How did the Parties move their supplies? It was one of the most complicated, chaotic and time-consuming operations of the war. Trucks and tractors, carts and camels, mules and horses all played their part, as did the backs of the Mujahideen themselves.
The larger Parties owned up to 300 vehicles of all types. These were civilian-pattern trucks which blended with the normal cross-border traffic. A number were Afghan vehicles purchased in Kabul, which were used for the longer journeys by road. They were more numerous than ISI’s transport as often these vehicles undertook journeys of several days or more, with no possibility of returning empty on the second day. A truck could be absent from the Party pool for weeks. It was sometimes possible to drive all the way to the northern or western provinces, journeys of over 1000 kilometres, while on other occasions only pack animals could be used. Inside Afghanistan deals were often struck with local Afghan commanders for the use of Afghan Army transport. One of the peculiarities of the war was that on occasion the Mujahideen could have their arms delivered to them in their enemy’s trucks. This occurred more often with sabotage operations in Kabul or other important cities, and included KHAD vehicles as well as military ones. At times, such activities were provided free, but normally money would have to change hands.
It was by lorry that the Parties moved their freight forward along the next stage of the pipe to the frontier. Here, some fifty-five border bases were located just inside Pakistan, mostly clustered around the main entry points near Parachinar and Chaman, NW of Quetta. To reach them the vehicles had to travel through the restricted areas of NWFP, Baluchistan, and the Tribal Areas (see Map 2). Throughout these regions the Pakistan Army, Border Scouts and Police were always on an active-service footing. Passage was controlled and subject to permits, check points, or vehicle search. To facilitate progress ISI issued all trucks with a ‘let go vehicle’ permit which gave all details of the lorry, except its cargo. C heck points en route were given lists of the trucks expected to pass through in advance. These vehicles were immune from search on the outward journey only, as a precaution against smuggling drugs or arms into Pakistan. Most of the time the system worked, but it was far from perfect. At times police check points would exact a ‘fee’ to avoid delays. Pay a bribe and the barrier was raised at once; refuse, and all sorts of excuses and telephone calls to non-existent or absent superiors could halt vehicles for hours.
I had an amusing personal experience of exactly this sort of difficulty when I took Congressman Wilson to the border prior to his secret visit to Afghanistan. I had sent an officer ahead to tell the police posts that our car was not to be delayed. At the first checkpoint a civilian official refused to let us proceed without ‘clearance’. I showed him my Army identity card, but he insisted he would have to check back. His telephone call conveniently found his superiors out of office—more waiting. After 15 minutes I exploded. I told the official that if he did not raise the barrier I would get my three escorts, who were armed with AK-47 rifles, to empty their magazines into him. They cocked their weapons and the barrier was forcibly raised. Later, I told the officer who had gone ahead what had happened, and that I was not impressed with his ‘smoothing’ of our route. On the return trip the same officer was travelling in a second vehicle. At the checkpoint this officer ordered his men into the post, and had the unfortunate individual dragged out at gunpoint. Shrieking protests, he was bundled into the vehicle to be driven off. I am sure he thought his end was near. After driving about 15 kilometres, during which time the wretched man was weeping and apologizing pathetically, he was dumped at the roadside to fend for himself. He had picked the wrong person from which to try to extract a ‘sweetener’.
Close to the border, especially around Parachinar, Miram Shah and Chaman, everybody was involved in the war in some way or other. There were tens of thousands of refugees in their camps, the bases teemed with Mujahideen, hundreds of transport contractors milled around with their animals, and scores of trucks were being loaded for their final journey to the end of the supply pipeline. Every day of every month, winter permitting, arms and ammunition were on the move. These areas contained the main jump-off points from the Mujahideen’s base of supply. The Durand Line was to the Mujahideen what the Amu River was to the Soviets. Here Commanders came to collect their supplies, here the trucks from Peshawar and Quetta were off-loaded, and here the pack trains of animals assembled and loaded up.
In the early days a Commander would arrive in Pakistan with his own horses, perhaps a hundred, to collect his weapons, but as the quantity of stores multiplied and horses were lost, this system became totally inadequate. Thousands of animals were needed, and they became casualties like the men, so a reliable replacement organization was necessary. The answer was the contractor, although costs were high and climbed steadily every year. The contractor was a businessman, he owned the animals, he accompanied them into Afghanistan and he fed them. As it was his livelihood, he looked after his beasts, taking away this responsibility from the Mujahideen. Our CIA comrades did not like the system. They advocated specially formed animal transport companies operated by the Mujahideen. I did not agree, as the Mujahideen would not own the animals, would not have a personal financial interest in their care and half the animals would be needed to carry fodder. From experience I knew such companies would be as expensive, but less efficient, than the contractors.
The animals used were camels, horses and mules. The camels were usually employed on the long routes to the southern provinces where the land was arid. Horses were by far the most numerous pack animals. The Afghan pony was ideally suited to the task, having been reared in the country over the centuries for precisely this type of work. The horse tended to be the long-distance, strategic carrier of supplies from the border to the operational bases in the provinces. As more and more died or were killed, we resorted, in the later stages, to importing Argentinian horses. There were far less mules than horses. The mule was not bred in Afghanistan. There were some in Pakistan, and China had mule farms which provided an additional source of supply. These animals were usually to be seen as operational, or tactical, carriers. Normally it would be mules that packed the mortar, the heavy machine gun or the SBRL and its ammunition to the actual firing point, or very close to it. The mules, together with some horses, were given to Commanders to keep at their operational bases as what the military would term ‘F’ Echelon transport—transport that carried weapons on to or near the battlefield. The CIA would buy the animals, then give them to the Parties to issue to their Commanders. They were quite separate from the contractors’ animals.
Apart from the branch from Karachi to Quetta there was really one main pipeline via Rawalpindi and Peshawar to the border. From then on numerous branch lines spread out into Afghanistan. I would liken our system to a tree. The roots represented the ships and aircraft bringing supplies from various countries to Pakistan. The trunk lay from Karachi almost to the border, at which point the main branches lay across the frontier. These branches divided into hundreds of smaller ones inside Afghanistan, taking the sap (arms and ammunition) to the leaves (the Mujahideen). Lop off a small branch, even a large one, and the tree survives, and in time others grow. Only severing the roots or trunk kills the tree. In our case only the branches were subject to attack. Unlike the Soviets, whose lines of communication were confined to main roads, ours made use of scores of tracks and trails through the mountains and valleys. If a road was blocked a route round could always be found.