By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Afghanistan and the Durand Line

Following a standoff between the Russian and British Armies, Afghanistan's frontier with British India was drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand in 1893 and was accepted by representatives of both governments. Recognizing Afghanistan as a buffer between the two empires saved the Russians and the British from having to confront each other militarily. The border, named the Durand Line, intentionally divided Pashtun tribes living in the area to prevent them from becoming a nuisance for the Raj. On their side of the frontier, the British created autonomous tribal agencies, controlled by British political officers with the help of tribal chieftains whose loyalty was ensured through regular subsidies.

Adjacent to the autonomous tribal agencies were the settled Pashtuns living under direct British rule in towns and villages. Here, too, the Pashtuns were divided between the NWFP and Balochistan, which did not enjoy the status of a full province under British rule. Although Muslim, Pashtuns generally sided with the cause of anti-British Indian nationalism, they were reluctant to embrace the Muslim separatism of the All-India Muslim League's campaign for Pakistan.

Almost forgotten today is the paradoxical fact that the foremost Pashtun leader at that time was a dedicated pacifist, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, once famous as the "frontier Gandhi." His followers, nicknamed the Red Shirts (imitating Garibaldi), had to swear, "I shall never use violence. I shall not retaliate or take revenge, and shall forgive anyone who indulges in oppression and excesses against me." For upwards of two decades, Ghaffar Khan and his Khudai Khidmatgar ("Servants of God") fought alongside Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party for a united, democratic, and secular India.” Mukilika Banerjee first heard of the Red Shirts in the 1990s while a graduate student in New Delhi. Impressed and curious, she settled on the frontier, learned Pushto, and managed to interview seventy surviving ex-Servants of God for her study, The Pathan Unarmed. She found that Ghaffar Khan's pacifism derived from his concept of jihad, or holy war: "Nonviolent civil disobedience offered the chance of martyrdom in its purest form, since putting one's life conspicuously in one's enemy's hands was itself the k y act and death incurred in the process was not a defeat or a tragedy: rather the act of witness to an enemy's injustice. In his recruiting speeches, therefore, [Ghaffar Khan] was offering to every Pathan not the mere possibility of death, but rather the opportunity of glorious sacrifice and martyrdom. Banerjee wrote that Ghaffar Khan, starting in the 1920s, managed to recruit a nonviolent army of 100,000 followers, who shared a uniform frugally stained with brick dust. The army's power was confirmed in 1930, when its general strike paralyzed Peshawar, the provincial capital, for five days. days, its supporters having braved arrest and torture by the Raj's police. Initially, because they were deemed so intractable, Pashtuns were denied even the limited franchise granted in the early 1900s elsewhere in British India, but this changed with the passage of the 1935 Government of India Act. In successive elections, the Red Shirts prevailed, forming provincial governments under Chief Minister Dr. Khan Sahib (as he is usually styled), the British-educated physician brother of Ghaffar Khan. Meanwhile, Ghaffar, standing six feet, three inches, instantly recognizable with his noble nose and homely features, became an arm-in-arm companion to Mahatma Gandhi, who pronounced the Red Shirt movement a miracle.

Notwithstanding his liberal views on secularism and women's rights, Ghaffar Khan became a Pashtun folk hero, acclaimed as Badshah Khan, or khan of khans.1 Combining through long unexamined records, the author found that in 1932, the NWFP, with a population of just 3 million, accounted for 5,557 convictions for civil disobedience compared with 1,620 in the Punjab, which had five times as many inhabitants.

Muslims constituted so overwhelming a majority on the frontier that the Muslim League's cry of "Islam in danger" failed to resonate. This helps explain why a movement allied with Gandhi's Hindu-led Congress took root. No less important, Ghaffar Khan had tapped into a sense of frustrated common identity among Pashtuns living on both sides of the Afghan border. He and his movement talked of a "Pashtunistan," an independent or quasi-autonomous Pashtun homeland, the content of the idea varying from time to time. It was this aspect of the movement that most troubled the British and, even more, the Muslim League. It led to Ghaffar Khan's encounter with another important, if forgotten, figure, the British Governor in Peshawar, Sir Olaf Caroe (an administrator in British India, working for the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Political Service).

A few months before ‘partition’ took place, a U.S. official reported about his interview with Olaf Caroe in May 1947: "Sir Olaf indicated that the Foreign Office tended too much to look upon India as a peninsular unit like Italy.... He felt it did not sufficiently realize the great political importance of the Northwest Frontier Province and Afghanistan, which he described as `the uncertain vestibule' in future relations between Soviet Russia and India."2

As a gesture to Congress, the that time Viceroy of British India, General Mountbatten, determined that Caroe was "suffering badly from nerves" and asked him to request leave as provincial governor until the transfer of power. Caroe complied. A deputy presided as the referendum took place on July 17, its one-sided judgment in favor of joining Pakistan marred by charges of fraud and intimidation and by a boycott that kept half the 5 million eligible Pashtun voters from the polls.

Ghaffar Khan's brother, Dr. Khan Sahib, was dismissed from the office of the chief minister of NWFP soon after Pakistan's independence, and his cabinet was peremptorily dismissed. The two brothers, other family members, and several of their supporters were imprisoned, thereby prolonging the pre-independence conflict among Pakistan's Pashtuns. In newborn India, Ghaffar Khan was all but abandoned by his former Congress Party allies, while in newborn Pakistan, he was charged with sedition. It made no difference that he took an oath of allegiance to the new Afghanistan. His earlier demands for Pashtunistan became part of the combination of perceived security threats that required Pakistan's military buildup backed by great-power alliances. See also:

British journalist Ian Stephens, in an interview with one of Pakistan founding fathers and President of Pakistan Zia ul-Haq in January 1979, was given the following account of the emergence of Pakistan. Stephens, who said he was speaking "virtually as an honorary Muslim," voiced his concern over the attention being paid to Islamization "to the detriment of the basic economic problems" of Pakistan. Zia ul-Haq replied:

