THE AFGHAN CONNECTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201240004-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 22, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: October 10, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000201240004-0
ARTICLE APPEARED NEWSWEEK
ON PAGE 10 October 1983
Pascal Pugin-OutIim
Rebels in the Afghan hills: Arms and ammunition courtesy of the CIA?
The Mg~Ia.Il Connection
Eugene Ray Clegg, 35, an American schoolteacher in Islamo-
bad, was sentenced last February to 10 years of hard labor by a
Pakistani military court The charge: smuggling arms. The gov-
ern ment story was that Clegg had imported a consignment of rift es
for use in his science classes. Islamabad's diplomatic community
assumed that Clegg had been selling arms to the Afghan mujahe
din (guerrillas)fortheir warofresistanceagainst theSoviet Union.
At first, most thought his methods too clumsy to have any CIA
connection- But they began to wonder when, less than a week after
his sentencing, Clegg was very efficiently sprung from jail and
spirited out ofPakistan
The official U.S. position on the war in Afghanistan is that it is
an indigenous insurgency with no direct U.S. involvement. The
official position of the Afghan rebels is that they arm themselves
with weapons captured from the Afghan Army. But the truth is
farmore compl ex: a CIA covert operati on is bankrolling, training
and supplying intelligence for the rebel forces. The slippery clues
to how the operation works are the stuff of spy fiction.
Bills: The CIA's Afghan operation has to be extraordinarily
discreet: neither the United States nor Pakistan wants togive the
Soviet Union any excuse to step up activities in the area, and the
rebels don't want to be tarnished by U.S. ties. The agency's role is
largely limited to arranging shipments of materiel and paying the
bills. Washington sources estimate that the United States now
supplies the mujahedin with 5100 million annually-mostly
through middlemen who can supply Russian- or Chinese-made
Recently, a Pakistani businessman who
had long lived in the United States started
building a tire factory in Peshawar. But
Pakistani police discovered that some of
the crates of "equipment "delivered to the
factory contained arms. Thebusinessman
was arrested, released and hasfaded from
view. Many Pakistani industrialists do not
think he would have embarked on such a
major investment as a free-lance arms
merchant.- the CIA, they point out, was
probably a silentpartner.
In the early days of the war, most ofthe
arms for the mujahedin came to Pakistan
from Egypt. Today, China seems to be a
primary supplier, and many observers
suspect that the smugglers operate with
cover from the Pakistani Defense Minis-
try. According to one knowledgeable
Pakistani source, for example, Russian-
made arms captured by Israel from Syria
and the PLO were sold to a Canadian
middleman, then shipped through a U.S. middleman to "some-
where in the [Persian) Gulf"-possibly Saudi Arabia-and
finally onto Pakistan to be passed across the Afghan border.
'Big Mouth': Although there are doubtless many private arms
deals that do not involve the CIA at all, the sheer complexity of
such an arrangement suggests the agency's presence in the
background. "It's almost inconceivable," says a Pakistani, "that
such a complicated connection occurred on its own." But what-
everthe United States is doing for the rebels. many of their leaders
feel it is not enough. Abdulhaq, the guerrilla leader who com-
mands 4,500 fighters around the Afghan capital of Kabul, says
the mujahedin badly need U.S. surface-to-air missiles (their few
Soviet- or Chinese-made SAM's have proved ineffective), but
laments, "The U.S. has a big mouth but doesn't do much."
Still, thereare clear signs thatthe stepped-up CIA involvement
is having its effect. Early this year the Soviet Union increased
bombing runs against the Afghan rebels, and the KGB backed up
the military activity by courting informers with big rewards.
Some mujahedin leaders feared their freedom fight in Afghani-
stan might be short lived. It didn't turn out that way.
Suddenly, the rebel forces seem stronger than ever. Food in the
rebel camps is better, some of the mujahedin are sporting canvas
boors and.they.are stocked with ample small arms, mortars and
12.7-mm machine guns. "There was a time when the military
commanders would gratefully accept almost any type of small
arms "says Bahajudin Majrooh, who runs the Afghan Informa-
tion Center inPeshawarneartheborder. `Nowtheyaremuch more
selective and know precisely where theyareshort.
MARK STARR with EDWARD BEHR in Peshawar
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/22 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000201240004-0