WHO KILLED PAKISTAN'S ZIA: THE FEARS AND THE THEORIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91B00390R000400430053-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 5, 2013
• Sequence Number: 53
• Publication Date: August 28, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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The Washington POST
28 August 1988
Who Killed Pakistan's Zia:
The Fears and the Theories
By Lally Weymouth
ABOUT 10 DAYS before
the death of Pakistan's
Zia ul-Hag, Soviet Deputy
Foreign Minister Yuliy
Vorontsov warned the
U.S. ambassador in Mos-
cow that the Soviets were
going to teach pa a les-
son if the Pakistani pres-
ident did not cease his
support for the mujaheddin resistance.
"We thought they would do some bomb-
ing [of targets in Palcistanj," said one U.S.
official, recalling the Soviet threat. "We
went to the Soviets and warned them
against bombing Pakistan because we were
so concerned." According to this official, the
Soviets replied, in effect: "We won't bomb,
but we will teach him a lesson.*
Moscow's threatening message to Zia
came back to haunt U.S. officials a week
and a half later when the Pakistani leader's
C-130 exploded in the sky, with most of the
Pakistani army high command on board as
well as U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel.
What caused the C-130 crash remains
unclear. Moscow has denied any involve-
ment, and at this point there's no evidence
to contradict the Soviet denial?nor is
there even final evidence that the crash was
the result of a deliberate attack, rather than
mechanical failure. Real ? answers aren't
likely to come until a joint U.S.-Pakistani
team completes its investigation of the
crash. While waiting for the results, the
United States has sent a message to the
Soviets warning that we will not accept any
outside interference in Pakistan.
The Reagan administration, wary of the
explosive implications of the case, last week
instructed employees at the State Depart-
ment and other agencies not to comment on
the Zia crash. Most high-level officials re-
fdsed to speculate. But behind the public
silence, it's clear that officials in Washing-
ton and Pakistan are worried about several
aspects of the case:
? Preliminary evidence. The formal U.S.-
Pakistani investigation of the crash won't be
concluded until this week, at the earliest.
Butaccording to one U.S. source, the Pakis-
tani air force made a preliminary finding
last week that Zia's plane had been downed
by a missile that struck one of its engines.
"They did a study of the crash and they
concluded that it wasn't internal but was a
missile striking one of the engines," said
one U.S. official who was briefed on the
Pakistani preliminary report. Because the
crash site was small and the debris hadn't
scattered, the Pakistani air force concluded
that the plane hadn't been bombed, the
U.S. official said. But this official cautioned
that this initial Pakistani report could be self-
serving, since it was the air force?which
was responsible for security on the plane?
that would he blamed if a bomb had been
smuggled aboard.
Zia had a range of enemies, domestic and
foreign, that might have had access to anti-
aircraft missiles. One U.S. official hopes it
was not an American-made "Stinger" missile
that downed Zia's plane. The Stinger, he not-
ed, was the symbol of the mujaheddin. "It
would have been delicious for the Soviets to
? train a team and go in and use it," speculates
this official.
? Soviet threats to Zia. Many U.S. officials
are troubled by the pattern of Soviet warn-
ings to Zia before he died. In addition to the
i'warning made to the U.S. ambassador to
-Moscow, Jack Matlock, a similar statement
-was delivered to Pakistani Foreign Minister
Yaqub Khan during his recent visit to Mos-
cow. And only the day before Zia died, Soviet
Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gera-
simov.attacked Zia. According to Task Gera-
simov charged:
"Pakistan is continuing to supply arms and
ammunition to the most intransigent part of
the Afghan armed opposition . . . . Islamabad
is continuing its line of open support for the
Afghan armed opposition, having as its aim
the overthrow of the government with which
Pakistan signed these agreements."
The diplomatic war of words worried U.S.
officials. So did the clashes on the ground
between Pakistan and Afghanistan that es-
calated in the month before Zia's death.
Several weeks ago, for example, two So-
viet SU21 warplanes were shot down near
the Pakistan-Afghan border by Pakistani
F16s. According to a U.S. official, one of the
two Soviet pilots was captured and confessed
that he and his comrades were trying to lure
the F16s close to-the border so they could he
,shot gown by Soviet MiGs. ?
Some U.S. officials doubt that the Soviets
would hive targeted Zia, no matter how an-
gry they were with his Afghanistan policy.
But otheo aren't so sure. One official sum-
marizes his suspicions about the Soviets this
way: "They warned in unambiguous terms
that they would do something to Zia . . . . It
was naive to believe the Soviets would leave
gracefully and just abandon Afghanistan."