The basis of Pakistan was Islam. The basis of Pakistan was intended in a way that the Muslims of the sub-continent are a separate culture. It was on the two-nation theory that this part was carved out of the sub-continent as Pakistan. And in the last 30 years, in general but more so in the last seven years, there has been a complete erosion of the moral values of our society. You will hear that Pakistan is full of corruption today. Despite one-and-a-half years of Martial Law, corruption is rampant, people are dishonest; they want to make money overnight. The moral fiber of society has been completely broken, and this was done basically in the last seven and a half years. Anwar H. Syed, “Z. A. Bhutto's way of flourishing in this society was by eroding its moral fiber ... He eroded the moral fiber of the society by pitching the students against the teachers, sons against the fathers, landlords against the tenants, and factory workers against the mill owners ... The economic ills of the country are not because Pakistan is incapable of economic production. It is because Pakistanis have been made to believe that one can earn without working ... Therefore, to my mind, the most fundamental basis for the whole reformation of society is not how much cotton we can grow or how much wheat we can grow. Yes, they are in their place important factors; but I think it is the moral rejuvenation which is required first and that will have to be done based on Islam, because it was on this basis that Pakistan was formed ... We are going back to Islam not by choice but by the force of circumstances. If we had chosen, we might as well have stayed with India. What was wrong with that? ... It is not because of anything other than our cultural and moral awareness that in Islam is our only salvation ... Islam, from that point of view, is the fundamental factor. It comes before wheat and rice and everything else. I can grow more wheat; I can import wheat, but I cannot import the correct moral values." (President Zia ul-Haq's interview to Ian Stephens, January 6, 1979, in President of Pakistan General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq-Interviews to Foreign Media, vol. II, Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, undated, pp. 2-6.)

Until recently, serving and retired Pakistani officials have played down Pakistan's role in support of the Afghan Islamist insurgency in the pre-Soviet days. (1) Later, in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the Pakistan-sponsored Islamist rebellion became the U.S.-backed jihad against Soviet occupation. The massive covert operation in support of the Afghan mujahideen enhanced Pakistan's value as a U.S. ally. 

After the Soviet withdrawal, when the United States walked away from Afghanistan and terminated aid to Pakistan in retaliation for its nuclear program, Pakistan claimed it had been betrayed by the United State's

By emphasizing Pakistan's role as the conduit for U.S. arms for Afghans fighting Soviet occupation, the Pakistanis can divert attention away from their ambitions in Afghanistan. The fact remains, however, that Pakistan did not merely oblige the United States by launching resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. With U.S. money and weapons, and with support from other Western and Arab governments, Pakistan was able to expand the scope of an operation that had been ongoing long before, and especially since 1973. historyb.html

In 1976, Afghan Gulbuddin Hekmatyar split off from Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan to form the Hizbe Islami (Islamic Party), which also operated from Pakistan. Rabbani wanted to move cautiously and gradually, building broader support before seeking power. Like Maulana Maududi, Rabbani's original scheme for Islamic revolution did not envisage armed struggle or certainly anything that could be described as terrorism. Although Maulana Maududi's followers have been involved in militant struggles for the past several decades, none of his writings openly advocated violence. Rabbani, too, in the initial stages was reluctant to convert Jamiat-e-Islami into a militia or a guerrilla army although later, after the Soviet occupation, the party became a leading band of mujahideen.

Hekmatyar, on the other hand, from the beginning was willing to embrace radical methods. His militancy soon made him a favorite of the ISI, which was at that stage more interested in generating military pressure on Afghanistan's President Daoud's regime than in laying the foundations of a sustainable Islamic revolution in Afghanistan. The ISI also had an eye on identifying future leaders for an Afghanistan more closely linked to Pakistan. As an ethnic Pashtun, Hekmatyar seemed qualified for that role.

Between 1973 and 1977, Afghanistan and Pakistan fought what can best be described as a low-intensity proxy war. Sardar Muhammad Daoud supported Baloch rebels in Pakistan while Pakistan backed the Afghan Islamist insurgents based in Peshawar. Accounts by Pakistani officials from that period also suggest that Pakistan's decision to back the Afghan Islamists was initiated by Bhutto in retaliation for Daoud's support to Baloch and Pashtun groups in Pakistan." The Pakistani covert operation was not merely retaliatory, however; it reflected the long-term Pakistani interest in the affairs of Afghanistan.

The insurgency in Balochistan started soon after Bhutto dismissed the provincial government in February 1973. Sardar Daoud's coup d'état against Zahir Shah took place on July 17, 1973, and it was followed immediately by the arrival in Peshawar of Rabbani, Massoud, and Hekmatyar. The Baloch were fighting the Pakistan army before Daoud took power, and Pakistan was playing host to Afghan Islamists almost simultaneously with the proclamation of an Afghan republic. After coming to power, Daoud established training camps for Baloch rebels, training between ten and fifteen thousand tribesmen for war against Pakistan.

He also renamed one of Kabul's central squares as Chowk Pashtunistan (Pashtunistan Square). Daoud's actions on behalf of the Baloch tribesmen and his revival of propaganda for Pashtunistan may have added another reason for the ISI's support for Rabbani and Hekmatyar, but it was certainly not the primary instigator. Pakistan had thought hard about expanding its influence in Afghanistan, and the plan for the Islamist insurgency took shape as a result of this evaluation. General Khalid Mahmud Arif, who served in Pakistan's GHQ at the time and who later served as the principal lieutenant to General Zia ul-Haq, has described the "Afghan cell" that was created in the Pakistan Foreign Office as early as July/August 1973. He has also described the role of the ISI in conducting "intelligence missions inside Afghanistan" during that time and its contacts with Hekmatyar, Rabbani, and the exiled Afghan king, Zahir Shah.

The Pakistan-trained Afghan insurgents were able to accomplish little against the Kabul regime.-More effective were the efforts by the Shah of Iran to offer Daoud economic assistance comparable with that provided by the Soviets. Anticommunists within Daoud's inner circle opposed sharing power with Afghan communists, leading to the purge of communists from Daoud's regime beginning in 1975. Daoud reached out to traditional Islamic leaders at the same time. At the Shah's prodding, Daoud and Bhutto began a dialogue to resolve the differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan, a dialogue that was interrupted by Bhutto's ouster from power in July 1977 but was resumed with General Zia ul-Haq a few months later.

After distancing himself from the Soviet Union and Afghan communists, Sardar Daoud proceeded to build a new relationship with conservative Arab regimes, Iran, and the United States. Afghanistan was now more dependent on foreign aid than ever, with aid being the source of 60 percent of Afghanistan's budget expenditures for 1977-1978.4

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By reaching out to the West and pro-Western neighboring states, Daoud was gradually diversifying the sources of aid and backing away from Afghanistan's special relationship with the Soviet Union. During a visit to Pakistan in March 1978, Daoud came close to concluding a deal with Pakistan that would have recognized the Durand Line and ended Afghanistan's support for Pashtunistan in return for Baloch and Pashtun autonomy within Pakistan." These foreign policy changes were accompanied by significant changes on the domestic front as well. Daoud cracked down on the PDPA and informed the Baloch and Pashtun activists from Pakistan that Afghanistan would no longer be their sanctuary.

