CHAPTER TWO

Strange Bedfellows

Just as the previous chapter was designed to lay the framework for understanding the

circumstances and environment within which American foreign-policy decisions were made

during the Soviet–Afghan War, this second chapter has also been developed with that purpose in

mind. It is intended to provide a general overview of the foreign support given to the Mujahidin

fighters in accordance with the efforts of the United States between 1979 and 1984 and is

necessary to thoroughly understand how American foreign-policy was first established, and then

evolved over this five-year period of time. In doing so, the chapter will reveal how the Afghan

Resistance Movement received covert assistance in some form or another from a number of

foreign patrons beyond that being provided by the U.S., most significantly Pakistan, Saudi

Arabia, Egypt, and Iran. Exploring the involvement of these four countries during the war is also

important at this point in the research in that it provides a proper context for the more detailed

work to come on the United States’ role because the western Superpower relied on each nation to

a varying degree and at different times as it confronted the Soviets in Afghanistan.

As leader of the free world and one of the two primary combatants in a global Cold War

with the Soviet Union, members of the international community immediately looked for a

response from the United States following the Red Army’s latest encroachment across national

boundaries as the 1980s were beginning. In turn, the tone of the international community’s

overall reaction and response would follow the pace and course set by the Americans. On the

heels of recent Soviet incursions into both Yemen and South Africa, Soviet troops crossing over

a third country’s border only served to further convince the American government that the

Politburo no longer intended to abide by the rules of détente that had guided their relationship for

most of the decade.1 As the Carter administration’s new mindset emerged in the weeks and

months following the invasion, part of its transformation focused on solidifying the relationships

that the United States held with a number of countries who wanted to push the Red Army out of

Afghanistan just as much as they did. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran were most eager

to do so. As we are about to witness, these four countries had their own agendas towards the war

while also working with the United States in helping America carry out its chosen foreign-

polices designed to confront the Soviets.

Pakistan – Caught in the Crossfire

The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 garnered the attention of

a number of countries around the world. However, the Red Army’s incursion across

Afghanistan’s northern border impacted its neighboring Pakistan more than any other. The

Southwest Asian country witnessed their relationships with Afghanistan and the Soviet Union

change within a matter of days. Pakistan also experienced a consequential shift in their relations

with the United States and a number of Middle Eastern countries within a short period of time as

well. With that in mind, this brief examination of Pakistan’s role in the war has been provided to

offer a general understanding of how and why the nation became an indispensable component of

American foreign-policy during this five-year stretch between 1979 and 1984.

1 Hilali, U.S.–Pakistan Relationship, 150. Research is available that highlights the notion of how the United States government,

and more specifically the CIA, worked with foreign countries during the 1970s such as Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, France,

Morocco, and Iran, in what became known as the “Safari Club.” This loosely aligned group of nations attempted to combat

Soviet expansionism into Third World countries such as Yemen, South Africa, and much of Latin America. The U.S. intelligence

agency was trying to subvert Congressional oversight due to heightened scrutiny of their covert operations as evidenced in the

1975 “Church Committee” investigation into the CIA and FBI’s activities following the Watergate Scandal surrounding President

Nixon. Coll, Ghost Wars, 81 and 97.

To best understand Pakistan’s impact, it is important to realize the diplomatic outlook and

behavior of this country has historically been motivated by a variety of complex geopolitical

factors since the nation’s creation in 1947. One of particular importance that is far beyond the

scope of the research being presented here is Pakistan’s long-standing adversarial relationship

with the neighboring people of India, who in turn, have typically had favorable diplomatic

relations with the Soviet Union. Geographically located between India and China on one side

and Afghanistan and Iran on another, Pakistan found itself with some important decisions to

make as the 1980s began following the Red Army’s recent march south. Beyond the notion of

not wanting to provoke the Politburo into also invading their territory, a driving force that

influenced the Pakistani government’s conclusions on how to respond to the Soviets’ move “has

been the country’s persistent effort to seek power and security in a competitive and insecure

region.”2 This idea of trying to develop security while obtaining military and political power is

understandable when considering a few very general, but significant points that impacted

Pakistan’s foreign-policy considerations aimed toward the Soviet–Afghan War.

