ARMS FOR REBELS SIPHONED OFF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6
16 January 1986
Arms "for Rebels
Siphoned I'lff
Some Profit From Holy War
Last of five articles
By James Rupert
Special to The Washington Post
DARA ADAM KHEL, Pakistan-"We can't show
you the missiles here in the shop," said Gul; atPakis-
tani arms dealer, "but I could take you to where we
keep them. Do you have money with you?"
Gui does not run an ordinary gun shop. His dimly
lit single room opening onto Data's only street was
crammed with automatic assault rifles, machine
guns and grenade launchers. The heavy barrels
from disassembled artillery pieces lay jumbled up,
AFGHANISTAN
THE NEW BATTLEFIELDS
with boxes of ammunition and old bolt-action rifles.
But to see the best items, the Chinese-built 107-
mm, surface-to-surface missiles, the customer must
have money to show Gul (not his real name) that he
is serious.
Gul would not say exactly where he.and Dara's
'dozens of other arms merchants get the heavy
weapons they sell, most of them Chinese-made. In-
stead, his suspicions aroused by the questions of my
Afghan translator, he asked us to leave.
While the Pakistan frontier region is notorious for
its indigenous arms-manufacturing, there is clear
evidence that many of the weapons being sold in
Dara-and other arms markets nearby-come
from CIA-funded arms shipments meant for the Af-
ghan mujaheddin or resistance fighters, opposing
the six-year-old-Soviet occupation of their country.
Observers also believe China is supplying some
weaponry to the guerrillas.
Last spring, U.S. congressional intelligence com-
mittees reportedly approved $470
million for covert military aid to the i
Afghan resistance for this fiscal
year, and there were reports that
Congress later approved a supple-
mental $300 million in assistance
for two years, according to congres-
sional and other sources in Wash-
ington.
But at best; resistance sources issued new weapons in recent
and military specialists say, the co- Years-such as Lee-Enfield Mark
yert aid operation, administered by Five and Chinese-made SKS ri-
the CIA, lacks accountability and fles-which had come through the
often delivers inappropriate arms. pipeline.
At worst, it may be losing substan- A source close to the Pakistani
tial percentages of its shipments to Army denied the allegations, saying
corruption and contributing to a the rifles had come from old Pakis-'
militarization ? of the volatile Pakis- tani military stocks.
tani-Afghan border area, which Many mujaheddin alleged that
could ultimately help destabilize the
United States' ally in the region,
Pakistan.
The Arms Pipeline
It is here, among the parched
hills'of Pakistan's tribal territories,
that the pipeline ends. Dust-cov-
ered trucks roll into guerrilla based
along the Afghan border and.unload
arms to be cleaned and repacked on
donkeys and horses for the trip into
Afghanistan.
Accounts pieced together from
Afghans, Pakistanis and westerners istan as the only way of paying the
said that the CIA secretly buys increasing costs of transporting the
weapons-in China, Egypt and else-
arms into Afghanistan-especially ,
where-and ships them to the to its north and west.
Pakistani
ort of Karachi and iso-
p
lated points along, the coast of Ba-
luchistan, to the west. One source
said shipments in recent months
included 40 tons of Soviet equip-
ment captured by South Africa.
Once the shipments have landed,
Pakistan's joint military intelligence
agency takes over, transporting
them to the Pakistani military in-
stallations for distribution to the
mujaheddin. Pakistani military per-
Pakistani officers who run the pipe-
line are often corrupt, demanding
bribes or a portion of the arms ship-
ments, which they later sell.
"The worst thing is that some
who are stealing are Afghans," said
Ezim Wardak, a resistance official
in Peshawar, Pakistan. "They call
themselves mujaheddin but they are
really businessmen, trying to make
a profit from the jihad," or holy war.
A guerrilla leader from northern
Jozjan Province said he and other
commanders regularly sold some of
the weapons they received in Pak-
Pakistani Control
. A Pakistani military analyst in-
sisted that Pakistan's Army was not
diverting weapons. "Those chaps
[the mujaheddin] are a bit sore at us
because we have certain controls
over the weapons," he said.
Without giving details, the ana-
lyst explained that the Pakistani
military often stores the arms, wait-
"
the right time and the right
sonnel advise each Afghan resis- ing for
tance group when to go to a partic- groups" to distribute them.
ular depot to collect arms and then Mohammed Es'Haq, a political
notify police of the truck's route to officer of the Jamiat-i-Islami, con-
the group's base to avoid searches ceded that some Afghan resistance
along the way. officials are selling donated arms.
According to two westerners Although his own party has an ac-
who, visited different bases in re- counting system for the weapons,
cent months, up to 70 percent of he.said, "We don't have all the con-
the weapons were Chinese, along trol we would like because we are
with some Soviet and Egyptian- guests here in Pakistan; we cannot
made arms. They included Kalash- run our own police force."
nikov assault rifles, rocket-pro- Es Haq and other resistance of-
pelled grenades, mortars, land ficials were reluctant to discuss the
mines and missiles-many of them loss of arms from the pipeline, for
the same models as those on sale in fear publicity about the problem
Dara. might prompt Congreis to stop
jaheddin and western observ- I funding the operation. "It is better
Mu
for us to get half of the weapons.
than to get none at all," said a guer-
rilla commander who asked not to
be,identified.
