AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86T01017R000202260001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 17
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 6, 2011
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 22, 1986
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of 7 Top Secret
Intelligence
? Afghanistan Situation Report
22 April`1986
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AFGHANISTAN SITUATION REPORT
CONTENTS
Beijing's planned increase in military aid to
Islamabad this year probably is intended mostly
for the Afghan insurgents.
AFGHANISTAN
The German Afghanistan Committee's proposal for
resettling displaced Afghans in the southern
Hiundu Kush in Afghanistan almost certainly will
be resisted by the Kabul regime.
AUSTRIAN RELIEF COMMITTEE PROPOSES AGRICULTURAL 4
AID TO QANDAHAR
The Afghan regime is also unlikely to welcome the
Austrian Relief Committee's agreement to expand
its successful agricultural assistance program
near Qandahar because of the program's potential
for strengthening civilian support for the
guerrillas.
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KESHTMAND VISITS MOSCOW = 5 25X1
The Soviets' public treatment of Soltan Keshtmand,
Prime Minister of Afghanistan, since his arrival
in Moscow on 21 April for an official visit,
contrasts sharply with their handling of the visit
by President Babrak Karmal.
IN BRIEF 6
PERSPECTIVE
AFGHANISTAN: RESISTANCE VIEWS OF PEACE NEGOTIATIONS 8 25X1
The Afghan resistance has recently become more
concerned about the negotiating process but has
been unable to form a unified position because of
differences over negotiating tactics and the shape
of post-Soviet Afghanistan.
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 nho,i1A h?
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CHINESE MILITARY ASSISTANCE TO INSURGENTS
d to
Islamabad in 1986 by 20 to 30 percent over last year's
amount. The aid will comprise mainly light arms and
surface-to-air missiles. Beijing also will provide
food and medical aid equal in value to its total
contributions over the past five years, including 5000
tons of grain and 500 tons of vegetable oil.
Beijing will increase its military ai
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Comment: The value and specific amounts of the aid are
unknown. Although this
military and economic assistance is to help Pakistan
meet the threat on its border with Afghanistan, we
believe that most of it is earmarked for the Afghan
insurgents. The infantry weapons specified by the
Foreign Ministry official are the types China has been
providing to the resistance. The routing of the aid
through Islamabad apparently is to mollify. Pakistani
sensitivity about the matter. In the past, Beijing has
generally provided military training and assistance
directly to Afghan guerrillas in China.
REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT PROPOSAL FOR SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN
A new proposal by the German Afghanistan Committee
calls for resettling approximately 4,500 refugees
displaced within Afghanistan and 500 currently residing
in Pakistan to the southern Hindu Kush in
Afghanistan. The project--estimated to cost $2.7
million over two years--would provide families with
cash, food, clothing, medical care, and educational
benefits, as well as agricultural and technical
assistance. Local insurgent commanders have agreed to
support the project, provided the present inhabitants
of the project area are also aided.
Comment: The Pakistanis probably would welcome a
program that shows some progress in reducing the number
of refugees in country. But the Kabul regime almost
certainly would attempt to block such a scheme. Even a
small success in resettlement would demonstrate the
regime's lack of control over its own territory and
give the impression that.the resistance is functioning
as a government-in-exile. It would also expand the
insurgents' support base.
AUSTRIAN RELIEF COMMITTEE PROPOSES-AGRICULTURAL XID TO
QANDAHAR
The Austrian Relief Committee (ARC) has consented to an
expansion of its agricultural assistance program
located near Qandahar. Last year the program provided
roughly 120 families with food, seed, fertilizer, and
other agricultural resources. Local insurgent
22 April 1986
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commanders considered the program successful and
requested additional aid. The ARC estimates that it
would cost roughly $95,000?to expand the program to an
additional 400 families.
Comment: Private voluntary organizations are
increasingly emphasizing agricultural assistance
programs inside Afghanistan. According to the US
Embassy in Islamabad, the key factor determining
whether Afghan families will become refugees is food
availability in their home area. An agricultural
assistance program that could potentially strengthen
civilian support for the guerrillas will not be
welcomed by the Afghan Government, particularly in an
area where the insurgency is so strong.
