It was an extraordinary situation in an extraordinary war. On the one hand the Pakistan government was providing full support to the Mujahideen, while on the other thousands of its citizens provided substantial logistic support to its Afghan enemies, enabling them to continue the fight. Militarily, I am convinced that if these Pakistani tribesmen had not sustained our enemy in this way no Afghan post could have endured within 50 kilometres of the frontier.
In January, 1985, we were caught by surprise when the Afghans took to the offensive up the Kunar Valley to relieve Barikot (see Map 11). It was winter, so we had wrongly supposed the Soviets would not take to the field with a major operation, which in turn meant that the Mujahideen bases along the valley, and in the side valleys to the west, were not strongly held. Barikot was still besieged, but with much smaller and less aggressive forces than would have been the case in summer. We had received no warning via satellite.
The enemy task force was under Colonel Gholam Hazrat, the 9th Division commander. He controlled brigades from his own and the Jalalabad-based 11th Division, supplemented by the 46th Artillery Regiment and the 10th Engineer Regiment, whose primary task was road-maintenance and improvement. The Soviet contribution was a single air-assault regiment. The attackers improved on their Panjsher tactics. Armour spearheaded the columns, aerial bombardment flattened the villages to demoralize and disperse the civilian inhabitants, heliborne units seized important heights in advance of the ground thrust, and the same techniques were used up the side valleys such as the Pech. These methods met with success as resistance was thin, a number of small Mujahideen bases were taken, and we could not assemble reinforcements from the refugee camps quickly enough to stop the enemy reaching Barikot.
This offensive was blown up to be a resounding defeat for the Mujahideen Press, radio and television reports publicized the relief of Barikot as proof that the guerrillas were on the run. Colonel Gholam Hazrat was promoted brigadier.
In fact the Afghans had only remained at Barikot for 12 hours. We rushed reinforcements forward to harass the enemy’s lines of communication, particularly around the bases at Asmar and Asadabad. There were several fierce clashes with rearguards, supported by bombers, helicopter gunships and artillery. We kept up the pressure as far as Jalalabad. Nevertheless, I had been disappointed with the Mujahideen’s efforts, and I held a detailed postmortem on what had gone wrong, apart from our being surprised. My enquiries revealed that rivalry and feuding were at least partially to blame. The Kunar Valley between Asmar and Barikot was the responsibility of Commanders belonging to Khalis’ party, and they had not cooperated in resisting this offensive. In particular, Haii Mir Zaman, who had been tasked with road-cratering and mining operations, had failed to perform, giving, with a look of injured innocence, as his excuse that he needed the valley road open to the enemy so that his men could capture rations and weapons to supplement their own stocks which were low. Some of his fellow Commanders dubbed Mir Zaman as a KHAD agent; so I was forced to investigate his activities thoroughly. Although the charges could not be proved, it was clear that such suspicions and accusations did not augur well for coordinated efforts in the Kunar. The whole episode was typical of the difficulties we faced in conducting joint operations, and the amount of time and effort that was wasted trying to sort out Mujahideen feuds rather than devoting our energies to the fighting.
I quickly found that a large proportion of my time was spent travelling by car or plane. I had to be in Peshawar for several days every week meeting Party Leaders, visiting warehouses, or having discussions with the Military Committee. It was through the members of this committee that I sought to influence events in the field, to get cooperation between Commanders, sort out supply problems, arrange training, or investigate allegations of illegal arms sales.
With this last matter it is of interest to note that the buying and selling of weapons was probably second only to the drug trade as a lucrative business in the border areas. It had been so for 200 years. The town of Darra, south of Peshawar, has what must surely be the biggest open arms market in the world. There are at least 100 shops where a buyer can get anything from rifles to mortars. In 1980 the cost of an AK47 was $1500, but with the glut of weapons brought about by the war it had plummeted to $750 by 1987. Much larger sums would change hands for a modern machine gun, or the latest Soviet AK74 rifle. The temptation to sell weapons supplied by ISI was enormous.
I also had to visit Quetta at least every six weeks, and the border areas and Afghanistan itself as frequently as possible if I was to keep my finger on the pulse of what was happening. Then there were the innumerable trips down the road to Islamabad for conferences or to discuss problems with General Akhtar.
It was mostly through the Military Committee that I attempted to disentangle the feuding or organize the fighting. At the start, committee members themselves were distrustful and silent, refusing to speak on any matters of importance in front of their colleagues from other Parties. Gradually, very gradually, their reserve melted as far as general discussions were concerned, but, despite our efforts, none was prepared to debate their own future plans in our meetings. For that I had to talk to each member separately. Infinite patience would be, I thought, the key to getting things done in Afghanistan. This meant that tact and time were to be the ingredients of success, with no shouting, no anger, no bullying and no threatening. I was careful to treat each representative as an equal, although I usually chaired the formal meetings. At the end of every month each member had to give a resume of the operations conducted by his Party. In turn, we briefed them on the military situation in Afghanistan, based on reports from the CIA and other friendly intelligence agencies, together with intercepted radio messages. I found the fact that representatives had to account for the activities of their Mujahideen in front of colleagues from other Parties had a salutary effect on the accuracy of their reporting. It gave everybody an opportunity to judge the worth of his comrades.
Every four months or so I would receive a message that a ‘Grand Bonanza’ was to be held on such and such a date. In our language of double talk this meant President Zia would be holding his quarterly conference with the seven Party Leaders. Also in attendance would be General Akhtar, the Foreign Minister (usually), myself, and an interpreter. It was a highly secret meeting at which the top political leaders of Pakistan, with their military advisers, met the men who were responsible for the conduct of the Jehad. In view of the Pakistani government’s repeated denials that it was controlling and supplying the war, absolutely no knowledge of these meetings could be allowed beyond a handful of individuals. Elaborate precautions were taken to preserve security.
I would arrange for the Leaders to be brought by car, with ISI officers as escorts, to a safe house in Rawalpindi where cars were changed. They were then driven to General Akhtar’s house. Once everybody had arrived, Akhtar personally drove his own car to the President’s house, which was only 600 metres away, to fetch him. We had deployed armed guards in civilian clothes in vehicles around the area, as Zia came to these gatherings alone, with no bodyguards, no military secretary and no ADC. He never even told these close personal assistants where he would be.