Despite the nearly universal alle-
t
ions of corruption, it is unclear
verting entire batches of weapons ga
for-Pakistan's own use. They say exactly how many of the CIA-sup-
Pakistani police officers have been ~ TPAM4
J
ers in Pakistan say Pakistanis and
Afghans are stealing weapons along
the arms pipeline.
Independent western observers
believe the Pakistani military is di-
V
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 ferent persons interviewed varied
wudely in their estimates and seemed
to have little hard information.
Guerrilla commanders in Afghan-
istan, angry\at having received few
or no arms, argued that as much as
85 percent of the weapons are di-
verted, while Pakistani sources in-
sisted that only a negligible amount
is stolen-and only by Afghans, nev-
er by Pakistanis. In fact, the secrecy
of the pipeline, and the fact that the
weapons pass through 'so many
hands, may prevent anyone-includ-
ing the CIA-from knowing what
percentage of the weapons is lost.
Noting reports that. Congress
authorized $250-$280 million to
run the secret arms operation in
1985, a western military specialist
who has traveled regularly in Af-
ghanistan with the mujaheddin said,
"These figures are completely out
of line with what the mujaheddin
are seeing."
Formally, Pakistan denies the
very existence of the arms-supply
operation. But Pakistani officials
admit openly that they are worried
about the heavy flow of arms into
the tribal territories where the
pipeline ends.
In the latest episode of a historical
tussle between Afghanistan and Pak-
istan for the loyalties of the Pushtun
(or Pathan) tribes that straddle their
border, the Afghan government has
armed dissident tribesmen from the
Pakistani side and encouraged them
to oppose the mujaheddin and the
Pakistani government.
In early December, Pakistan sent
thousands of troops into the Khyber
district to crack down on the Kabul-
supported dissident tribesmen and
seize what it claimed were more
than a thousand Kalashnikov rifles
and other weapons.
Western diplomats and others
contest Pakistan's claim that the
arms that flood markets, such as
Dara-and the homes of Pushtun
tribesmen-are all sent by Kabul.
"Why would the Afghans be sending
Chinese arms, and where would
they get them?" a western analyst
in Islamabad asked.
So many weapons have poured
into the area since 1980, when the
CIA operation began, that the mar-
ket price of a Chinese-made Kalash-
nikov has fallen by more than a
third. The flow of arms has seeped
into other areas; tribesmen in Ba-
luchistan, bandits in southern Sind
Province and even Sikh extremists
in the Indian city of Amritsar have
been reported using guns from the
CIA pipeline.
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could tighten the accountability of saia, ..j think it,4s information on
their operation. They could mark how to launch' the missiles." Sud-
the arms when they ship them in,
and then seize them when they
turned up in the bazaars," said a
western military specialist on, Af-
ghanistan. "They would be able to
trace the diversion to its sources."
Many rebel commanders and oth-
ers agreed with Shah Mohammed, a
guerrilla chief from Logar Province
who argued that outside arms do-
nors should bypass the Afghan po-
litical parties and deliver the aid
directly to proven commanders in-
side Afghanistan, as do many Eu-
ropean organizations offering" hu-
manitarian aid.. Afghan political
leaders traditionally have distrib-
uted largesse to their clients and
supporters as a way of gaining in-
fluence-a habit that party leaders
have continued during the war.
"The parties-some more than
others-distribute the weapons to
get political influence rather than
according-tt the military needs of
the jihad," Mustafa Wardak, a com-
mander in Ghazni Province said.
The concerns about Pakistani and
Afghan corruption are not limited to
military aid. Officials of private aid
organizations in Peshawar express
misgivings about a new U.S. Agen-
cy for. International Development
humanitarian aid program prepar-
ing to spend $15. million this fiscal
year on projects inside Afghanistan.
Like the military pipeline, the
humanitarian aid operation will
channel its funds exclusively
through the Pakistani authorities
and the Afghan political parties-a
structure that aid workers say in-
vites corruption and inefficiency.
The aid official questioned whether
the necessary infrastructure exists
inside Afghanistan to spend the AID
money efficiently, which dwarfs
their private efforts.
AID has not yet released details
on how it plans to spend the money,
but one western source in Isla-
mabad, Pakistan, dismissed the aid
workers' fears, saying AID was
planning "some creative new ways"
to use the money in helping the mu-
jaheddin.
`Can You Read This?'
In the narrow ravine of their guer-
rilla base, the mujaheddin pried open
wooden crates containing the Chin-
ese missiles they would fire that
night at Soviet positions in Ghazni.
Inside one of the crates they found a
sheet printed in Chinese and covered
with tables of figures.
denly,. his face brightened, and smil-
ing, he handed the paper to a Jap-
anese photographer who had come
to cover the war.
