Foreign involvement in the Soviet–Afghan War
"[17] Saudi Arabia was heavily involved in the war effort and matched the United States' contributions dollar-for-dollar in public funds.
[29][30] They were supplied predominately by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but Iran's support for the Hazaras nevertheless frustrated efforts for a united Mujahidin front.
[33] Romania went further and broke with its Warsaw Pact allies and abstained when the UN General Assembly voted on a resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops.
North Korea also refused to endorse the invasion partly because China was supporting the Mujahideen, so they had to create a fine political balance between them and the Soviets.
[43] At this meeting, the Director-General of the ISI at that time, Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for an idea of covert operation in Afghanistan by arming the Islamic extremist.
[45] In 1981, following the election of US President Ronald Reagan, aid for the Mujahidin through Zia's Pakistan significantly increased, mostly due to the efforts of Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos.
[48] The other reason was that Hekmatyar and his men had "almost no grassroots support and no military base inside Afghanistan", and thus more "dependent on Zia-ul-Haq's protection and financial largesse" than other Mujahiden factions.
[49] Soviet fighters and Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force bombers occasionally bombed Pakistani villages along the Pakistani-Afghan border.
[52] Many secular Pakistanis outside of the government were worried about fundamentalists guerrillas in Afghanistan, such as Hekmatyar, receiving such a high amount of aid, would lead to bolster conservative Islamic forces in Pakistan and its military.
Carter told National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance as early as January 1979 that it was vital to "repair our relationships with Pakistan" in light of the unrest in Iran.
Carter insisted that this "Soviet aggression" could not be viewed as an isolated event of limited geographical importance but had to be contested as a potential threat to US influence in the Persian Gulf region.
The Soviet air base outside of Kandahar was only thirty minutes flying time by strike aircraft or naval bomber to the Persian Gulf.
[57] In July 1979, Carter signed two presidential findings permitting the CIA to spend $695,000 on non-military assistance (e.g., "cash, medical equipment, and radio transmitters") and on a propaganda campaign targeting the Soviet-backed leadership of the DRA, which (in the words of Steve Coll) "seemed at the time a small beginning.
"[58][59] Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was used as an intermediary for most of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance in a program called Operation Cyclone.
After his visit he was able to leverage his position on the House Committee on Appropriations to encourage other Democratic congressmen to vote for CIA Afghan war money.
To execute this policy, Reagan deployed CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary officers to equip the Mujahidin forces against the Soviet Army.
The program funding was increased yearly due to lobbying by prominent U.S. politicians and government officials, such as Wilson, Gordon J. Humphrey, Fred Iklé, and William J. Casey.
There was recurrent contact between the CIA and Afghan commanders, especially by agent Howard Hart,[73] and Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey personally visited training camps on several occasions.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar declined the opportunity to meet with Ronald Reagan, but Mohammad Yunus Khalis and Abdul Haq were hosted by the president.
[83] Overall financially the U.S. offered two packages of economic assistance and military sales to support Pakistan's role in the war against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
Given this evidence and the enormous political and security costs that the invasion imposed on the Carter administration, any claim that Brzezinski lured the Soviets into Afghanistan warrants deep skepticism.
"[93][94] A 2020 review of declassified U.S. documents by Conor Tobin in the journal Diplomatic History found that "a Soviet military intervention was neither sought nor desired by the Carter administration ...
Support was approved by the British government who then authorised MI6 to conduct operations in the first year of the Soviet occupation, coordinated by MI6 officers in Islamabad in liaison with the CIA and the ISI.
Thatcher visited Pakistan in October 1981 and met President Zia-ul-Haq, toured the refugee camps close to the Afghan border and then gave a speech telling the people that the hearts of the free world were with them and promised aid.
[107] In 1983 the Special Air Service were sent in to Pakistan and worked alongside their SSG, whose commandos guided guerrilla operations in Afghanistan in the hope officers could impart their learned expertise directly to the Afghans.
[102] During the Sino-Soviet split, strained relations between China and the USSR resulted in bloody border clashes and mutual backing for the opponent's enemies.
Throughout the war Chinese military advisers and army troops trained upwards of several thousand Mujahideen inside Xinjiang and along the Pakistani border.
[117] However, the East German leadership feared this would cost the country in terms of diplomatic rapport with Western nations, which almost uniformly opposed the invasion.
[117] Erich Honecker, then newly appointed chairman of East Germany's ruling State Council, supported the war in public while he lamented the possible jeopardizing of relations with the West over Afghanistan in private.
[35] The Stasi worked in concert with the KGB and Naijubullah personally to infiltrate advocacy and funding networks for the Afghan resistance in western Europe.
