August 2010
25 posts
Page 87, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent Soldier",...
There was, however, one area of international relations in which General Akhtar had a highly beneficial influence. This was in securing massive financial support for the Jehad from Saudi Arabia. He was the key figure in convincing the Saudi government to back the war. For every US dollar that was supplied by the Americans to the CIA’s arms buying fund, the Saudis equaled it. Hundreds of...
Page 86-87, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent...
For some reason I could never really fathom, international journalists ignored the terrible crimes perpetrated by Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The systematic slaughter of women and children, the extensive use of torture, the bayoneting of children, and the rape of women in helicopter and then the throwing of their victims out, are the type of outrage they committed. No effort was made to mobilise...
Page 85-86, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent...
The Mujahideen and the refugees were blamed for all the violent crimes in the NWFP and Baluchistan; they were accused of gun running and attacking the local population; they were blamed for stealing the land and taking jobs and trade that belonged to Pakistanis; and they were alleged to be responsible fr the influx of drugs being smuggled into the country. KHAD and RAW agents actively fomented...
Page 84-85, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent...
Akhtar himself always shunned the limelight so I could understand his personal reluctance to meet the media, but surely the activities of the Mujahideen merited recognition by a wider audience than ISI. I urged the general to use the media to this effect. For months I kept bringing the matter up, pressing him to use all the means at our disposal to gain the attention, and hopefully support of the...
Page 79-80, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent...
In practice some 70 percent of logistic support was given to the fundamentalist parties, but no single party got more than 20 percent. The US believed that this was done for political reasons. It was not. As the person responsible for several years for the detailed allocation of supplies to the parties I can vouch for the fact that it was done strictly on the basis of operational effectiveness....
Page 78-79, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent...
There was another related matter on which Akhtar and the CIA did not see eye to eye, which also involved the distribution of arms. They advocated giving weapons direct to the commanders in the field, by passing the political parties at Peshawar. This was the method that Akhtar had been compelled to use at the start of the Jehad before the creation of the Alliance. It had resulted in confusion and...
Page 76-77, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent...
There were two fundamental reasons why Akhtar never allowed Americans to become directly involved in the Jehad. Firstly, to do so would have meant giving truth to Soviet propaganda that the war was not a Jehad, but an extension of US foreign policy, with Afghan fighting Afghan on behalf of the two superpowers. To fight in a Jehad was our most powerful force for uniting among the Mujahideen, if...
Page 76, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent Soldier",...
Aside from Mr. Casey, who appreciated Akhtar’s competence, he faced many problems with the Americans and the CIA. Perhaps understandably, the US felt that, if they were ‘paying the piper’, they should also, ‘call the tune’. In other words, the CIA and senior US government officials, pressed Akhtar and myself to be allowed to decide who got the arms, how much they...
Page 75-76, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent...
During 1984, the director of the CIA, William Casey, visited ISI, and personally congratulated Akhtar on the performance of the Mujahideen, together with the logistics and training system that he had set up. It was this visit of Mr. Casey, and his subsequent report back in the US, that directly led to the doubling of the American military budget for the Jehad in 1985. Akhtar had proved that not...
Page 75, Chapter 5: The Jehad, "Silent Soldier",...
His tremendous achievements were not recognised during his life, indeed part of the reason for his removal from ISI just as victory was in sight, was to ensure that he did not receive that recognition and fame. He was a great organiser, and as such put ISI on a modern footing, developing it into an efficient intelligence organisation that is now recognised as one of the leading such organisations...
Page 68-69, Chapter 4: Akhtar and The Mujahideen,...
One of the more sensitive problems that was often raised by the leaders to the general concerned the conditions and corruption in the refugee camps. Akhtar was their forthright spokesman in confronting both the civil and military authorities on these matters, but although he brought the complaints and grievances directly to the president it was very seldom that action was taken against the...
Page 65-66, Chapter 4: Akhtar and The Mujahideen,...
His major achievement in the field was to get the Seven Party Alliance established by President Zia in 1984. Even Zia had to threaten to get the Mujahideen’s political leaders to join the Alliance, but join they did, and Akhtar made it a fundamental part of his strategy for the prosecution of the war. He attached top priority to working with, and through, the Alliance. He personally attended...
Page 57, Chapter 3: The Strategy, "Silent...