First and foremost, when the Politburo made the decision to invade Afghanistan, the

Iranian Revolution was still fresh on the minds of the Pakistani government and that of many

others in waiting for America to respond as the Persian nation held U.S. citizens hostage during

the final two months of 1979 and all of 1980.3 A second point accounts for the previously noted

2 Rizwan Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan, 3.

3 Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark. Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons,

(New York: Walker Publishing Company, 2007), 64. In the long road to the Iranian Revolution, the Ayatollah Ruhollah

Khomeini was exiled to Turkey in 1964 for his outspoken opposition to the nation’s leader, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and

his ‘Status of Forces’ bill that gave American forces diplomatic immunity for alleged crimes committed on the country’s soil. …

The Ayatollah briefly moved to Baghdad, Iraq in 1965 and later settled in Paris, France until 1978. The Islamic Revolutionary

Council (IRC) was secretively established during this period of time in Iran and built and underground movement waiting for

Khomeini’s return. A January 1978 newspaper article smearing the IRC’s leader set off public demonstrations in the city of Qom

against the Shah’s government and then quickly spread across the country. Marshall Law was then declared throughout the nation

after the governments’ forces fired upon and killed a number of demonstrators that fall in an event that is now a part of the

relationship between Pakistan and India and how the two neighboring countries had already

fought three wars in less than thirty years, with the former losing the most recent conflict in

1971. Finally, just as the United States was fully aware that Afghanistan was not the first nation

to be greeted with unwanted Red Army troops in recent memory, Pakistan also understood the

ramifications of having the Soviet Union’s military forces in Afghanistan as the 1980s began and

the possibility of them eventually pushing their way across its eastern border and into their

country as well. When considering Pakistan’s government had to take these points, and many

others, into account when making foreign-policy decisions that would position their nation to

have as much influence as possible over their regional environment – it is not surprising that a

large military establishment was developed within Pakistan, and that over a short period of time,

became the most powerful and dominant political institution in the country.4

So why was Pakistan motivated to work with the United States government in an effort to

combat the Soviet Union’s military occupation of Afghanistan? The complexity of thoroughly

answering this question is beyond the focus of research being presented here.5 However, briefly

country’s history known as ‘Black Friday.’ With civil unrest increasing at the beginning of 1979, the Shah and his family were

forced into exile and Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran with considerable support on February 1 after 15 years in exile himself.

A month later the Iranian military announced its neutrality to the power struggle and the Shah’s government collapsed. Khomeini

brushed aside the new Prime Minister, Mehdi Bazargan, and assumed power over the nation’s affairs. That April he proclaimed

his country was now the Islamic Republic of Iran. President Carter’s decision in October of 1979 to allow the Shah into the

United States for medical treatment was the final straw for the IRC and its supporters. They demonstrated their discontent with

the U.S. leader’s willingness to aid the recently deposed leader of Iran by overrunning the American Embassy in Tehran on

November 4. The 444 day hostage crisis that saw 52 Americans held in captivity consumed the Carter administration until the

very end of their time in office. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/tehran/etc/cron.html (Accessed: 3/19/2012)

4 Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy, 3-4.

