever since Zbig-
niew Brzezinski, national security
adviser to President Jimmy Carter,
came here and pointed a rifle
toward Afghanistan, word has got-
ten around that this is a good show
if you are on official business
anywhere near Pakistan.
Lots of Host Duties
Vice President George Bush
came in May, 1984. Officials at the
la. Embass in Islamabad sa
the are occasions alerted that
Presi ent a an son the ver e
visiiting. eo. ar es Wilson T
arrived wi a air rien , w o
s o g ugh emu in w te,
i heeled Boots.
e can consul in Pesha-
war, Alan W. Eastham, finally had
to ask for time off after hosting VIP
delegations for nine straight week-
ends.
Visitors come to Peshawar by
helicopter. An embassy officer who
is familiar with the routine said,
"Some don't even bother to go to
the capital at Islamabad. They have
it timed so they can do the whole
tour in four hours."
ing group that supports the rebels. The dignitaries arrive at a model
Because of his extensive knowl- Afghan refugee camp at the edge of
Z
Peshawar with malt hills
serving as a backdrop. They are
taken into a large tent for a
meeting with the elders of the
camp.
The ranking VIP makes a speech
English, though none of the
elders speak any English, and often
the translation is widely at vari-
ance with the speech as delivered.
On one occasion, for example, "we
support Your fight against commu-
nism" was translated as "we sup-
port your holy battle against the
infidels."
Afterward, the elders give the
dignitaries rousing cheers and one
of them rises to respond. Usually
this person throws in a request for
more weapons, but this is not
generally translated for the visi-
tors.
When Vice President Bush was
here, Gov. Fazle Haq of North-
West Frontier province, a wily
politician, insisted that the elder's
remarks be prepared by the gover-
nor's office to ensure that it
contained no request for guns.
The elder chosen to greet the
visitor could not read, and he spent
hours memorizing the speech as it
was read to him. When he rose to
recite it, many of his listeners
smiled broadly, for he chanted it as
though reading from the Koran.
There was no request for weapons,
though, and Fazle Haq nodded with
pleasure.
After meeting with the elders,
visitors are usually flown by heli-
copter to the regimental headquar-
ters of the Khyber Rifles, where
they watch tribal dancers and are
served lunch on the regimental
silver. Finally, they are taken to a
place outside the town of Landi
Kotl, where they can survey the
world's most famous pass and
imagine that they are Tamerlane or
Genghis Khan or Alexander the
Great, even though those historic
invaders used a different pass, for
the Khyber passage was not com-
pleted until the end of the 16th
Century.
This is what is known as the
"Peshawar Package Tour."
"We have a lot of drawing
cards," a U.S. official based in
Peshawar said-"drugs, the war,
refugees, even the Pathan people
themselves. That's why this town
has more important visitors than
most foreign capitals."
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 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580005-4
3
About the only people who are
not particularly impressed by the
bizarre goings-on in Peshawar are
the locals. The businessmen, in
particular, pay little attention to
politics or the war.
The hottest items in any Pesha-
war bazaar are smuggled goods.
Among the beat buys now in the
Bara Market at the edge of town
are Soviet-made refrigerators and
air-conditioners, brought across
Afghanistan by truck and camel.
If pressed, a Peshawar merchant
will tell you, "Japanese are better."
Michael Close, who is British, has
taught English and history at Isla-
mic and Edwardes colleges here
since 1947, and he says he finds
Peshawar a "fairly unattractive
place."
He prefers the countryside.
What he does find exciting, he
confided, is the American West,
which he visited last year. He
showed a visitor a photograph of a
deputy sheriff standing in front of
his patrol car in Bighorn County,
Wyo. The deputy is wearing a
cowboy hat and boots.
"Can you imagine meeting a real ;
sheriff?" Close said. "I was very
impressed."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580005-4