Akhtar knew that as long as a Communist government controlled Kabul it controlled the nerve centre of the country. To win the war he understood that not only must the Soviets withdraw, but their Afghan puppets must be ejected from Kabul. This was always his primary military objective. Only if Kabul fell would the Jehad have succeeded, and Akhtar would never let us forget this. It was his...
Page 47, Chapter 3: The Strategy, "Silent...
The first requirement was weapons. Akhtar scoured various ordnance depots of the Pakistan Army seeking discarded .303 rifles, ammunition, old British anti-tank mines, and some Chinese manufactured should-fired rocket launchers. Next, lines of communication, a ‘pipeline’, had to be established to get the supplies to those who needed to use the items in Afghanistan. The Afghan Bureau...
Page 46-47, Chapter 3: The Strategy, "Silent...
Akhtar had to devote his energies to tackling a host of difficulties to gear up ISI to support a large scale guerrilla war from nothing. For the first six months, until the US, China, Saudi Arabia and others came in with case or weapons, Pakistan was on its own. Akhtar had to create within ISI an organisation capable of handling the supply, training, and operations of tens of thousands of...
Page 42-43, Chapter 2: The Beginnings, "Silent...
The president’s instruction to Akhtar was that he should give him two years in which to consolidate his position in Pakistan, and internationally. To be more precise he told Akhtar that, ‘The water in Afghanistan must boil at the right temperature’. For eight years Akhtar skilfully followed his orders. Although at times the temperature rose sharply and threatened to boil, such as...
Page 38, Chapter 2: The Beginnings, "Silent...
General Akhtar was the architect of the Afghan Jehad. It was he who advocated Pakistani participation, it was he who devised the overall military strategy, and it was he who supervised its implementation so skilfully that the Mujahideen defeated a superpower.
When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in late December, 1979, President Zia immediately sent for his Director-General of ISI. He wanted...
Page 34, Chapter 1: The Man, "Silent Soldier", by...
In June, 1979, after only a year as Adjutant-General, Akhtar was posted as Director-General of ISI. He was picked for the job by President Zia. It was to be the summit of his military career. Although he was subsequently promoted to four star rank, it was as a lieutenant general leading the Afghan Jehad that Akhtar made his name. He could not know when he assumed his new duties that within six...
Page 28, Chapter 1: The Man, "Silent Soldier", by...
When Zia and Akhtar were killed the last two Pakistani Army officers who had been commissioned in India, had gone.
Page 20, Introduction, "Silent Soldier", by...
A guerrilla war is very much a war of junior leaders and individual soldiers. Afghanistan is no exception, the success of a rocket team, a machine gunner, or the firer of a Stinger anti-aircraft missile, can bring results out of all proportion to the size of the group. To the unfamiliar observer these tiny triumphs may appear insignificant, but multiply them a hundredfold, perhaps a thousandfold,...
Page 18, Introduction, "Silent Soldier", by...
Today the position is so very different. The victory that was anticipated by all in early 1989, when the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan, has not materialised, Najibullah and his gang remain in Kabul, the Soviets continue to pour in vast quanitites of ammunitions and equipment, while the Mujahideen leadership fight political battles in Peshawar, rather than military ones around Kabul. Defeat...
Page 16-17, Introduction, "Silent Soldier", by...
The reason for General Akhtar’s long tenure of office was his successful direction of the war in Afghanistan. Within the ISI is a specially formed bureau, headed by a brigadier (myself for the period 1983-87), charged with the day to day coordination of the Afghan Jehad. This department controls the allocation of arms and ammunition; their distribution to Mujahideen leaders and commanders;...
Page 32, Chapter Two: How Different Are Islamicate...
The Israeli presence in the Arab heartland magnified the security imperatives of the front-line Arab states, allowing them to build praetorian states with the capacity to suppress all forms of dissent.
Page 32, Chapter Two: How Different Are Islamicate...
Since the end of the Cold War, Western donors and multilateral institutions have used their financial leverage to encourage democratization in client countries. However, there is significant exception to this. They have not applied these pressures on Islamicate countries - especially in the Arab world - where democratization is likely to bring the Islamists to power. On the contrary, the Arab...
Page 31, Chapter Two: How Different Are Islamicate...
The cultural determinism of Freedom House is on proud display in their most recent report. On the one hand, a quick review of the record reveals two waves of democratization, in the 1950s and 1990s, which point towards powerful international forces regulating these movements. The first wave accompanied the post-War dismantling of colonies; the second wave followed the end of the Cold War. If some...