? The record of Soviet-backed terrorism in
Pakistan. Since the early 1980s, Pakistani
officials charge, the Soviets have conducted a
campaign of terrorism to pressure Zia to stop
supporting the mujaheddin. The bombing
campaign has increased in ferocity during the
last two years. Indeed, because of these at-
tacks, Pakistan accounted for an amazing 45
percent of all those killed or wounded in in-
ternational terrorist attacks last year, ac-
cording to the State Department.
"The Russians considered Pakistan re-
sponsible for their present position in Af-
ghanistan," a top Pakistani security official
explained in an interview last January.
"Therefore they tried to use all sorts of pres-
sure to bring about a change in our attitude
to the Afghan affair . . . [including) sabotage
and terrorism There was a continuous
wave, every other week on the average.
When Gorbachev took over, it really became
a killing operation." (Continued)
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Moscow's surrogate in this campaign
of terror was the Afghan intelligence
service, traditionally known as
!CHAD (recently renamed WAD). Trained
and sponsored by the Soviet KGB, the Af-
ghan intelligence service was a vital part of
the war against the Afghan resistance, Ac-
cording to Pakistani officials, ICHAD's
strength today is approximately 27,000, and
its budget has increased from $7.4 million in
1982 to $160 million in 1986. Afghanistan's
leader, Najibullah, is a former chief of !CHAD.
A Pakistani military officer who has stud-
ied 'CHAD closely, estimated that there are
more than 1,500 Soviet advisers attached to
it. "Every KHAD section has a KGB adviser
and every directorate has I team of advis-
ers," he said in an interview last week. This
official rejected the view held by some Amer-
ican analysts that the Soviets leave !CHAD on
a loose leash; he claimed that KHAD officers
are given the blueprints for all operations by
GRU or KGB advisers.
Zia himself was worried by the threat of
Soviet-backed terrorism against his regime.
He told me in an interview last January that
the bombings in Pakistan were "the joint
work of the Afghan KHAD and the KGB. We
have very good evidence. Many agents have
been arrested or captured by us, and through
interrogation it has been found out who is
their mentor. They are all Afghans or KGB-
oriented KHAD agents."
Zia praised Pakistani civilians for holding
out against a bombing campaign that was
aimed at intimidating them. "A few knees
were shaking and it has not stopped," Zia
said. "This is how the Afghans destabilize
Pakistan?through internal subversion and
bomb blasts. What they have not won on the
battlefield they want to win now through in-
direct means?sabotage, bomb blasts. They
won't win, but they can make life difficult?
The Soviets had good reason to dislike Zia.
The Pakistani president was the key to the
covert war against Soviet forces in Afghan-
istan that was waged for eight years by the
mujaheddin with the backing of the United
States, China and Saudi Arabia. All supplies
to the mujaheddin had to pass through Pak-
istan, and Zia not only kept the supply lines
open and trained the guerrillas, he also gave
shelter in Pakistan to 31/2 million Afghan ref-
ugees.
The Washington POST
28 August 1988
Zia and the mujaheddin kept pushing, even
after the Soviets agreed to withdraw their
troops. As recently as Aug. 13, the Soviets
fsuffered a big setback when a large ammu-
nition dump located outside Kabul was de-
stroyed by two rounds of mujaheddin rockets.
According to a U.S. official, 500 Soviets were
killed and over 1,000 were wounded, and as
much as ayear's worth of supplies for the
Afghan government was destroyed. It was a
tremendous blow," says this official. It
looked like Carthage after the Punic War."
The Soviets now appear determined that
their Afghan puppet, Najibullah, will not fall
until after they Withdraw their last troops
next February. To ensure this, the Soviets
reportedly have stopped withdrawing troops
from Afghanistan and have recently been
reintroducing combat troops as well as mil-
itary advisers. According to one U.S. official,
they have also launched some new offensive
operations in Afghanistan?although the
head of Soviet forces in Afghanistan has de-
nied this. U.S. sources also say that in the
recent battle for control of the city of Kun-
duz, the Soviets flew 30 high-level bombing
sorties a day from the Soviet Union, devas-
tating the local population. This high-level
bombing has made it impossible for the mu-
jaheddin to take and hold some urban cen-
ters.
Despite his brave stand against the 'So-
viets in Afghanistan, Zia had been
worried in recent months about the fu-
ture of U.S.-Pakistani relations. He told me
in January that he wanted a George Bush vic-
tory. "We hope it is Bush," he said. I hope
and pray he wins the elections? He feared
that a Democratic victory might mean a de-
dine in U.S. support for Pakistan.