5 It is important to point out here for the sake of providing a proper context on further discussing the diplomatic relationship

between the United States and Pakistan regarding the Soviet–Afghan War in that their foreign-policy discussions and eventual

cooperation were undertaken within a broader framework that also had the Carter administration considering the Southwest Asian

country’s aspirations of acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities. The President and his staff had their ‘hands tied’ to a certain

extent when considering a U.S. law (Symington Amendment) that was in place prohibiting the transference of American-made

armaments to a foreign country with nuclear weapons or were known to be trying to obtain them as was the case with Pakistan

during this time. Moreover, there was significant information available publicly during this period that revealed the United States

had in part helped the Pakistani’s with their progress in becoming a ‘Nuclear’ power and left the American government in a

offering some of the answers contributes to revealing how the American foreign-policy of aiding

the Afghan Resistance Movement was carried out between 1979 and beyond. In part, it can be

asserted that the Pakistani government viewed the United States as a logical choice to work with

considering the Americans were on one side of the global Cold War battle and now felt militarily

threatened by the actions of its combatant in the Soviet Union. With more concrete evidence to

support the Pakistani and American partnership, the significance of the Iranian Revolution

emerges once again. In losing the American Embassy in Tehran with the takeover, the United

States government lost two critical listening posts that it had used to not only monitor the on-

goings in Iran, but the region overall.6 Pakistan almost immediately provided America with a

new place to set up similar operations for gathering intelligence information. But there was

considerably more to the two country’s cooperation during the Soviet–Afghanistan War.

The Southwest Asian country received plenty in return for helping the United States carry

out its foreign-policy towards this conflict and America’s efforts to alter their relationship began

immediately following the Soviet’s invasion – if not earlier. In referencing the logistical aspects

of getting the U.S. provided aid to the Mujahidin forces, President Carter’s former National

Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, had a full grasp of the issue as evidenced in a December

26, 1979 memo to his boss asserting, “To make the above possible we must both reassure

Pakistan and encourage it to help the rebels. This will require a review of our policy toward

precarious position when it wanted to provide aid to the Afghan Resistance Movement. A thorough understanding of how

assisting the Mujahidin forces was just a small part of the overall larger American and Pakistani relationship that was centered on

the U.S. supplying military and economic aid to them is available by reading the aforementioned book, Deception: Pakistan, the

United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, (2007). See APPENDIX C on the economic and military aid given to

Pakistan by the United States in the form of both grants and loans between 1982 and 1987. The American’s willingness in August

1981 to provide Pakistan with a five-year aid package totally over 3.2 billion dollars is evidence of the U.S.’s commitment to this

Southwest Asian country in their joint effort to confront the Soviet’s occupation of Afghanistan during the war. This agreement

was established in 1981 and led to Pakistan rising to fourth on the list of foreign countries receiving American aid behind only

Israel, Egypt, and Turkey. Hilali, U.S.–Pakistan Relationship, 196-198.

6 Gates, From the Shadows, 128-131 and Cooley, Unholy Wars, 69.

Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid, and alas, a decision that our security policy

towards Pakistan cannot be dictated by our non-proliferation (of nuclear weapons) policy.”7

Fortunately for the Carter administration, Pakistan had just the intelligence apparatus to help

facilitate America’s logistical needs in order to aid the Afghan Resistance Movement.

After leading the charge in President Carter’s administration to establish an American foreign-policy of arming the

Afghan Resistance Movement, former U.S. National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, inspects his handiwork

with a few unidentified members of the Pakistani ISI while on a visit to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border sometime

in 1979 or 1980. Photo: http://www.infowars.com/u-s-nato-poised-for-most-massive-war-in-afghanistans-history/

(Accessed: 12/14/2011)

7 Levy and Scott-Clark, Deception, 70.

Within the Pakistani military lay the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) division.8 The ISI

has operated over the past three decades or so and played a pivotal role in implementing both the

foreign and domestic policies of the various militarily dominated regimes that have come to

power in Pakistan over this time. Specifically, prominent military General, Zia Abdul ul-Haq,

had essentially transformed the ISI into a political instrument for eliminating internal opposition

and promoting Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and India from 1977 to 1988.9 This spy network

has been responsible for a number of areas the Pakistani government deemed critical to its

national security during this same eleven-year period. Nearly all of the ISI’s middle to upper

level officers were also active military officers and responsible for the collection of foreign and

domestic intelligence, as well as surveillance over its cadre, foreigners, and the media. The

intelligence branch monitored its own diplomats serving abroad, but also watched the activity

and communications of politically active segments within their own society and the diplomats of

other countries accredited to Pakistan.10

With this last remark in mind, one can imagine how

diplomatic agreements such as the establishment of new U.S. intelligence posts within Pakistani

borders would have increased the ISI’s scrutiny on American diplomats and other representatives

serving in the country at the time.

