ARMS FOR AFGHANISTAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020065-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 23, 2007
• Sequence Number: 65
• Publication Date: July 18, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/23: CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020065-0
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18 July 1931
velop either-a_golitical or a_rnilitary.strategy_to deal
These officials-from the White House, the State
Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon-are con-
vinced that the Soviets are bogged down in Afghani-
stan, a view supported by British and Arab intelli-
gence estimates. The Russians have lost their grip on
the roads linking Afghanistan's principal cities. They
have suffered an estimated 6,000 casualties, with
2,000 killed. Several thousand more Russian troops
are ill with hepatitis. Resistance forces are now initiat-
ing the fighting, combining the tactics of guerrilla
warfare with increasingly sophisticated weaponry.
According to a secret White House report, at least 60
Russian helicopters have been shot down-many by
surface-to-air missiles. The Soviets have failed to
The resistance fighters think they get
no help from the US.,They're wrong.
Arms for g an star
A year and a half after Soviet troops marched into
Afghanistan, the US Central Intelligence Agency is
coordinating a complex, far-flung program, involving
five countries and more than $100 million, to provide
the Afghan resistance with the weaponry of modern
guerrilla warfare. The result is an emerging anti-
Soviet alliance-the United States, China, Pakistan,
Egypt, and Saudi Arabia-that, in the judgment of
American planners, is effectively countering the most
blatant Soviet aggression of the postwar era.
Shortly after the December 1980 invasion there
were scattered newspaper reports that the United
States intended to supply arms to the Afghan resist-
ance fighters. Not much more has been heard on the
subject since. In fact, the American role in Afghanistan
-as described by senior officials of the Carter and
Reagan administrations-is far more extensive than
any of those initial reports suggested. For the United
States the stakes are especially high. This is the first
time that weapons supplied with American help have
been used to kill regular troops of the Soviet army-
though thousands of American soldiers were killed by
Soviet-supplied weapons in Korea and Vietnam.
For the Afghan people, the Soviet invasion and its
aftermath have been devastating. In a country of 16
million* people, tens of thousands have been killed and
wounded. Soviet helicopter gunships have emptied
most: villages, forcing more than two million men,
women, and children to flee into neighboring Pakistan,
where they make up the largest refugee population in
the world today.
In discussing the clandestine operation to supply
arms to the resistance, officials of. theReagan and
Carter administrations tell a remarkably consistent
story-balancing their desire to report on its"success
with their desire to keep operational details secret.