Even with the friendly Reagan administra-
tion, the priority in Washington policy toward
Pakistan was starting to shift to domestic po-
litical reform and the nuclear issue, instead of
Afghanistan. The Pakistanis had asked the
administration for AWACs radar-warning
planes, for example, but the request had not
- been granted. The sale had been tied to Pak-
istan's success in holding elections in Novem-
ber.
Page 2
"If he had stayed in power longer, we
would have been destined for conflict with
him on human rights, the nuclear issue and
the kind of fundamentalist government he
wanted to impose on Afghanistan," said Gra-
ham Fuller, an Afghan expert who is now at
the Rand Corp.
Zia's death presents the Reagan adminis-
tration with a dilemma. What if the evidence
suggests that the Soviets or their surrogates
had a role in the C130 crash? Many in the
US. government may be reluctant to press
the issue vigorously?for fear of interrupting
the START talks, the talks on regional set-
tlements in Angola and Kampuchea and the
new era of good feeling between the two su-
perpowers.
That's why the State Department?behind
its self-imposed silence on the Zia affair?
may be hoping that the investigation doesn't
turn up any solid evidence of foul play. If such
evidence were found, the awkward question
would then be what to do about it. The Unit-
ed States, as some officials noted last week,
actually has an incentive not to discover that
the Soviets did it.
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The Washington TIMES
29 August 1988
Missile killed Zia,
Pakistan indicates
By Bill Gertz
THE wAsHiHotoN TIMES
A preliminary Pakistani Air
Force investigation has concluded
that a ground-launched missile shot
down the aircraft that carried Pres-
ident Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, U.S.
Amba,ssador Arnold Raphel and 27
others to their deaths, a senior Pen-
tagon official said yesterday.
The Defense Department source
also confirmed a report that less
than two weeks before the plane
crash, a high Soviet official warned
the U.S. ambassador to Moscow,
Jack Matlock, that Gen. Zia would be
dealt with severely if he did not tem-
per his suppOrt of rebel forces bat-
tling the. Soviet-backed government
in Afghanistan. The Soviet official
was identified as Deputy Foreign
Minister Yuly Vorontsov.
The disclosures, which could not
be confirmed with other U.S. sourc-
es, seemed certain to intensify spec-
ulation about possible involvement
in the crash by the Soviet and Af-
ghan intelligence services. The Af:
ghan secret service, known by the
acronym WAD, has been implicated
in a number of terrorist bombings
inside Pakistan and was accused in
a State Department report this
month of being the world's top ex-
porter of state-sponsored terrorism.
Moscow has strongly denied that
it had any part in the downing of
Gen. Zia's aircraft.
The Pentagon official, who de-
clined to be identified by name, em-
phasized that the Pakistani Air
Force report had not been con-
firmed independently by a U.S. team
aiding in an investigation of the Aug.
17 crash. The disaster occurred as
Gen. Zia was returning to the capital
of Islamabad from a demonstration
of U.S. military equipment. Among
the other casualties of the crash was
an American general, Herbert Was-
som, and many of the top Pakistan
military command.
The official also noted that the air
force might have a self-interest in
proving the plane was shot down
from the ground since the military
was responsible both for security
and maintenance of the aircraft.
The joint investigative team is ex-
pected to issue a formal report on the
crash this week, he said.
The preliminary findings by the
Pakistani Air Force, according to the
Pentagon source, are based on two
factors. One, he said, was the rel-
atively "localized" crash sight. If an
explosion had occurred aboard the
plane, the Pakistani investigators
have concluded, debris would have
been scattered over a much wider
area than was actually the case, the
U.S. official said.
One theory of the crash has been
that a bomb had been planted on the
plane, possibly among a crate of
mangos taken aboard at the final
stop of the ill-fated flight.
The second factor in the prelimi-
nary Pakistani finding is the ab-
sence of any.evidence of mechanical
failure of the American-made, C-I30
transport plane. Investigators have
recovered and studied the recording
of the plane's on-board flight record-
ers and have discovered no indica-
tion of mechanical malfunction be-
fore the crash.
The plane explosion followed
several harsh warnings from the So-
viet Union to Pakistan and the
United States that continued Paki-
stan government support for rebels
in Afghanistan would lead to retribu-
tion. The reported warning to Mr.
Matlock in Moscow came just 10
days before the air crash, the Penta-
gon official said.
The State Department said last
night it could not confirm the
Matlock-Vorontsov meeting.
Earlier, Pakistan's foreign minis-
ter, Shahbazdha Yaqub Khan, was
also warned by Soviet Foreign Min-
ister Eduard Shevardnadze not to
continue backing the rebels, the of-
ficial said, adding that the warning
to Mr. Khan was not as harsh as the
message delivered to Mr. Matlock.
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