Pravda has announced that Soltan Keshtmand, Prime
Minister of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan,
arrived in Moscow 21 April for a state visit. The
Pravda article announcing the visit underscored the
regime's efforts to broaden its base and its
"realistic" position on the question of a political
settlement with Pakistan. ?resident 3abrak Karmat
arrived in Moscow in late March and is apparently still
there.
Comment: The high visibility given the Keshtmand visit
contrasts sharply with the lack of publicity accorded
Karmal during his current stay in Moscow. The Soviets
may be hoping to build up Keshtmand, a sazara Shia who
has frequently been mentioned as a potential successor
to Karmal. Moreover, the Soviets may believe that
their efforts to play up the alleged significant
changes in the regime's social and economic base of
support require giving the Prime Minister some added
publicity in his non-party role. The Keshtmand visit
also gives Moscow an opportunity to publicize Kabul's
alleged readiness to negotiate a political settlement
prior to the resumption of the Geneva talks on 5 May.
22 April 1986
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During recent. conversations with US officials in
Islamabad, representatives of private voluntary
organizations from France, Belgium, Austria, the
FRG, and the UK expressed strong interest in
participating in the program to transport wounded
Afghans out of Pakistan for treatment. They
proposed that aircraft returning from delivering
humanitarian aid under the McCollum Amendment be
used to move patients to Europe.
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-22 April 1986.
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PERSPECTIVE
AFGHANISTAN: RESISTANCE VIEWS OF PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
Recent progress in the UN-sponsored peace talks, more
determined regime efforts to co-opt insurgent leaders
and resistance concerns that a superpower deal is
imminent have forced the resistance to begin thinking
seriously about the process and consequences of
negotiations. The seven-party resistance alliance
based in Peshawar agrees on the need for military
actions to oust the Soviets but has failed to form a
unified position on the negotiations, largely because
differences over negotiating tactics and the shape of a
post-Soviet Afghanistan could easily provoke the
collapse of the alliance.
We believe that the traditionalist resistance groups
would be more willing than the fundamentalists to join
a coalition government with elements of the People's
Democratic-Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The risk of
such defections, in our view, would be greatest if the
UN-sponsored peace talks appear to be nearing
completion--a time when resistance groups will be
jockeying for power in a new government.
Signs of Resistance Concern
Since last fall, Afghan resistance leaders have been
increasingly concerned that an unfavorable peace
settlement, a change in Pakistani policy, or a
superpower deal on Afghanistan would terminate
essential material and financial support. Rumors of a
US-USSR deal on Afghanistan circulated widely in
resistance circles after ?resident Reagan's meeting
with Soviet Secretary General Gorbachev in Geneva last
November. In late January
fundamentalist leader Yunis Khalis told his
followers that a political deal on Afghanistan was
being considered by the Soviet Union and the United
States that endangered the future of the resistance.
Even hardliners like fundamentalist leader Gulbuddin
complained to US officials in March that the rumors of
a political settlement had forced the resistance to
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make "gigantic" efforts to maintain the military
struggle.
resistance began making plans in late January in case
Pakistan came under increased pressure to submit to an
"unacceptable" settlement in Afghanistan. These
plans--some of which have already been implemented--
included training small, self-sufficient units and
establishing mobile headquarters inside Afghanistan.
A House Divided
Resistance leaders, split along traditionalist and
fundamentalist lines over negotiations and the type of
government they would prefer in place of the Babrak
regime, are taking a closer look at their negotiating
options. There are-even slight differences within
these two groupings.
The Traditionalists. The traditionalists--Sayed Ahmad
Gailani, Sibghatullah Mojadedi, and Mohammad Nabi
Mohammadi--favor returning to power Afghanistan's
traditional elites, including former King 7ahir Shah,
but vary slightly in their attitudes toward the utility
of indirect.. peace talks between Pakistan and
Afghanistan. In discussions with US officials last
August, Gailani said he believed the Geneva process was
useful and that Pakistan was adequately representing
resistance concerns. After hearing reports that
Washington had agreed to join Moscow as a guarantor of
the final accord, Mojadedi told US officials in January
that "many Afghans in Peshawar had wondered just what
it was the US had offered to guarantee."
Information on the traditionalists' views on the most
recent round of shuttle talks is sketchy, but we
believe they are becoming more amenable to an
accommodation with the Babrak regime.
