AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96R01136R001302330013-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 24, 2013
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: November 26, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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Declassified in Part- Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/09/24: CIA-RDP96R01136R001302330013-4
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lt".4t, utrectorate 01
Intelligence
Afghanistan Situation Report
26 November 1985
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Top Secret
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NESA M 85-10223CX
SOVA M 85-10203CX
26 November 1985 25X1
Com, ACt
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/09/24: CIA-RDP96R01136R001302330013-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/09/24: CIA-RDP96R01136R001302330013-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/09/24: CIA-RDP96R01136R001302330013-4
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AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT
CONTENTS
POOR INSURGENT SECURITY PRACTICES
The insurgents tend to be careless about
maintaining security practices: they discuss
operational plans in public places or over the
radio, travel the same supply routes repeatedly,
and stop in the same teahouses.
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FOOD PRICES STABLE IN -KABUL
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The Soviets keep Kabul
adequately supplied
with
food and food prices in the city did not increase
this year. Elsewhere, food prices have risen
because war-related transportation disruptions
cause spot shortages.
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IN BRIEF
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PERSPECTIVE
AFGHANISTAN-USSR: INSURGENT ATTACKS INTO THE
USSR
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Insurgent raids across the border into the
USSR
have had little military impact and will continue
to occur infrequently because of Soviet
border
security measures.
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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.
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POOR INSURGENT SECURITY PRACTICES
insurgent caravans this
summer tended to stop at the same teahouses each time
they traveled. Moreover, they used the same routes
repeatedly and explicitly described their travel plans
during their visits to teahouses. Maps for alternate
routes were scarce, and few could read the maps that
were available.
guerrillas in radio contact with a familiar voice
often discuss operational plans openly.
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Keleft
Khey
, r$har.zes
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eyzhbad I
qn\
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'Eshkh hem
TAKHAR.
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4lagh
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la bad
NANGARHA
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ewer
Afghanistan
Spin &Adak
International boundary
Province boundary
* National capital
0 Province capital
Railroad
Road
800452 (545424) 10-85
Boundary representation is .
not necessarily authoritative., ?
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Comment: The insurgents' security awareness appears to
lessen in proportion to their familiarity with a
situation. The insurgents have been careful, however,
when unknown persons are involved. Guerrillas, for
example, screen Afghan Army defectors and others
seeking to join their bands. Their weak security
practices suggest that the Soviets are not aggressively
targeting some major infiltration routes.
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FOOD PRICES STABLE IN KABUL
During the past year, food prices in Kabul have shown
little change, and supplies have been adequate,
according to US Embassy reporting.
food prices outside
Kabul have risen, however.
Comment: The Soviets have kept Kabul adequately
supplied with food despite the city's rapid population
growth over the past few years. The Soviet Union
probably believes that food shortages or price
increases in Kabul would undermine efforts to build
support for the Karmal regime. Despite food price
increases in areas outside Kabul, weather datal 9)(1
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suggest that supplies are generally adequate
there as well. Food prices are usually higher outside
the capital because war-related transportation
disruptions cause occasional spot shortages.
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1985 Food Pricee
Rice Potatoes Onions Lamb
RabuliCity?
30
.(76)
20
.(67)
, 9
(-40)
180
(0)
Ghazni Province
Qarah Bagh-
105
(28)
32
(60)
35
(192)
180
(50)
Rawdza -
80
(90)
19
(12)
40
(48)
210
(45)
Pyadarah.
80
(33)
- -
85
(21)
Paktia Province
74
(3)
45
(10)
345
(11)
Panjsher? Valley.
71
aAll prices are in Afghanis/kg. The numbers in parentheses are
the percent change from 1984. Negative numbers indicate price
declines.
bWe do not have information on 1984 prices in the Panjsher
Valley.
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IN BRIEF
The Soviets are using new antipersonnel
fragmentation mines in Afghanistan.
unlike previous fragmentation
mines, the new mine does not need to be manually
emplaced and can be delivered in percussion-fired
canisters that sow up to 240 mines at a time. The
mine system will probably be mounted on aircraft or
armored vehicles; it is not known if it can be
defused easily.
