AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T01058R000507090001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 14, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 26, 1985
• Content Type: REPORT

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~f Directorate of A Top Secret
Intelligence
Afghanistan Situation Report
79-al
Inc/CB
Top Secret
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26 November 1985
Copy 0 8 1
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SOVIET ACTIVE IN QANDAHAR
operations are in progress in the
Qandahar area in apparent retaliation for the
12 November death of a Soviet Air Force General
and to improve the extremely poor security
situation in Qandahar City.
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.
AFGHAN RESISTANCE REQUEST FOR SEAT IN THE
ISLAMIC CONFERENCE BLOCKED
The Secretary General of the Organization of the
Islamic Conference told the Afghan resistance
delegation to the UN that it could not be seated
The Kabul regime has harassed members of the
diplomatic community in an apparent attempt to
eliminate Western influence and intimidate those
diplomats whose countries support the
resistance.
1 25X1
3 25X1
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FOOD PRICES STABLE IN KABULI 4 25X1
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.
AFGHANISTAN-USSR: INSURGENT ATTACKS INTO THE USSR 7 25X1
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.
This document is prepared weekly by the Office of
Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis and the
Office of Soviet Analysis. Questions or comments
on the issues raised in the publication should be
directed to
26 November 1985
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SOVIETS ACTIVE IN QANDAHAR
These operations are probably in
retaliation for the 12 November death of a Soviet Air
Force General--who was killed after his MIG-21 was shot
down by insurgent fire near Qandahar--and to improve
the extremely poor security situation in Qandahar
City. in late
October, insurgents controlled most of Qandahar City
with the exception of the governor's residence and
office, the airport, and the regime military base.
POOR INSURGENT SECURITY PRACTICES
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
guerrillas in radio contact with a familiar voice
insurgent caravans this
o, 125X1
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often discuss operational plans openly.
26 November 1985
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Afghanistan
- International boundary
'?- Province boundary
* National capital
Province capital
Railroad
Road
50 100 150 200 Miles
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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.
AFGHAN RESISTANCE REQUEST FOR SEAT IN THE ISLAMIC
CONFERENCE BLOCKED
The Afghan resistance delegation to the UN General
Assembly in November asked for Afghanistan's seat in
the Islamic Conference (OIC). OIC Secretary-General
Pirzada turned aside the insurgents
Comment: The OIC almost certainly would not agree
unanimously to seat the insurgents. OIC members such
as Libya, Syria, Iran, and South Yemen have never
supported OIC resolutions on Afghanistan and would
certainly block another move that they considered anti-
During the past year, the Kabul regime has
asked various diplomats to leave; has deported Indian,
British, and American medical personnel; and has
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refused to renew contracts for educators and
businessmen from France and West Germany. In October,
a Saudi diplomat was assaulted by alleged government
agents in his home. Saudi Arabia is closing its
interests section as a result of the attack.
Comment: Kabul's harassment of Western diplomats is
contrary to recent efforts to project a moderate,
conciliatory image and broaden its popular support.
Besides encouraging Westerners to leave, the badgering
of the diplomatic community in Kabul may be aimed at
intimidating missions that provide unflattering news on
Afghanistan to their governments and the press, or are
suspect because of their sympathies toward the
During the past year, food prices in Kabul have shown
little change, and supplies have been adequate,
according to US Embassy reporting.
25X1
food prices ou
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Kabul have risen, ho
wev
er.
25X1
Comment: The Soviet
supplied with food d
growth over the past
probably believes th
increases in Kabul w
support for the Karm
s h
esp
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at
oul
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ave kept
ite the
w years.
food sho
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regime.
Kabul adequately
city's rapid population
The Soviet Union
rtages or price
ine efforts to build
Despite food price
increases in areas o
uts
ide Kabu
l, weather data
25X1
suggest that supplies are generally adequate
there s well. Food prices are usually higher outside
the capital because war-related transportation
disruptions cause occasional spot shortages.
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1985 Food Pricesa
Rice
Potatoes
Onions
Lamb
Kabul City
30
(-6)
20
(67)
9
(-40)
180
(0)
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 71b
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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-- The Soviets are using new antipersonnel
fragmentation mines in Afghanistan. Technical
analysis shows that, 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 security for convoys
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.
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AFGHANISTAN-USSR: INSURGENT ATTACKS 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 easil on inflated goatskin
rafts, Insurgent leaders 25X1
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, 25X1
a Soviet patrol
encountered a band of young, non-Russian speakers in a 25X1
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 25X1
valley and nearby areas "to rest." Moreover,
elderly Tajiks 25X1
sometimes slipped across the border to die in their
home villages. 25X1
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Guerrillas also claim to have distributed propaganda in
Soviet border areas and to have crossed into the USSR
from Badakhshan and Konduz Provinces to mine Soviet
Most insurgent raids, however, are probably no more
than a continuation of a centuries-old tradition of
livestock rustling along the border.
Afghan Tajiks,
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.
heavy security precautions,
including a combination of nearly impenetrable
manmade barriers, alarm devices, and armed guards,
protect about 60 percent of the border from Herat
to Konduz Provinces--the portion that could most
easily be crossed.
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
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
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Top Secret
Top Secret
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