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The Fundamentalists. Led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,
Mohammed Yunis Khalis, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, and
Burhanuddin Rabbani, the fundamentalists advocate an
Islamic state and restructuring Afghanistan's
traditional political and social institutions. Most
blame former King Zahir Shah for the conditions that
led to a Communist coup and, would reject a role for him
in any future government.
The fundamentalists disapprove of the Geneva
negotiations and would probably prefer direct
negotiations instead.
-- Rabbani, in press interviews last July, called the
latest round of talks a "blind" that "will get the
resistance nowhere.
-- Gulbuddin told US officials in March that he
believed the only reason the Soviets participated
in the Geneva talks was to shift the blame for the
war from Moscow to the resistance's "outside
supporters."
-- Khalis doubts the utility of the Geneva talks,
-- In 1984 press interviews, Sayyaf said the
resistance "won't accept the result of negotiations
carried out by someone else on (their) behalf."
Gulbuddin's public statements give an idea of what a
fundamentalist negotiating position might contain. In
radio interviews last October for the resistance
alliance, Gulbuddin called for a Soviet troop
withdrawal, war reparations, and a solemn pledge by
Moscow never to interfere in Afghanistan. He added
that in exchange for such a pledge, a new Afghan regime
under resistance auspices would not enter into any
military alliances, would pursue a non-aligned foreign
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policy based on the teachings of Islam, and would "co-
exist as peaceful neighbors within our secured
border."
Spoilers or Collaborators?
Pakistan and the resistance generally agree on the
fundamental conditions necessary for a negotiated
settlement: a Soviet troop withdrawal, Soviet
assurances to cease interference in Afghan affairs, and
the safe return of nearly four million. refugees in
Pakistan and Iran. Islamabad, however, probably is
much more willing than the resistance to tolerate a
coalition government in Kabul dominated by the ?DPA, if
not eabrak Karmal. The Pakistani Ambassador in Moscow,
for example, told US officials recently that it might
be possible to find some sort of "honorable place" for
the PDPA in a future Kabul regime--a prospect that
would be anathema to most fundamentalists and many
traditionalists.
If the Pakistanis agreed to a settlement which included
a major role for the PDPA or otherwise did not meet.
what we believe are minimum resistance requirements, we
believe the insurgents would continue to fight. The
insurgents could probably maintain their current level
of fighting without resupply--especially in the
Panj.sher Valley and northern Afghanistan--for at least
six months by using weapons from stockpiles, captured
weapons,.. and acquisitions through the black market in
Pakistan.
Over the longer term, however, they
would probably be unable to sustain much more than a
limited resistance without Pakistani--or greater
Iranian--support.
Although we are fairly confident in our judgments about
the Peshawar leadership's views on negotiations, we
know little about the views of major resistance .
commanders inside the country. For several years, the
Soviets have sought to work out agreements with
important insurgent commanders--such as Panjsher Valley
leader Ahmad Shah Masood and Herat commander Ismail
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Khan--but without any lasting effect. We believe,
however, that Moscow's chances of obtaining one or two
credible resistance defectors will increase if those
commanders see a settlement coming.
Outlook
Wide-ranging differences between insurgent groups are
likely to continue to prevent the resistance from
working out an approach to negotiating issues. Even if
the resistance. were invited to play a role in the
Geneva process, we think it unlikely that the Peshawar
groups could agree to participate, much less forge a
coherent approach to the various issues. Indeed, many
leaders are probably aware that discussions over
negotiating issues would seriously split the insurgent
coalitions. Although some resistance leaders will
continue to press for direct negotiations with Moscow,
we do not believe any of the resistance leaders will
risk striking a separate deal. with the regime or Moscow
anytime soon.
A lack of resistance unity will make it difficult for
Pakistan to secure an agreement. that meets with
resistance approval. Islamabad, which has been closest
to the fundamentalists, is likely to consider the views
of Gulbuddin and Rabbani more carefully than those of
the other resistance groups--particularly because the
fundamentalists have been the most effective militarily
and the most vocal about continuing to fight if an
agreement is reached without their consent. If Kabul
succeeds in luring back a traditionalist, however,
Pakistan will face increased domestic pressure to
recognize the Kabul government.
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Top Secret
Top Secret
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