On April 27,1978, Daoud was overthrown and killed in a coup d'état carried out by procommunist military officers who had not yet been purged. The coup d'état was led by some of the same officers who had helped Daoud come to power almost five years earlier. Several accounts of the coup suggest that "it was a last-minute operation, orchestrated by Afghans, in which support from Soviet intelligence agencies and military advisers, if any, came only after they were confronted with a virtual fait accompli." (and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, p. 22.37. Ibid., p. 25; see also Louis Dupree, The Accidental Coup American Universities Field Staff Reports, 1979, p. 5, and Anwar, Tragedy of Afghanistan, pp. 94-96.)

The military officers involved in the coup d'état released the PDPA leaders who had been imprisoned by Daoud, and leading figures of the PDPA assumed top positions in the new, revolutionary government. Pakistan recognized the new regime and maintained diplomatic relations with it, but the coming to power of communists in Afghanistan accelerated the Pakistan-backed Islamist insurgency. During a meeting between General Zia ul-Haq and the new Afghan president, Nur Muhammad Taraki, in September 1978, both leaders saw the contrast in their fundamental beliefs. General Arif wrote, "the two Muslims disagreed on the interpretation of Islamic philosophy (Gen. Khalid Mahmud Arif, Working with Zia: Pakistan's Power Politics, 1977-1988, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 306.)

Taraki was introduced to Zia ul-Haq as "comrade," and he began by sharing his view of Afghan history with the Pakistani leader. He told Zia that the Afghan royal family "had exploited the Afghan nation for 200 years. Now everything belongs to the people. The revolution has given land to eleven million people." This caused Zia ul-Haq to remind Taraki that Muslims must consider all property as belonging to Allah and should see man only as His custodian. Taraki responded by saying, "All land belongs to the tiller."

Zia ul-Haq's invitation to be fearful of God and to recognize obligations toward God were met with Taraki s comment that "God is aadil (just). We don't have to fear a just God." After saying "To serve the people is to serve God," Taraki poked fun at Pakistan's membership in CENTO, pointed out that Pakistan had not got what it wanted from the United States, and was sarcastic about Zia ul-Haq's deference to the Shah of Iran. Although both leaders spoke of the need to resolve their differences peacefully, Zia ul-Haq felt no obligation to make life easier for a man whose beliefs and interests were diametrically opposed to his own Islamist convictions. Pakistan continued supporting the Afghan Islamist parties operating out of Kabul and formally transferred responsibility for them from the paramilitary Frontier Scouts to the ISI.

Zia ul-Haq calculated that it was only a matter of time before Pakistan's Islamist protégés would become more than a mere nuisance in Afghanistan. As the PDPA regime implemented its radical social and economic policies, resentment against the new order in Kabul spread through the Afghan countryside. Land reform limited landholding to five acres, which made a large number of Afghan landowners into enemies of the regime. Disrespect toward clerics and traditional tribal leaders coupled with efforts to change conservative social norms by decree created a larger pool of disgruntled Afghans from which Islamists could now recruit insurgents. In addition to the Jamiat-e-Islami and Hizbe Islami, which were already active, several new Afghan groups began to organize. These anti-communist parties were led by conservative politicians and tribal leaders excluded from, or persecuted under, the new political order in Afghanistan.

Soon after the April 1978 coup d'état, Pakistan revived its Afghan cell. General Arif recalled that the task of the cell was "to analyze the available information and suggest policy options. The defense plans were updated as a destabilized Afghanistan had adversely affected the security of Pakistan. (Khalid Mahmud Arif, Working with Zia, p. 307)

But the Afghan cell's primary functions were to coordinate the resistance to communist rule in Afghanistan as well as secure international backing for Pakistan and the resistance. In December 1978, when the PDPA government in Afghanistan signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union, the Pakistanis tried to ring alarm bells in Washington by reviving Pakistani requests for U.S. aid. The Carter administration was unmoved. Even the assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Kabul in February 1979 was overshadowed by the fall of the Shah in Iran and the return to Tehran of Ayatollah Khomeini.

General Arif lamented, echoing the sentiment of the Zia ul-Haq regime at the time. The revolution in Iran did serve to revive intelligence cooperation between Pakistan and United States, paving the way for Pakistan getting what it wanted in Afghanistan later. The United States had lost its listening posts in Iran because of the revolution. When U.S. officials contacted Zia ul-Haq for "collaboration in the collection of communications intelligence, Zia readily agreed. (Kux, United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000, p. 241.)

Although U.S. specialists were not immediately stationed in Pakistan, the CIA worked with Pakistani intelligence to "improve Pakistan's electronic intercept capabilities."' Data collected by these intercept installations were then passed on to U.S. intelligence, laying the foundation for close ties between the Pakistani ISI and the CIA. By July 1979, President Carter had approved a modest program of covert assistance to the Afghan Islamist resistance, which was routed through Pakistan. Robert Gates, then deputy director (later, director) of the CIA narrated in his memoirs the sequence of events leading to this initial covert operation:

The Carter Administration began looking at the possibility of covert assistance to the insurgents opposing the pro-Soviet, Marxist government of President Taraki at the beginning of 1979. On March 5, 1979, CIA sent several covert action options relating to Afghanistan to the SCC [Special Coordinating Committee]. The covering memo noted that the insurgents had stepped up their activities against the government and had achieved surprising successes. It added that the Soviets were clearly concerned about the setbacks to the Afghan communist regime and that the Soviet media were accusing the United States, Pakistan, and Egypt of supporting the insurgents. The SCC met the next day and requested new options for covert action ... Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, a senior official also had raised the prospect of a Soviet setback in Afghanistan and said that his government was considering officially proposing that the United States aid the rebels. The DO [Directorate of Operations] memo reported that the Saudis could be expected to provide funds and encourage the Pakistanis, and that possibly other governments could be expected to provide at least tacit help. The memo conceded that the Soviets could easily step up their own resupply and military aid, although "we believe they are unlikely to tiative. Gates confirms that President Jimmy Carter signed the first authorization "to help the Mujahideen covertly" on July 3, 1979, "almost six months before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. (Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows New York, 1996, pp. 143-44)

But Carter's first authorization covered only support for insurgent propaganda and other psychological operations in Afghanistan; establishment of radio access to the Afghan population through third-country facilities; and the provision either unilaterally or through third countries of support to the Afghan insurgents, in the form of either cash or nonmilitary supplies. The Afghan effort began relatively small. Initially, somewhat more than half a million dollars was allocated, with almost all being drawn within six weeks.

