ARMS FOR REBELS SIPHONED OFF

Document Type: 
Collection: 
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
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
January 16, 1986
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6.pdf927.62 KB
Body: 
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 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6 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. plie Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700001-6 a 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. `, UN10N :f_` (Enlarged I ""* fleshawar y area nr ?I'.* isiamabaa'- 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 AFGHANISTAN: TILL NEW IUAI I LLF ILLUS o......~. L?T. r ;. si?', c:Si:' ??:i~.C f:.~.~,.v>.'?'.::'t{'s:i~:," `zi:`