The Soviet Union is building a road around the city
of Mazar-e Sharif to improve
and military traffic
. Like the bypass the Soviets are
building around the city of Qandahar, the road
around Mazar-e Sharif is probably designed to avoid
hilly and wooded terrain that affords insurgents
cover from which to launch ambushes.
security for convoys
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PERSPECTIVE
AFGHANISTAN-USSR: INSURGENT 7TACKS INTO THE USSR
We believe Afghan insurgent raids across the Soviet
border have been few and have had a negligible military
impact. They probably have heightened Moscow's concern
about border security and the stability of its ethnic
minority areas close to the border, however, and tied
up some Soviet forces. The forays probably also help
to sustain the insurgents' morale.
Insurgent Crossings
insurgents have probably exaggerated their
successes when discussing the raids with Western
journalists. We believe that most of the raids have
occurred in the Tajik SSR, carried out by Jamiat-i-
Islami insurgents; insurgent activities probably also
extend into the Uzbek and Turkmen areas of the USSR.
Insurgent crossings are most likely to occur in early
spring and early fall, when river levels are low enough
to ford or to be crossed easily on inflated goatskin
rafts . Insurgent leaders
recently told Western journalists that for three years
they had been crossing the border into Tajikistan to
mine roads and distribute Korans to their ethnic
counterparts. In one instance in late 1984
a Soviet patrol
encountered a band of young, non-Russian speakers in a
valley in Tajikistan. The encounter was peaceful, but
the patrol returned the next day, suspicious that none
of the group spoke Russian. Local people told the
patrol that the band was "dushman"--the Russian word
for "bandit" that is an epithet for the Afghan
insurgents--and that such groups regularly came to the
valley and nearby areas "to rt " Moreover,
elderly Tajiks
sometimes slipped across the border to die in their
home villages.
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Guerrillas also claim to have distributed propaganda in
Soviet border areas and to. have crossed into the,U$SR
from Badakhshan and Konduz Provinces to minp go7ipf
roads.
Most insurgent raids, however, are probably no more
than a continuation of a centuries-old tradition of,
livestock rustling along the border.
Afghan Tajike,
assisted by their Soviet kinsmen, frequently. attacked
Soviet outposts north of Konduz Province to clear the ,
way for stealing sheep from cooperative farms
Soviet Border Security
The USSR's sensitivity about its borders, coupled with
its concern about the insurgency, has prompted strict
security along much of the Soviet-Afghan border. KGB
Border Guards maintain careful control over the
populated areas of the border region and closely
monitor civilians in the area
. Civilians in the zone are registered;
travelers are checked for appropriate entry stamps and
for legitimate reasons for entry; and residents are
warned to report unusual activity or the appearance of
strangers.
Security measures along the Soviet side of the border
vary depending on the terrain.
Rugged terrain, sparse population, and lack of
major transportation networks make crossings
difficult in many areas where security is less
intense.
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The border area along the Pyandzh River (the upper
Amu Darya), which is devoid of transportation
routes or settlements and features extremely rugged
terrain, particularly on the Soviet side, is
characterized by only light Soviet security. It
contains no border guard outposts but is probably
patrolled periodically by air and monitored by
remote surveillance or listening posts.
Outlook
The military and logistic obstacles to expanding the
scope and effectiveness of insurgent raids will
probably remain so considerable that they will preclude
more extensive insurgent efforts to infiltrate the
USSR. Border crossings are thus likely to remain
infrequent and have little military impact.
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The Central Asian Resistance
In parts of the USSR just north of Afghanistan, now
organized as the Uzbek, Tajik, Turkmen, and Kirgiz
republics, significant resistance to the imposition of
Bolshevik control by indigenous Islamic peoples
persisted for years following the October 1917
revolution. From early 1918 until 1924, and later in
sporadic outbreaks well into the 1930s, Soviet forces
fought guerrilla attacks by what Moscow called
basmachis, another word for bandits, a term currently
used in Soviet media to refer to resistance fighters in
Afghanistan.
As the Russian civil war wound down, the Red Army moved
Into Central Asia and destroyed the most effective
Central Asian leaders. Then they offered the
guerrillas amnesty and spent money to lure tribal and
clan groups from the resistance. In 1924, the newly
created USSR reorganized the region along the ethnic
and linguistic lines that exist today. Although
represented as a move to respect national differences,
the reorganization was designed to divide the groups to
make them easier to rule. Forced collectivization in
the late 1920s caused another upsurge in the fighting
that continued until the late 1930s. By then the
Russians had in place a group of local leaders willing
to front for the Bolsheviks.
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_ 'lop secret
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