8 APPENDIX A in Rizwan Hussain’s, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan, (249-252) provides a

thorough account of the ISI’s structure including an ‘Organizational Chart’ of the intelligence branch’s responsibilities and the

overall role it plays for the Pakistani government. Of particular interest is Hussain’s commentary on the network’s establishment

of what he called an Afghanistan Cell in order to coordinate the activities of the Afghan Resistance Movement.

9 Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy in Afghanistan, 249. Additionally, Army General Zia Abdul ul-Haq

(1924-1988) became the leader of Pakistan in 1979 with the deposing of then President, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, by order of hanging

and the introduction of martial law over the country. General Zia’s authoritarian rule over Pakistan lasted for eleven years before

his death in a still unexplained plane crash during the final stages of the Soviet–Afghan War. The General’s rule was the longest

in Pakistan’s brief history and had ties to his birthplace in Jullundur, Pakistan – now a part of Indian Punjab – as others within his

administration such as fellow Generals Akhtar Abdur Rahman and K. M. Arif were also from here. As the leader of America’s

most important partner in aiding the Afghan Resistance Movement, General Zia’s willingness to work with both the Carter and

Reagan administrations was critical to the success of U.S. foreign-policy aimed towards the Soviet–Afghan War, not only in the

beginning, but throughout the entire conflict. Iftikhar Malik, The History of Pakistan, (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group,

2008), 159-170.

10 Hussain, Pakistan and the Emergence of Islamic Militancy, 250.

After all, the Pakistani ISI quickly came to regard itself as the command center of the

Afghan Resistance Movement’s efforts. According to several authors who have written on

Pakistan’s overall role in the war, the ISI received the bulk of the weapons and other material

support landing somewhere in the Afghan Frontier as it poured in from the United States, Saudi

Arabia, Egypt, Iran, China, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and elsewhere.11

While most

authors failed to provide an understanding of the intricacies on how the supply-chain worked,

some have taken the time to outline the sophistication of this complex transport system. Beyond

the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas, aid to the Mujahidin forces made its way into

Afghanistan as the CIA also directed the flow of financial and material support into Pakistan via

the port of Karachi or on occasion, had it flown into Islamabad. Once on the ground in one of

these two cities, the ISI took responsibility for distributing the aid and did so by the truckload to

depots that were controlled by the various Afghan Resistance groups after initially storing them

at their warehouse in Rawalpindi – the location of the ISI’s headquarters responsible for

monitoring the situation as it unfolded across the border.12

Despite the continuous threat of the

Soviet Union turning some of its attention across Pakistan’s borders, it is now clear that the ISI

was carrying out its government’s foreign-policy toward the war by assisting the fighters at a

time and place of their choosing as, “They picked out targets, planned operations, and then

rewarded commanders for carrying them out all the while claiming their strategy was one

11 The borderland area between Afghanistan and Pakistan is often times referred to as the Afghan Frontier. The most well-known

area of the borderland is known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and is in large part controlled by tribal

customs and relatively autonomous from either country. The FATA consists of seven different tribal areas called ‘agencies’ and

was typically the ‘central hub’ during the war in which all aid and supplies would flow through on their way to various

destinations within the two nations. Edwards, Before Taliban, 76, 161, and his “Introduction” (1-21) discussing the significance

of a book he previously wrote entitled, Heroes of the Age: Moral Fault Lines on the Afghan Frontier, (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1996).

