AFGHAN ARMY COLLABORATION WITH REBELS INFURIATES SOVIET COMMAND

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201740004-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: January 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-
AN PIRG 7-
WASHINGTON TIMES
13 January 1986
Afghan army collaboration vv~ tI[t~b~b
infuriates Soviet command
By Aaron Einfrank
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Col-
laboration between the Afghan army
and the mujahideen resistance has
so infuriated the Soviet high com-
mand in Kabul that the Russians are
now giving their allies only four
hours notice of troop movements.
Western diplomats say the order
was issued following the arrest last
week of four Afghan army generals
accused of passing information to
the resistance.
Ironically, the Afghan armed
forces were strongly pro-Soviet be-
fore the Russians invaded their
country in 1979. Many Afghan of-
ficers had been trained in the
U.S.S.R. and some of them had be-
come agents of the KGB and Soviet
military intelligence, the GRU. They
staged the coup that brought a com-
munist regime to power in Kabul in
April 1978.
When the Russians arrived, the
Afghan army numbered about
90,000, but battle losses and defec-
tions in the past six years have re-
duced this figure to about 30,000.
Large numbers of defectors con-
tinue to deplete army ranks, and the
conscripts who replace them do not
want to fight.
Intelligence cece sources in Washing-
ton say the Russians have stepped up
surveillance on Afghanistan's bor-
der with Pakistan not oni to prevent
infiltration by the mud r een but
so to stop deserters fleeing th
country.
The U.S. officials also report that
despite recent Soviet statements
suggesting a willingness to negoti-
ate peace in Afghanistan, there has
been a marked increase in ovie
arms s pmens there in recent
.its.
Soviet troop strength remains the
same at 115,000, the intelligence
sources said, but the Soviets have
upgraded their firepower with addi-
tional howitzers and other artillery,
more ground attack planes, and
in helicopter gunships.
"What it shows is that while the
Russians are talking one way they're
going in-country with equipment
that demonstrates their real inten-
tion ... a military victory," said one
U.S. official. "Normally there is not
that much fighting during the win-
ter, but this winter we are seeing the
Russians engaged in some very ag-
gressive field operations."
Adhering to Moscow's
instructions, Babrak Karmal, the
Afghan leader, has rejected an offer
by President Reagan to serve as
guarantor of a peace settlement in
his country. In an interview with a
Japanese newspaper, Mr. Karmal
ruled out any possibility of negotiat-
ing with the resistance, although he
revealed that his government had
made "some progress" in its indirect
talks with Pakistan.
While Karmal's puppet regime
toes the Russian line, the Afghan
army does not. Diplomats in Is-
lamabad report that Russian troops
have become so wary of their allies
they now feel it is more dangerous to
have Afghan soldiers behind them
than resistance fighters in front.
And resistance sources in Peshawar,
Pakistan, say it is common for the
Soviets to place Afghan soldiers in
front of their advancing troops to
draw fire and set off land mines.
The Russians also have estab-
lished inner defensive perimeters on
their bases to protect themselves
from their allies. This paid off last
June when dissident Afghan officers
at Shindand air base blew up 20 of
their planes - a quarter of the Af-
ghan air force - to protest the ex-
ecution of three Afghan pilots who
had refused to bomb nearby vil-
lages. The Soviet sector of the base
was undamaged.
The disaffection of the Afghan air
force, which had been the most ro-
Soviet element of the Afghan armed
forces, was further underlined in
July when seven Afg officers de-
fected to Pakistan With their two
_M gunship helicopters. This was
the ? first time the MI-24 had fallen
into the hands of a country nen
to the West, and Wesiern intelligence
has since learned a lot about the
workhorse of the Warsaw Pact mili-
~ta
_L*e resistance requires a defec-
tor to bring with him at least one
Kalashnikov automatic rifle. If he
brings more than one or some par-
ticularly valuable weapon like an
RPG rocket launcher, the defector
gets especially good treatment, and
if he can prove he killed a Soviet
soldier before fleeing, he is treated
as a herd and generously rewarded.
Resistance sources in the Paki-
stani border city of Peshawar say
the quality of the weapons brought
by defectors has improved mark-
edly. They are bringing not only
guns but armor and other heavy
weapons. One mujahideen unit now
has 10 Soviet-built tanks.
In September the politburo of the
Afghan Communist Party severely
criticized the Afghan officer corps
for lacking discipline and a will to
fight. In October Kabul radio an-
nounced the arrest of military of-
ficers as well as party and govern-
ment officials in Logar province,
south of the capital.
The province has been the scene
of heavy and bloody fighting be-
tween Soviet forces and the resis-
tance. Those arrested were charged
with plotting against the regime of
President Karmal, but the wording
of the charges indicated they had
cooperated with the resistance.
There have been many firefights
between Afghan troops and Soviet
soldiers, usually when the Afghans
try to stop the Russians from mur-
dering, raping and robbing Afghan
civilians. Resistance sources in Pes-
hawar linked the Logar arrests to
such clashes.
While defectors provide a con-
stant flow of arms to the resistance,
the rebels are not getting what they
really need - effective anti-aircraft
weapons. Michael Barry, a 36-year-
old American anthropologist and Is-
lamic scholar who has made 16 trips
to Afghanistan, blames this on the
United States.
In an interview in Paris recently,
Mr. Barry told The Washington
Times that Washington is pursuing a
"half-hearted, no-win" policy toward
Afghanistan that is "carefully de-
signed not to antagonize the Soviets."
As a result, he said, the Russians are
gradually winning a campaign
aimed at depopulating the country's
richest agricultural regions and are
hastening the exodus of hundreds of
thousands of war-weary Afghans
now faced with a bleak choice be-
tween death from aerial bombard-
ment or death through starvation.
OOntn d
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201740004-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201740004-7
2.
A village-by-village survey con-
ducted by the Paris-based
International Federation of Human
Rights revealed that the depopula-
tion ratio has already reached 56.4
percent. This means more than half
the population of Afghanistan has
fled, joining more than 3 million Af-
ghan refugees in Pakistan and 1.5
million in Iran.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201740004-7