General Zia ul-Haq was not satisfied with the relatively low levels of U.S. support for his Afghan operation. He recognized the nervousness of U.S. policy makers resulting from the fall of the Shah of Iran, and he wanted to rebuild the U.S.-Pakistan alliance in more or less the same way that Ayub Khan had joined the anticommunist treaties of the 1950s. Zia ul-Haq also faced serious legitimacy problems at home after executing popular Prime Minister Bhutto and abandoning promises of free elections within ninety days of his coup d'état. Funding from the United States to expand an Islamist jihad in Afghanistan would solidify support for Zia ul-Haq's rule among Pakistani Islamists, and U.S. military assistance would help Zia retain the support of Pakistan's military; however, U.S. opinion about Pakistan was now more divided than it had been when Ayub Khan won over the U.S. national security establishment in the early 1950s. Pakistan's track record vis-à-vis India, the persistence of military domination in Pakistan's politics, and the emerging intelligence about Pakistan's incipient nuclear program all caused concerns among various constituencies in Washington.

Zia ul-Haq had to overcome the skepticism of his U.S. critics. He focused on Americans who were concerned with containing the Soviet Union, and he pitched the insurgency in Afghanistan as having the potential to halt the expansion of communism; in other words, communism in Afghanistan could be rolled back and Soviet prestige would diminish provided the Pakistani and U.S. intelligence services undertook a joint venture. Pakistan had decided to try to generate support within the United States for higher levels of aid by allowing U.S. journalists to report on Pakistani efforts to train anticommunist Afghan guerrillas even as Islamabad officially denied such operations from Pakistani soil. The Washington Post was thus able to report on February 2, 1979, that at least two thousand Afghans were being trained at Pakistani bases guarded by Pakistani troops." By leaking word of a substantive effort by Pakistan to roll back communism in Afghanistan, Zia ul-Haq justifiably expected to rally anti-Soviet hard-liners in the United States to his cause.

On the one hand, Pakistan was eager to secure U.S. support for its Afghan venture; on the other, Pakistani officials spoke of the "risk" of "Soviet wrath" unless there was a firm, large-scale U.S. commitment to Pakistan's security. Zia ul-Haq wanted U.S. support not only for the insurgents, whom he was already backing, but also for Pakistan's armed forces. Expanding the insurgency in Afghanistan was the service Pakistan would provide for the United States. Greater economic and military aid was the reward it sought for this service. Gates records how Zia ul-Haq lobbied for U.S. aid during the months preceding the Soviet invasion:

By the end of August [1979], Pakistani President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq was pressuring the United States for arms and equipment for the insurgents in Afghanistan. He called in the U.S. ambassador to make his pitch and indicated that when he was in New York for the UN General Assembly session in September, he would raise the issue at higher levels in the Department of State. Separately, the Pakistani intelligence service was pressing us to provide military equipment to support an expanding insurgency. When [CIA Director Stansfield] Turner heard this, he urged the DO to get moving in providing more help to the insurgents. They responded with several enhancement options, including communications equipment for the insurgents via the Pakistanis or the Saudis, funds for the Pakistanis to purchase lethal military equipment for the insurgents, and providing a like amount of lethal equipment ourselves for the Pakistanis to distribute to the insurgents Despite the cooperation between the CIA and the ISI, Pakistan's relations with the United States at the political level were, at this stage, not particularly warm. On November 21, 1979, students affiliated with the Jamaat-e-Islami's student wing burned down the U.S. embassy in Islamabad on the basis of rumors that the United States had had a hand in the seizure of Islam's holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Several embassy officials were trapped in the burning building, and it took the Pakistan military four hours to arrive at the site and several more to restore order despite the fact that Zia ul-Haq's residence as military chief and the Pakistan army's headquarters in Rawalpindi were less than a half hour's drive from the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. Two Americans and two Pakistani employees of the embassy died in the incident.

A similar effort to attack the U.S. consulate in Karachi was foiled by cooperation between more moderate student leaders and police. Although Pakistan later agreed to pay for the reconstruction of the embassy, the incident alerted U.S. diplomats to anti-Americanism among Pakistan's Islamists and the possibility of the government's complicity in it. The government's role in the episode was the subject of much controversy among U.S. officials, who wondered why it took so long for the Pakistan army to come to the embassy's rescue. By way of comparison, in 1999, when the Pakistan army decided to stop Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from announcing the removal of General Pervez Musharraf from his command, it took the army less than 35 minutes to move troops between the two same general areas. Dennis Kux summed up the various U.S. views of the 1979 sacking of the U.S. embassy:

Although Pakistani officials attributed the slow reaction to bureaucratic snarls, lack of preparedness, and plain incompetence, the less charitable views of U.S. officials on the scene appear closer to the mark. Some Americans thought that the Pakistanis were hesitant about intervening lest the rumors of U.S. involvement in [Mecca] prove true. Others felt that the Pakistanis found it not a bad idea to let the Americans "sweat a bit." Still others believed that Pakistani intelligence had instigated the embassy demonstration (U.S. facilities in Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Karachi were also attacked), which then had gotten out of hands Zia ul-Haq privately cited the incident as further evidence of why the United States needed a military strongman like himself to control an emotional and volatile Pakistani nation and to channel the religious fervor of Pakistanis against the Soviets instead of allowing it to run against the United States. Zia ul-Haq portrayed himself as a friend of the United States, willing to defend U.S. interests in a turbulent region despite the hostility of his countrymen toward the United States. He was not the first Pakistani general to do so and, as we will see later, certainly not the last.

Meanwhile, events in Afghanistan took a course that helped Zia ul-Haq in his ambition to secure massive U.S. assistance for Pakistan as well as to qualitatively expand the jihad that Pakistan was already supporting in Afghanistan. For as long as it had existed, the PDPA had comprised two major factions, which were named after their respective publications-the Khalq (masses) and the Parcham (flag). In addition, clashes of personalities existed within each faction. Within a few months of the April 1978 coup d'état that brought the PDPA to power, the Khalq faction managed to exile Parcham leaders, sending them abroad as ambassadors. A power struggle within Khalq led to the rise to power of Hafizullah Amin, "an intensely nationalistic, independent man who exuded a swaggering self-confidence. (Harrison, "How the Soviet Union Stumbled into Afghanistan," in Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, p. 29.)

