United Kingdom in the Soviet–Afghan War
[1] Also known as the Second Great Game,[2] the British provided both indirect and direct support for the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet Union, including secretly arming, funding and supplying various factions.
British officials were concerned about the possibility that Moscow might subsequently exploit opportunities to destabilize fragile South Asian states to expand its influence within them.
[7] Thatcher saw détente as a sham which enabled the Soviet bloc to wage the Cold War by other means, and professed in her memoirs that their intervention in Afghanistan came as no surprise.
Within three weeks of the Soviet invasion, the cabinet secretary, Robert Armstrong, was negotiating how to channel covert military aid towards the Islamic resistance fighting the Russians.
[12] Armstrong then sent a note to Thatcher, Carrington and "C" (Sir Colin Figures the head of MI6) arguing the case for military aid to "encourage and support resistance".
[17] Thatcher discussed British military aid with Pakistan's foreign minister Agha Shahi in June 1980 and welcomed Zia-ul-Haq in a state visit four months later.
Thatcher toured the refugee camp and then told a gathering of Afghan elders that her Government would continue to press Moscow to withdraw its troops from their homeland.
[19] Thatcher then went to the Khyber Pass inspected some captured Soviet weapons, briefly crossed the border shaking hands with an Afghan Soldier, before flying back to Islamabad for a state banquet.
[21] Examinations from reports in the field and intercepted Soviet communications were filtered through – at first it was thought that helping the Mujahideen in the Helmand Province was a feasible option.
[29] There were also contract labourers who had to be trained in intelligence techniques and were provided military instructions by MI6 personnel so that these men had to handle the dangerous cross-border operations from Pakistan.
[30] The first of these arrived in the summer of 1981, having made the difficult two-week journey walking North of the Pakistan border into Nuristan, over the Hindu Kush mountains and finally into the valley itself at a secret location.
They went so far as much as to look and dress like the mujahideen wearing the Shalwar kameez and stayed for three weeks or more in the Panjshir mountains using caves for shelter and cover, where a small base was established.
[32] By the end of the following year they were then able to move supplies to Massoud, which now included high tech equipment; laser binoculars and night vision goggles.
[34] The radio system was the Jaguar high frequency hopping network and computers,[35] which not only intended to prevent Soviet eavesdropping, but were also exceptionally useful for Massoud to coordinate his forces.
[34] In line with Carrington's wish for a 'televised war' MI6's training and operational efforts doubled as a sideshow providing the international coverage of Massoud's fight against the Soviets in the Panjshir.
These were more experimental, having to find suitable cameramen among the mujahideen groups in Peshawar or sometimes crossing the border with them to reinforce their journalistic cover as freelance foreign correspondents.
The Russians who had been tipped off failed to capture them but recovered a body (in fact Mujahideen horseman) along with a miniature satellite dish, a transmitter and a computerised keyboard.
Over the next few days after the broadcast, the British press sought to find details about Stuart Bodman, but was then tracked down by journalists from the Sunday Times to be alive and well in Surrey.
[45] It was not realised at the time that Gulf Features Service was a front organisation that provided a journalistic cover and that Bodman's false name allowed the British government to deny any knowledge of his existence.
[46] America's Operation Cyclone which was the CIA's program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen began in 1981 – the first US aid package worth $3.2 billion.
There was also a focus on Massoud who would be the subject of criticism from China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia as well as the CIA, due mostly to his truce with the Soviets and their Afghan counterparts which took place in 1983.
The British role was particularly resented by the Pakistanis,[55] who accused Massoud of an unwillingness to fight, but the truce was a tactical move so that he was able to regroup his forces, as his supplies were running critically low.
[67] These firms would directly train Afghan forces; the main company was Keenie Meenie Services (KMS Ltd) which was led by former SAS officers.
These included rocket attacks on villages in Tajikistan and raids on Soviet airfields, troop supplies and convoys in Uzbekistan which flowed through these areas, some 25 kilometers in these territories.
[80] MI6 directly remitted money into an account of Pakistani leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Qazi Hussain Ahmad who had close links with Hekmatyar & Massoud.
[76] Pakistan's ISI requested limpet mines from Britain in the hope of attacking Soviet transport barges on the South bank of the Amu Darya River.
[88] However, after the Soviet withdrawal Massoud would soon become the biggest winner; after the Communists had been defeated he and his factions not only controlled the Panjshir valley but several provinces in North East Afghanistan.
[91] In the subsequent aftermath of 9/11 there was controversy with the fact that Britain had been involved in training and arming the Mujahideen, and from which some officers went on to command senior positions in the Taliban and Al Qaeda and also helped shelter Bin Laden.
[96] The war itself had had the bonus for the British getting their hands on or the ability to study and acquire knowledge of a large range of Soviet equipment – this being from the latest AK-74 rifle series, tanks to avionics in helicopters.
[79] Scottish journalist and author John Fullerton who was a 'contract labourer' for MI6, in the role of head agent on the Afghan-Pakistan frontier during the war – used his experience which formed the novel Spy Game.