12 Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 196-197.

designed to inflict maximum damage on the Soviet’s Red Army.”13

Finally, as we will also see

later, this system of funneling weapons and material support through the ISI provided the covert

entity with ample opportunity to siphon off what they wanted to keep in gratitude of their foreign

patrons, before sending the rest off to the various groups of Mujahidin forces.14

The Pakistani and American intelligence agencies relationship became more and more

cooperative as the 1980s began to unfold. The ISI’s leader during the war, General Abdur Aktar

Rahman, and CIA Director William Casey exchanged visits between 1981 and 1982 in order to

coordinate what has been described as ‘psychological’ warfare plans against the Soviet Union.

The spy chiefs also established a line of communications between the intelligence networks of

the two countries during these meetings in order to monitor the movements and operations of the

Red Army before sharing that information with one another.15

Just as importantly, it is relevant

to note how the Kremlin was keenly aware of the role the ISI had assumed on behalf of its own

territorial considerations and the geopolitical interests of the United States and others by this

time as witnessed in one highly revealing declassified Soviet memo dated October 2, 1980. The

report was assembled by Soviet Defense Minister Ustinov and given to the Central Committee of

the Soviet Union (mainly members of the Politburo) with the title, “Foreign Interference in

Afghanistan.” A summary of the detailed information highlights accusations of how the United

States and its NATO allies, as well as China, Pakistan, Iran, and a number of ‘reactionary’ Arab

countries had launched subversive actions against the Soviet-backed DRA immediately after its

ascension to power, and then stepped up their efforts following the Red Army’s incursion across

13 Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 201.

14 Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 218.

15 Hilali, U.S.–Pakistan Relationship, 118. It should also be noted here that the important roles of both ISI Director Abdur Aktar

Rahman and CIA Director William Casey will become clearer in the final chapters of this work.

the border. The report then goes on to claim the most consequential action taking place against

Soviet forces was in Pakistan where, “Armed detachments of Afghan reactionaries are being

trained at 42 sites in which over 60,000 fighters have learned combat skills with the help of

American, Chinese, Pakistani, and Egyptian instructors.”16

Ustinov went on to denounce specific entities in which he claimed were currently acting

against the Soviet Union as his report was being assembled. It contended the American

instructors were coming from a Washington-based “International Police Academy” and a Texas-

based school of subversion. Beyond accusing the United States of training operatives at home

before sending them to the frontlines, the memo further proclaimed their Cold War rivals were

also planning actions against Soviet policy within the United States itself. According to the

KGB’s intelligence at the time, the CIA helped establish the “Association of American Aid to

Afghan Refugees,” the “National Liberation Front of Afghanistan,” the “Unity Council,” and the

“Committee for Solidarity in Organizing the Liberation of Afghanistan” all within American

borders – and each designed to coordinate the actions of the Resistance Movement while

providing them with as much monetary and material support as possible. Finally, the report

concluded with an affirmative statement on the Politburo’s perspective of foreign interference in

claiming: “The United States, beyond all others, is thwarting efforts to normalize the situation in

Afghanistan.”17

Yet without the help of Pakistani government officials, the country’s intelligence branch,

and just as importantly, its territory, America would not have been able to aid the Afghan

Resistance Movement in the manner that it did between 1979 and 1984. Both President Carter

16 Cold War International History Project, “Interference in Afghanistan,” October 2, 1980, 71-72.

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/e-dossier_4.pdf (Accessed: 2/23/2010)

17 Cold War International History Project, “Interference in Afghanistan,” October 2, 1980, 71-72.

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/e-dossier_4.pdf (Accessed: 2/23/2010)

and President Reagan needed the authorization of Pakistani General Zia, his ISI’s logistical

capabilities, and the nation’s land so that the money and material support could be organized and

then sent off to the various groups of Mujahidin fighters. Pakistan’s fears surrounding the

possibility of the Soviet Union expanding its military operations into their borders led them to

become an active participate in the chosen foreign-policies of the United States during this time

and ultimately provided the foundation for America’s success in aiding the Soviets’ opposition

throughout the war. In fact, as we will see in the next chapter, the U.S.’s policies essentially

became whatever Pakistan wanted them to be in many cases. It should also be noted that

Pakistan would have likely helped the Afghan Resistance Movement even without the

American’s willingness to do so. However, the two nation’s diplomatic and covert cooperation

proved essential to the opposition forces ability to confront the Soviet’s Red Army over the long

course of the war.