"Can you read this?" he asked.
The incident symbolized what
many mujaheddin regard as one of
their most basic problems in this
war: their lack of technical informa-
tion and training in how to use their
weapons.
Whatever its problems with cor-
ruption on the Pakistani side of the
border, the CIA's arms pipeline has
succeeded in delivering the heavi-
est and most sophisticated weapons
the resistance has had during its six
year battle against the Soviets.
"Unfortunately, these weapons
are coming to men who are illiter-
ate peasants ... and they are not
being taught how to use them," said
an American military specialist who
has traveled with the mujaheddin.
At the few drab restaurants and
hotels in Peshawar favored by for-
eign visitors, western journalists
and others who have accompanied
the mujaheddin inside Afghanistan
recount stories about guerrillas fir-
ing missiles without detonators,
planting land - mines upside down
and-one of the most consistent
observations-wasting ammunition
in small and ineffectual attacks on
Soviet posts.
"Most of the mujaheddin ... find
the range [with a mortar] by setting
it up, firing off a few rounds and
tinkering with it," said Peter Jou-
venal, a British documentary film
maker who has covered the war
since it began. "By the time they're
ready to hit the target, they've run
out of ammunition."
"If the CIA or anyone else were
serious about helping the Afghans,
they would be training them," one
military analyst said. "westerners
have this idea that the Pathans [the
largest Afghan ethnic group] are
natural fighters, and to an extent
that's true," he said, "but you can-
not expect a farmer to aim a mod-
ern missile with his instincts."
Several sources said the Pakis-
tani Army had run-and apparently
stopped-a small-scale training
program for the mujaheddin, in ad-
dition to rudimentary training by
the parties based in Peshawar.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6
Several military ooservers said of surface-to-air missiles and re-
the delivery of even simple forms, of duced the effectiveness of Soviet air
aid to the mujaheddin could: be dan- power.
gerous to the guerrillas in the ab- The most important recent
sence of training. One described change in the air war, according to
mujaheddin who received radios- but Kabul area commander Abdul Haq
who knew nothing about codes and and others; is that the Soviets-.now
broadcast their movements to each use more helicopters, especially in
other in plain language. commando operations.
Military specialists who have tray- "They used to send in seven or
eled with the mujaheddin argued that' eight helicopters in an attack, but
training would not only improve how now they might send '20," he said.
the' guerrillas handle their weapons. The mujaheddin have responded, he
but would help overcome divisions said, by offering smaller targets. "We
among guerrillas of different parties have to move our supplies at night,
and regions, and improve their co- we use smaller caravans-maybe
operation in the field. with 20 camels instead of a hun-
Many, but not all, commanders dred."
agreed on the need for', training. , Many mujaheddin believe that
Several commanders. from the fun- more and better missiles are the an-
damentalist Hezb-i-Islami faction of
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar argued that
military. training, like secular edu-
cation, was :of relatively minor im-
portance, next to the religious faith.
of the mujaheddin. -
"It is the man and his faith which
fights," said Shamsuddin, a former
medical student now commanding'a
Hezb-i-Islami guerrilla group ' in
Kunduz Province, in the north. "If
training were most important, the
Soviets would have beaten us long
ago, because they have training and'
we do not," he said.
Air Defenses Critical
"We heard you are an American,"
the middle-aged guerrilla said. For
40 minutes, he and a companion had
sat silently, on the floor of 'the tea-
house, watching closely as I scrib-
bled notes from the day's long hike.
That now finished, the men ex-
plained their request:
"When you go back to America,"
one asked politely, "could you send
us some air'defenser
Although the question sounded
odd to an ?American reporter, for
the two Afghans it was both serious
and urgent. Indeed, during a month
inside Afghanistan,: numerous guer-
rillas stressed that their greatest
need in military aid is a defense
against the Soviet jets and helicop-
ters that attack their supply cara-
vans and support commando raids
against them.
The mujaheddin have little effec-
tive air defense, relying on heavy
machine guns and a limited number
of Soviet-made SA7 missiles. Virtu-
ally all the mujaheddin encountered
disagreed with the conclusions of a
December State Department report
that said that resistance air defenses
had improved with growing numbers
swer. And in Washington last fall,
intelligence sources were quoted. as
'saying the Reagan administration
was considering supplying sophisti-
cated portable antiaircraft missiles,
such as the British blowpipe system.
"The U.S. must be careful about
listenening to missile requests," a
western military analyst said in Pe-
shawar. "The mujaheddin see so-
lutions to their problems too easily
in sophisticated hardware."
The analyst said that much of the
reason for the guerrillas' disap-
pointment in the antiaircraft mis-
siles was their lack of training.
He suggested that simpler weap-
ons, such as Soviet wire-guided
missiles would be easier for the mu-
jaheddin to learn to use.
"If they're thinking of sending in
even more sophisticated weapons,
without any training program, I
wonder if they really know who
they're dealing with," he said.
Rebel commander Agha Mohammed cleans missile.
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AFGHANISTAN
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6
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