Concerned by these developments, and not willing to allow a satellite to leave the Soviet constellation, the Soviet Union intervened militarily in Afghanistan on Christmas Eve of 1979. Ibid., pp. 42-49; Harrison argues that the Afghan regime was not in danger of collapse and that the Soviet intervention was aimed primarily at getting rid of Amin and replacing him with the more pliant Karmal.

Amin was killed; Babrak Karmal, leader of the Parcham faction of PDPA and at the time serving as ambassador to an East European country, was installed by the Soviets as Afghanistan's new leader. The Soviets claimed they had intervened in response to Karmal's request for military assistance under the friendship treaty signed a year earlier. Because Karmal was installed through their military intervention, that claim was nothing more than a fig leaf. The Soviet invasion caused great consternation around the world because it raised questions about the future intentions of the Soviet Union. Earlier, opinion in Washington had been divided between those who saw the Afghan communist regime as a Soviet cat's-paw and those who considered developments in Afghanistan independent of superpower rivalry. President Carter's secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, was among those who had refused to consider the April 1978 coup d'état that brought the PDPA to power as part of the Soviet agenda for the region. (Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years in America's Foreign Policy, New York, 1983, p. 384.)

Given the global environment at the time and the all-too-real threat of Soviet expansion, some experts concluded that, by invading Afghanistan, the Soviets were planning to extend their influence in Southwest Asia. The ultimate Soviet goal, they argued, was to control the Persian Gulf. With Iran already in the throes of a revolution, Pakistan was now the pivotal state in Western security strategy for the region. Zia ul-Haq's moment had arrived. Publicly he gave the impression of being fearful for Pakistan's security, but he asked his close confidant and ISI chief, Lieutenant General Akhtar Abdul Rahman, to draw up plans for a large-scale guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation of Pakistan's neighbor. He was certain he would now be able to persuade the United States to seek alliance with Pakistan on Pakistan's terms. See also Haroonur Rashid, Faateh: Afghanistan Mein Roosi Shikast kay Memaar General Akhtar Abdul Rahman ki Daastaan-e-Hayat [The victor: life story of the architect of Russian defeat in Afghanistan General Akhtar Abdul Rahman] (Lahore, 1997).

Some former ISI officials who worked with General Abdul Rahman insist that the idea for expanded resistance against the Soviets came from the Pakistani intelligence chief, and Zia ul-Haq endorsed it only after being assured of its viability as a military proposition. Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf, who ran ISI's Afghan operation between 1983 and 1987, credited Abdul Rahman with planning a guerrilla war that would hurt the Soviets but not to a point where they might lash out at Pakistan.

Akhtar Abdul Rahman argued that not only would [support for the Afghan resistance] be defending Islam but also Pakistan. The resistance must become a part of Pakistan's forward defense against the Soviets. If they were allowed to occupy Afghanistan too easily, it would then be but a short step to Pakistan, probably through Balochistan province. Akhtar made out a strong case for setting out to defeat the Soviets in a large scale guerrilla war. He believed Afghanistan could be made into another Vietnam, with the Soviets in the shoes of the Americans. He urged Zia to take the military option. It would mean Pakistan covertly supporting the guerrillas with arms, ammunition, money, intelligence, training and operational advice. Above all it would entail offering the border areas of the NWFP and Balochistan as a sanctuary for both the refugees and guerrillas, as without a secure, cross-border base no such campaign would succeed. Zia agreed.

According to Brigadier Yousaf, General Zia ul-Haq's motives in agreeing to make Afghanistan a Soviet Vietnam were not exclusively related to global security. Regime survival and Pakistan's traditional policy paradigm of seeking leadership in the Muslim world, securing national unity through Islam, and obtaining Western economic and military assistance were also factors that weighed in his decision: In 1979 Zia had just provoked worldwide consternation and condemnation by executing his former prime minister; his image both inside and outside Pakistan was badly tarnished, and he felt isolated. By supporting a jihad, albeit unofficially, against a communist superpower, he sought to regain sympathy in the West. The US would surely rally to his assistance. As a devout Muslim he was eager to offer help to his Islamic neighbors. That religious, strategic and political factors all seemed to point in the same direction was indeed a happy coincidence. For Zia, the final factor that decided [the matter for] him was [Lieutenant General] Akhtar's argument that it was a sound military proposition, provided the Soviets were not goaded into a direct confrontation, meaning the water must not get too hot. Zia stood to gain enormous prestige with the Arab world as a champion of Islam and with the West as a champion against communist aggression. (Brig. Mohammad Yousaf and Major Mark Adkin, The Bear Trap: Afghanistan's Untold Story, Lahore, 1992, p. 25.)

Although Pakistan had been backing Afghan Islamists since 1973 and U.S. covert assistance had begun several months before the Soviet military intervention, Zia ul-Haq gave an impression to his U.S. interlocutors that he was fearful of a Soviet threat to Pakistan. He said, in effect, that an opportunity existed to create a Vietnam-like quagmire for the Soviets, but for it to be successful the United States would have to commit itself to Pakistan's security and pay the right price for Pakistan's cooperation. Zia ul-Haq also asked for assurances that would cover the possible threat of attack from India. President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, publicly reassured Pakistan that "the United States stands behind them (Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle, New York: 1983, p. 448.)

and reiterated the terms of the 1959 U.S.-Pakistan mutual defense treaty, which committed the United States to come to Pakistan's aid in case of communist attack. Brzezinski wrote later that the Pakistanis were rather concerned that they might be the next target of Soviet military aggression, but he stated plainly that the United States could not guarantee support in the event of an Indian attack. The purported fear of Soviet military action did not keep the Pakistanis from escalating their support for the mujahideen. During a visit Brzezinski made to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, discussions were held on an expanded covert action program. (Gates, From the Shadows, p. 148.) Brzezinski noted that Zia ul-Haq had asked him to emphasize the importance of Saudi-Pakistan cooperation and that the Americans had secured the Saudi undertaking "to facilitate Pakistani arms purchases, in return for a Pakistani military input to Saudi security." An arrangement was made whereby "the Saudis would match the U.S. contribution to the mujahideen." (Brzezinski, p.64)

Within a few months of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Pakistanis had managed to receive significantly higher levels of U.S. support for their covert operations. Saudi Arabia had started matching the U.S. contribution. General Zia ul-Haq also wanted economic assistance and military aid for his government-the reward from the United States for taking on the Soviets directly. Pakistan had invested heavily in its intervention in Afghanistan, and all along Zia ul-Haq had been increasing the level of intervention with the expectation of high levels of U.S. aid. He never doubted that the Americans would support his covert operation, and in fact the United States had begun its support even before the Soviets sent troops into Afghanistan. Zia also wanted the benefits for Pakistan's economy and its military that Pakistani military leaders expected from an alliance with the United States. He coveted the respect and legitimacy he would acquire as the military ruler of a frontline state in the struggle against Soviet expansion.