Saudi Arabia – Money, Training, and Ideology

Determining the full extent of Saudi Arabia’s involvement and exactly why they

supported the Afghan Resistance Movement is beyond the reach of this work’s focus on U.S.

foreign-policy during the war’s first five years. However, examining the Saudis’ role in this

conflict is relevant here because America’s diplomatic relationship with the Arab nation took a

dramatic turn in the early part of 1980 as a result of the previous year’s Iranian Revolution and

the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Both climatic events, for different reasons, brought

the governments of the United States and Saudi Arabia closer together.18

As we will see here

18 The coordinated efforts of the United States and Saudi Arabia to aid the Afghan Resistance in their fight against the Soviets

took place within a larger framework and diplomatic relationship between the two countries. Despite a tenuous partnership at

and in following chapters, the two countries diplomatic cooperation focused on covertly getting

as much money as possible into the war zone even though both nations knowingly lost control

over most of the cash the moment it reached Pakistan. The partnership between the two nations

also did its part in providing the Mujahidin’s forces with a steady flow of trained volunteers who

were anxious to enter the war.

Saudi Arabia’s relationship with both Afghanistan and Pakistan was significantly altered

in light of the Red Army’s incursion as well. Its relevance to the United States’ goals for the war

in the early part of 1980 immediately becomes clear when considering the Saudi government

had, “No coherent policy towards Afghanistan, though it was putting its whole political and

financial weight behind the Resistance Movement.”19

After the Red Army’s move south, the

Saudis quickly began to develop a coordinated plan of assistance with the Carter administration

in essentially following the American’s lead. Their government also just considered itself to be

following through with a tradition they shared with the Persian Gulf States and some of the other

Muslim countries who believed in supporting nations that were fighting for their independence

or autonomy from non-Muslim rule whenever the situation or circumstances arose.20

times, the U.S. and Saudi governments have long-standing political and economic agreements dating back to the 1930s due in

large part to the discovery of Middle Eastern oil supplies in the region during this time. The Saudi’s willingness to supply the

American’s with a much needed energy source during the U.S.’s involvement in World War II opened the door for their much

larger 50/50 sharing agreement in 1950 between the Arab government and a conglomeration of American-based private oil

companies. The Arab American Oil Company’s (Aramco) immediate relevance on a global stage led to Saudi Arabia becoming a

major supplier of oil to the U.S. and rest of the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s due to a variety of reasons including the

closure of the Trans-Arabian pipeline through the Suez Canal in 1967 during the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War and the ‘Oil Crisis’

surrounding the 1973 Arab-Israeli War or Yom Kippur War. The United States and Saudi Arabia also have a military arrangement

dating back to the 1940s and the Arab nation’s inclusion into America’s lend-lease aid agreement with their allies during World

War II. It continued with the dawning of the Cold War in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but their relationship did not reach its

full potential until 1963 when the Saudi Defense Ministry started to work closely with the U.S. Military Training Mission

(USMTM) in developing a comprehensive military re-organizational plan called the Saudi Armed Forces Defense Plan No. 1 in

which the U.S. Army and Army National Guard would heavily influence the structuring of Saudi Arabia’s national security

forces. David E. Long, The United States and Saudi Arabia: Ambivalent Allies, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985), 10-66.

19 Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 212.

20 Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 224.

