Another military delegation followed in August under General Pavlovski, who had commanded the force which invaded Czechoslovakia. Pavlovski’s main task was to review the state of the Afghan army and its operation against the rebels, and to make recommendations to Amin. On the eve of his departure Pavlovski asked Defence Minister Ustinov if it was planned to introduce Soviet forces into Afghanistan. ‘In no circumstances!’ the minister answered categorically.27 Pavlovski remained in Kabul until 22 October and was a close witness of the events which led to the overthrow of Taraki by Amin.
Many of the Afghan requests for troops came through the Soviet representatives in Kabul—the ambassador, Puzanov; the Chief Soviet Military Adviser, Gorelov; and the KGB representative, Ivanov. As often happens, the people on the spot were sometimes more sympathetic to their clients’ predicament than to the views of their principals, and often supported the Afghan requests, or at least forwarded them without comment. Within a week of Yepishev’s visit, Amin asked Gorelov to forward a request for helicopters with crews. Ogarkov, the Chief of Staff, minuted on Gorelov’s report: ‘That should not be done.’ The Politburo agreed, and Gorelov was told to remind the Afghans of the reasons why the request had been turned down. When Pavlovski arrived, Amin asked him if the Russians could send a division to Kabul. It would not be expected to take part in combat, but it would free an Afghan division to tackle the rebels on the ground. This request, too, was turned down. A month later Gorelov, Puzanov, and Ivanov came up with an idea of their own. The Soviets should set up a military training centre near Kabul on the lines of the one they had in Cuba—a somewhat disingenuous proposal, since everyone knew that the ‘training centre’ in Cuba consisted of a brigade of combat troops.28
Military Preparations
For its part the Soviet Ministry of Defence had already quietly begun to take measures directly related to the possibility of combat in Afghanistan. In April 1979 its Main Intelligence Directorate (Glavnoe Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie, or GRU) ordered the creation of a special battalion, based in Tashkent in Turkmenistan, to consist of Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen soldiers from the Central Asian republics who spoke the same languages as the people on the other side of the Afghan frontier. Major Khalbaev was appointed to command the battalion and given two months to complete its formation.
The unit, soon to be known as the ‘Muslim Battalion’, consisted of some five hundred men selected from across the Soviet Union. The main requirement was that they should know the relevant languages and be in good physical shape. Each was expected to have two specialities: radio operator and mortar specialist; medical orderly and driver, and so on. The battalion was equipped with two mobile anti-aircraft guns, known as Shilkas, which could also fire at ground targets. These were manned by Slavs, since no Central Asian specialists were available.29
The KGB now set up two small detachments of SpetsNaz (special purpose) forces, drawn from the force later known as the Alfa group. This was originally set up by Andropov in July 1974 to deal with terrorism and the release of hostages, taking the British SAS among others as its model. Its members were all officers, selected for their fitness and intelligence.
The first detachment of forty men was code-named Zenit. It was sent to Kabul under the command of Colonel Grigori Boyarinov, who had fought in the Second World War and since 1961 had lectured on low-intensity warfare at the KGB Academy. At first Zenit was housed in the school of the Soviet Embassy in Kabul. Its immediate task was to protect the embassy itself and the senior members of the Soviet community. At Amin’s request, the group also provided training in counterterrorism for its Afghan opposite numbers.
Boyarinov’s group returned to Moscow in September. But it was replaced by a similar group, known as Zenit-2, under Colonel Polyakov. Polyakov and his officers systematically reconnoitred and mapped the main Afghan administrative and military buildings in Kabuclass="underline" invaluable intelligence when the time came for the forcible takeover of Kabul in December.
In June Ustinov sent an air assault battalion to protect Soviet transport aircraft and their crews based in Bagram, and if necessary to cover the evacuation of Soviet advisers in an emergency. The troops were to travel as ‘technical advisers’ under the command of Colonel Vasili Lomakin, and their officers were to wear sergeants’ insignia of rank to disguise the provenance and structure of the unit. The paratroopers flew to Bagram early in July.30 The movement was picked up by the Americans, who concluded that the soldiers were indeed intended to protect Bagram and that the Russians had no intention of committing them to combat elsewhere in Afghanistan.31
Thus by the late summer of 1979 several of the military units that were to play a significant role in the first days of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan were already in place. The denouement was now to be driven forward at ever greater speed by dramatic political events in Kabul itself. Step by step, with great reluctance, strongly suspecting that it would be a mistake, the Russians slithered towards a military intervention because they could not think of a better alternative.
– THREE –
The Decision to Intervene
Now there began a period of plotting and counterplotting. Throughout the summer and autumn Taraki and Amin pursued their separate and contradictory intrigues, which ended in mutual betrayal and tragedy. The Soviet role in all this is still shrouded in ambiguity, and even those who were involved disagree about who was responsible for what. But whatever the truth, Soviet agencies were by now deeply involved in the domestic politics of Afghanistan, which they never fully understood and were never able effectively to shape to their own ends.1
As the domestic situation worsened throughout Afghanistan, and violent resistance to the Communist regime continued to spread, the confrontation within the ruling Khalq faction began to turn nasty. Amin gathered ever more power to himself. By the beginning of the summer, he held the key positions in the party and the state. He was a member of the Politburo and a secretary of the Central Committee. He was Prime Minister and Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council of National Defence. He was putting his relatives and trusties into key positions in the army and the security organs. He had manoeuvred his son-in-law Colonel Yakub into the post of Chief of the General Staff. And he was doing all he could to undermine the position of his nominal superior, President Taraki, openly accusing him in the Politburo of dereliction of duty.
On 28 July Amin demoted several members of the cabinet whom he regarded as obstacles to his ambition, including the Minister of Defence, Colonel Watanjar, and the Minister of Internal Affairs, Major Mazduryar. He took over the Defence Ministry himself, and began to post officers and units which he distrusted away from the capital.
A group—Amin later christened it the ‘Gang of Four’—now began to form in opposition to Amin. It consisted of Watanjar, Mazduryar, the previous head of the security service, Asadulla Sarwari, and the Minister of Communications, Gulabzoi. All were former military officers who had been involved in the coups against the King in 1973 and against Daud in 1978. They appealed to Taraki for support, but it was not forthcoming. Amin complained to Taraki about them, accusing them of spreading false rumours about him and trying to discredit him with foreigners. The head of the security police AGSA, Ahmad Akbari, who was also Amin’s cousin, told him at the end of August that Taraki was preparing a terrorist act against him.