The Carter administration offered an initial package of $400 million in economic and military aid, which fell short of Pakistan's expectations. General Zia described the offer as "peanuts" in a briefing for journalists on January 18, 1980. The amount was inadequate to ensure Pakistan's security, he declared, adding that it would "buy greater animosity from the Soviet Union, which is now much more influential in this region than the United States. (William Borders, "Pakistan Dismisses $400 Million in Aid Offered by U.S. as 'Peanuts'," New York Times, January 19, 1980.)

With his January 18 statement, Zia ul-Haq was bargaining for an offer of far greater levels of aid from the United States. Even after describing the public offer of aid as inadequate, Zia ul-Haq continued to accept U.S. covert assistance. Cooperation between the CIA and the ISI in support of the Afghan mujahideen increased progressively. Within a few months, Saudi funding added to the size of Pakistan's Afghan jihad. Had Zia ul-Haq really been concerned about upsetting the Soviets, he would probably not have deepened Pakistan's involvement with the mujahideen before resolving the issue of U.S. security assistance. Zia had clearly calculated that covert cooperation would build support for Pakistan's position within the U.S. national security apparatus and pave the way for more aid down the road.

Zia ul-Haq's plan came to fruition in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan as president of the United States. The Reagan administration was less concerned than the Carter administration about Pakistan's human rights record or, for that matter, the question of Pakistan's nuclear program. Within its first few months, the Reagan administration put together a package of $3.2 billion in economic and military aid to be allocated over a five-year period. A State Department memorandum described the purpose of the aid as "to give Pakistan confidence in our commitment to its security and provide reciprocal benefits in terms of our regional interests. (Kux, United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000, p. 25)

The new U.S. administration appeared to have communicated tacitly that it "could live with Pakistan's nuclear program as long as Islamabad did not explode a bomb."

The U.S. Congress waived sanctions against Pakistan, imposed earlier because of Pakistan's nuclear program, soon after President Reagan came to office. The Pakistan government soon began receiving U.S. aid once again. The five-year aid package was followed in 1986 by a commitment of $4.02 billion in aid to be distributed during the next six years.

U.S. military assistance pleased the Pakistan army and solidified support for the continuation of Zia ul-Haq in power. The United States also rescheduled and wrote off part of Pakistan's outstanding debt. The flow of U.S. aid was accompanied by economic support from other Western and Arab donors. The U.S.-brokered security relationship with oil-rich Arab states like Saudi Arabia generated an additional benefit: large numbers of Pakistani workers were employed in the Persian Gulf states, where massive infrastructure development projects were then under development. Workers' remittances, coupled with the inflow of aid, contributed to Pakistan's enjoyment of a period of rapid economic growth. For an analysis of Pakistan's economy under Zia ul-Haq. (John Adams, "Pakistan's Economic Performance in the 1980s: Implications for Political Balance," in Baxter, ed., Zia's Pakistan, pp. 47-62.)

Zia ul-Haq considered the Afghan jihad as the core of his regime's policies. Once the security relationship with the United States had been consolidated, the quantum and quality of Pakistan's support for the mujahideen increased dramatically. The inflow of refugees escaping the fighting in Afghanistan provided an opportunity for Pakistan to recruit a much larger number of Afghans for the resistance organizations that had been organized in Peshawar. Although the CIA provided money and arms for the mujahideen, their recruitment, training, and political control was in the hands of the ISI. Tracing the history of the CIA's involvement in Afghanistan, journalist Steve Coll explained the terms of the arrangement between the United States and Pakistan:

Zia sought and obtained political control over the CIA's weapons and money. He insisted that every gun and dollar allocated for the Mujahideen pass through Pakistani hands. He would decide which Afghan guerrillas benefited. He did not want Langley setting up its own Afghan kingmaking operation on Pakistani soil. Zia wanted to run up his own heart-and-minds operation inside Afghanistan ... For the first four years of its Afghan jihad, the CIA kept its solo operations and contacts with Afghans to a minimum ... To make his complex liaison with the CIA work, Zia relied on his chief spy and most trusted lieutenant, a gray-eyed and patrician general, Akhtar Abdul Rahman, director-general of ISI. Zia told Akhtar that it was his job to draw the CIA in and hold them at bay ... Akhtar laid down rules to ensure that ISI would retain control over contacts with Afghan rebels. No American-CIA or otherwise-would be permitted to cross the border into Afghanistan. Movements of weapons within Pakistan and distribution to Afghan commanders would be handled strictly by ISI officers. (Steve Coll, Ghost Wars , New York, 2004, p. 63.)

By the end of 1980, almost one million Afghans had come to Pakistan as refugees. By 1988, the number of refugees reached three million. These refugees had fled Afghanistan because of the upheaval following the Soviet invasion. As the mujahideen's guerrilla attacks made Afghanistan unsafe for Russian and Afghan communist forces, security in small towns and the countryside became fragile. Some of the refugees were religiously minded subsistence farmers escaping the godlessness of communism at the urging of village clerics. Middle-class professionals, landowners, small shopkeepers, civil servants, royalist military officers, and businesspeople also joined the flood of refugees headed toward Pakistan and Iran.

Pakistan housed Afghan refugees in tented villages, mainly in the NWFP and Balochistan. The refugees' expenses were paid primarily by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. A Pakistani civil servant was also appointed commissioner for Afghan refugees, to administer the provision of basic services to the refugees. Pakistani officials gave the mujahideen groups an unofficial role in registering refugees upon their arrival in Pakistan, which created a linkage between access to refugee aid and membership in one of the seven mujahideen parties that Pakistan recognized. In addition to the Jamiat-e-Islami and Hizbe Islami that had been active since 1973, two other fundamentalist parties had emerged by the time U.S. and Arab aid started flowing through Pakistan. One was the Ittehad-e-Islami (Islamic Union) led by the Wahhabi cleric, Abdur Rab Rasool Sayyaf. The other was the faction of Hizbe Islami led by an elderly Pashtun theologian, Yunus Khalis, who broke away from Hekmatyar's group in 1979. In addition, there were three moderate groups led by conservative leaders who did not share the radical Islamist worldview of the Islamists. Although Pakistan allowed all seven groups to operate, it clearly favored the two factions it had worked with the longest-Jamiat-e-Islami and Hekmatyar's Hizbe Islami. Sayyaf managed to secure the sponsorship of Saudi Arabia by virtue of his affiliation with Wahhabi theology. The three moderate groups were preferred by Western diplomats and journalists, but the size of their political and military following was limited by Pakistan's refusal to give them more than a small percentage of money and arms.

One of the earliest Pakistani refugee commissioners, Abdullah, was closely linked to Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami. In a pattern similar to that followed by the ISI in dealing with the mujahideen, Abdullah worked to minimize donor influence in refugee camps. Although in principle the refugee administration had nothing to do with the jihad or military activities, the refugee camps became recruitment centers for mujahideen groups. In addition to making use of the refugees' religious and political sentiments, mujahideen recruiters could also take advantage of refugees' need for survival. Most young refugees could not find work, but they could be offered jobs as mujahideen soldiers. Over time, Pakistani officials set up the education system for refugees in a manner that converted young Afghans to the cause of jihad and the Islamist worldview. Zia ul-Haq also encouraged Islamist charities from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to build mosques and madrassas both for Afghan refugees and Pakistan's own population. As the scope of the Afghan jihad expanded, so did the influence of Islamist ideology in Pakistan. Ever mindful of the need to retain control, Zia ul-Haq made sure that Jamaat-e-Islami was not the only Pakistani party involved with the Afghan refugees and militants. One faction of the Jamiat Ulema Islam comprising clerics from the influential Deobandi school joined in the distribution of charity received from Arab countries and in the setting up madrassas. In his pan-Islamic zeal, Zia ul-Haq allowed volunteers from all over the world to come and train alongside the Afghan mujahideen. By 1984, Islamists from Morocco in North Africa to Mindanao in South Philippines had arrived in Pakistan. Some enrolled in Pakistani madrassas and at the International Islamic University at Islamabad. Others, like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (a group dedicated to an Islamic state in the Muslim areas of the Philippines) and the Rohingya Muslim Liberation Front (which sought autonomy for Burma's Muslim minority), opened offices, albeit small ones, to raise funds and issue statements for their respective causes.

These global mujahideen received grants from the Saudi-based Rabita al-Alam al-Islami. Rabita enabled members of the Arab Muslim Brotherhood to travel to Pakistan and work with both the refugees and the mujahideen. The Motamar al-Alam Islami (Muslim World Congress), another pan-Islamic network that had been founded in Pakistan in 1949 under the leadership of the former grand mufti of Palestine, Al-Haj Amin al-Husseini, established a liaison relationship with Muslim communities in Southeast Asia. Since Motamar's founding, the Pakistan government had provided it with a small annual grant. Now, with U.S. and Arab aid flowing for the Afghan jihad, Motamar's funding could be increased, and Pakistan's government handed over a large mosque in Islamabad to serve as headquarters for the Motamar. From its new headquarters, Motamar al-Alam Islami aided efforts to spread the message of jihad and of Pakistan's support for Islamic causes around the world.

The most significant person to arrive in Pakistan at the time was the Palestinian scholar Abdullah Azzam, who created the Maktab al-Khidmaat (Services Bureau) to facilitate the participation of foreign mujahideen in the Afghan jihad. Azzam cited the Quran and Hadith to remind Muslims of their obligation to assist the jihad. Osama bin Laden, scion of a prosperous Saudi business family, was one of many who were moved by Azzam's call. Azzam moved to Pakistan in 1984 and started funding the Maktab al-Khidmaat. His contributions increased the number of foreign recruits for mujahideen activities.

Western journalists reporting on Afghanistan at the time often saw only the side of the Afghan refugee relief effort that involved Western governments and nongovernmental organizations. In their reporting of the jihad, described widely as the Afghans' freedom struggle, the CIA's role was highlighted. Parallel to the U.S.-led effort on behalf of the Afghans was the operation run by the Islamists. To this day, no one knows how much money the Islamist charities raised or spent. Reliable figures are also not available for the number of foreign mujahideen who went through Pakistan at the time. The ISI was the only organization that dealt with both Western and Islamist participants in the anti-Soviet jihad.

Although Zia ul-Haq had been keen to obtain U.S. funding and weapons for his venture in Afghanistan, he had always known that U.S. objectives were different from those he had defined as Pakistan's goals. For Zia, Afghanistan marked an important turning point in Pakistan's quest for an Islamic identity at home and for leadership of the Islamic world. Although he publicly voiced his Islamist sentiments, Zia shared the full extent of what he hoped to accomplish only with a small group of confidants, one of whom, journalist Ziaul Islam Ansari, explained Zia's overarching vision:

As a Pakistani soldier and practicing Muslim, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq believed that Islamic precepts should be influential in Pakistani social life to such an extent that those seeking to move Pakistan in the direction of secularism and socialism should fail in their designs ... [In Zia ul-Haq's view] Pakistan would be turned into a self sufficient, stable and strong country with a strong position within the Islamic world, South Asia and West Asia, capable of providing strength to Islamic revivalist movements in adjoining countries and regions. This includes that region of the Far East that has become distant from us because of the loss of East Pakistan. [This Pakistani sphere of influence] comprises the region encom passing the area from Afghanistan to Turkey, including Iran and the Muslim majority states of the Soviet Union in Central Asia.' (Ziaul Islam Ansari, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq: Shakhsiat our Karnamay, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq: the man and his achievements, Lahore, 1990, p. 24.)

Ansari s description shows a Zia ul-Haq who believed that his policies of Islamization at home would strengthen Pakistan against those conspiring to move Pakistan away from Islam. By codifying Islamic principles in the country's constitution and legal system, Zia ul-Haq was paving the way for the day when "the lower rungs of society are mobilized in favor-of greater Islamization. At the same time, the Afghan jihad would make Pakistan "the instrument for the creation of an Islamic ideological regional block that would be the source of a natural Islamic revolutionary movement, replacing artificial alliances such as the Baghdad Pact. This would be the means of starting a new era of greatness for the Muslim nations of Asia and Africa.

While Zia ul-Haq pursued an ideological dream in Afghanistan, U.S. objectives were more specific and somewhat limited. In Afghanistan, the United States hoped to roll back what had been an expanding Soviet influence in the third world. For the United States, Afghanistan was just the largest in a series of covert wars-others were being fought in Nicaragua and Angola-that were meant to punish the Soviet Union and inflict a heavy cost in men, money, and prestige. The CIA estimated that Soviet costs between 1981 and 1986 in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua amounted to about $13 billion.76 Soviet casualties in Afghanistan amounted to eighteen thousand dead and numerous wounded. By contrast, the United States spent $2 billion in covert aid to the Afghan resistance between 1980 and 1989 and lost no soldiers in its proxy engagement with the Soviets.

Once the United States decided to supply sophisticated ground-toair missiles to the mujahideen in 1986, the Soviet Union's one major advantage-airpower-against the mujahideen became ineffective. The mujahideen were described as "freedom fighters" in the international media, and their successes were a symbol of Soviet humiliation. By 1987-1988, the United States had achieved its objective in Afghanistan, and the Soviets, now led by the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, were willing to negotiate a way out of their Afghan quagmire. In Pakistan, Zia ul-Haq held parliamentary elections in 1985 and appointed a civilian prime minister whom he expected to be weak and compliant. The new prime minister, Muhammad Khan Junejo, slowly extended press freedom and demanded the removal of martial law. Although Zia ul-Haq kept Junejo away from briefings about Afghanistan for almost a year," Junejo intervened in the conduct of Pakistan's foreign policy. During an official visit to the United States in 1986, Junejo indicated to his American interlocutors that he would follow the U.S. lead in a negotiated settlement of the Afghanistan issue. He also directed his Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Zaim Noorani, to forward cables from Pakistani embassies abroad to him first, before routing them to the president." Noorani, a politician like Junejo, agreed with the need to assert the civilian government's role in international relations. Zia ul-Haq was not always informed first of routine diplomatic developments.

In 1986, Juunejo also allowed Benazir Bhutto daughter of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the man Zia ul-Haq had overthrown and executed-to return to Pakistan from exile. The younger Bhutto returned home to a rapturous welcome. During her exile she had made a favorable impression on Western journalists, diplomats, and some members of the U.S. Congress. Although she was careful not to criticize After the large shipment of arms for the post-Soviet phase of the Afghan jihad had been received, Zia ul-Haq in May 1988 dissolved Parliament and dismissed Prime Minister Junejo, acts that divided the conservative political coalition Zia had put together during the decade. Even some Islamist groups, notably the Jamaat-e-Islami, did not publicly agree with what they saw as Zia ul-Haq's final power grab. Zia was politically isolated at home and unsure of U.S. support. With the ISI's help, Zia planned to hold a referendum that would give him absolute power to complete Pakistan's Islamization.' On August 17, 1988, General Zia ul-Haq and several of his key generals died in a mysterious plane crash. Those killed included the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and the architect of the Afghan jihad, General Akhtar Abdul Rahman, who had been promoted to chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, some time earlier and whom some considered Zia u-Haq's possible successor. Those who shared Zia ul-Haq's vision of an Islamized Pakistan and a forward policy of Islamic revival felt that at one stroke the Afghan mujahideen had lost their two most influential champions.

With the death of Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan's military and ISI did not give up jihad or the pursuit of strategic depth in Afghanistan. If anything, the divergence of Pakistani and U.S. interests during negotiation of the Geneva accords on Afghanistan made Pakistan's security establishment more suspicious than ever before of U.S. intentions. The numerous conspiracy theories about who killed Zia ul-Haq invariably included the United States as a possible suspect.

Islam as a factor in Pakistan's national security policy grew severalfold during the period of jihad against the Soviet Union. The much enlarged ISI-its covert operations capability enhanced tenfold became a greater factor in Pakistan's domestic and foreign policies. Pakistan's military and security services were deeply influenced by their close ties to the Islamist groups. Islamists staunchly adopted the Pakistani state's national security agenda and, in return, increasing numbers of officers accepted the Islamist view of a more religious state been involved in militant struggles for the past several decades, none of his writings openly advocated violence. Rabbani, too, in the initial stages was reluctant to convert Jamiat-e-Islami into a militia or a guerrilla army although later, after the Soviet occupation, the party became a leading band of mujahideen. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, on the other hand, from the beginning was willing to embrace radical methods. His militancy soon made him a favorite of the ISI, which was at that stage more interested in generating military pressure on Daoud's regime than in laying the foundations of a sustainable Islamic revolution in Afghanistan. The ISI also had an eye on identifying future leaders for an Afghanistan more closely linked to Pakistan. As an ethnic Pashtun, Hekmatyar seemed qualified for that role.

Between 1973 and 1977, Afghanistan and Pakistan fought what can best be described as a low-intensity proxy war. Sardar Muhammad Daoud supported rBaloch rebels in Pakistan while Pakistan backed the Afghan Islamist insurgents based in Peshawar. Accounts by Pakistani officials from that period also suggest that Pakistan's decision to back the Afghan Islamists was initiated by Bhutto in retaliation for Daoud's support to Baloch and Pashtun groups in Pakistan." The Pakistani covert operation was not merely retaliatory, however; it reflected the longer-term Pakistani interest in the affairs of Afghanistan.

The insurgency in Balochistan started soon after Bhutto dismissed the provincial government in February 1973. Sardar Daoud's coup d'état against Zahir Shah took place on July 17, 1973, and it was followed immediately by the arrival in Peshawar of Rabbani, Massoud, and Hekmatyar. The Baloch were fighting the Pakistan army before Daoud took power, and Pakistan was playing host to Afghan Islamists almost simultaneously with the proclamation of an Afghan republic. After coming to power, Daoud established training camps for Baloch rebels, training between ten and fifteen thousand tribesmen for war against Pakistan. (Arif, Working with Zia, p. 306.)

Daoud's actions on behalf of the Baloch tribesmen and his revival of propaganda for Pashtunistan may have added another reason for Pakistan to still want U.S. economic and security assistance, as it had since its inception, but its military leaders were more convinced than ever that they also needed to chart their course.

 

1. This is documented in a book by the Indian historian Parshotam Mehra, The North-West Frontier Drama, 1945-1947. 

2. Document held at the National Archives/Washington, quoted in K.E. Meyer, The Dust of Empire, 2003, p. 107

3. world-news-research.com/BalochistanIndependence.html

4. Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan (London, 1988, p. 78.)

 

 

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