The Saudi Arabian government as a whole, and its main external spy apparatus, the

General Intelligence Department (GID), in particular, were galvanized by the Red Army’s

invasion in late 1979. Additionally, Saudi leaders embraced the United States’ perspective that

Pakistan had become the frontline state in confronting worldwide Soviet expansion following the

invasion. On this point, even though the GID played a limited role in the Pakistani and Saudi

Arabian relationship before the combat started – the Middle Eastern intelligence branch became

indispensable to the ISI and their efforts to aid the Afghan Resistance Movement after the Red

Army’s encroachment across another Muslim country’s borders.21

With former National

Security Advisor Brzezinski leading the Carter Administration’s decision to aid the Afghan

Resistance Movement, the Saudi’s GID was also instrumental to helping the CIA carry out

America’s chosen foreign-policy of confronting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

The General Intelligence Department was led by Prince Turki al-Faisal, who worked with

both the ISI and CIA while overseeing Saudi Arabia’s part in providing money, arms, and

volunteer soldiers to the Afghan frontier. In part, Prince Turki’s viewpoints help explain the

Saudis’ willingness to confront the Soviet Union in feeling the Red Army’s move south was an

attempt to establish strategic parity with the U.S. in the Middle East region. He figured the

Soviets were trying to obtain more control over the world’s oil prices by installing proxy

communist parties and other leftist movements wherever they could. With both Saudi Arabia

and the United States in agreement that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was the

central battlefield for confronting Soviet expansion, Prince Turki and U.S. Senator Bill Bradley

spoke on April 13, 1980 regarding how the two countries could work together to do so. From

that exchange, the Saudi Prince felt, “Pakistan offered the best path to confront Soviet ambitions,

21 Coll, Ghost Wars, 72-73.

and that if aid going to the rebels was funneled through the ISI – it could be very helpful in

strengthening Pakistan as a regional ally for his Sunni-based nation.”22

In hindsight, this meeting marks a very significant point in the United States’ foreign-

policy during the five-year period under study. Although the next two chapters will thoroughly

examine the American’s foreign-policy decisions aimed toward the war between 1979 and 1984,

this interaction between officials within the U.S. and Saudi governments appears to represent one

of the first identifiable points in time in which the Carter administration came to a specific

agreement with another foreign country in their efforts to oppose the growing Soviet influence in

Afghanistan – four month after the conflict started. President Carter had previously made

statements to the public that U.S. aid was coming, but now evidence was emerging that steps

were actually being taken to make it happen.

Massoud (Center-Left) and Hekmatyar (Center-Right) meet with a Saudi Representative. Photo: http://www.afghanistanonlineforums.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1215025833

(Accessed: 11/2/2011)

22 Coll, Ghost Wars, 81 and Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 196. Prince Turki admits to his own role in working with

both the CIA and ISI to aid the Mujahidin forces during an interview that is part of overall larger video entitled, “The Saudi

Question” and was produced in 2004 by Anthony Makin. The video is available at PBS.org and a link is provided here.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/the-saudi-question/introduction/939/ (Accessed: 9/22/2011)

Saudi Arabia was willing to match the American’s economic support to the Afghan

Resistance Movement dollar for dollar – and did so almost from the very beginning. In July

1980, just months after his meeting with Senator Bradley, Prince Turki reached a formal

agreement with the CIA to match the American Congress’s funding for the Mujahidin forces.23

The Saudi government then used its GID to help facilitate the disbursement of funds into the fray

while often concerning itself only with its own interests by using religious charities to support its

favored Afghan commanders who were outside the ISI or CIA’s control with money, equipment,

and other supplies.24

This notion of acting in one nation’s own self-interest sounds familiar

when returning to Pakistan’s involvement in the conflict for a moment. Whether it was the ISI or

the Saudi Arabian GID – the CIA, as the main facilitator of U.S. foreign-policy during the war,

appears to have been severely limited in this aspect regarding what it could control once their

covert handlers disbursed the aid to their foreign contacts.

The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 caught the attention of Saudi

Arabia’s deeply entrenched religious establishment. So when the GID conducted operations on

its own or coordinated its activities with the Pakistani and American intelligence agencies, the

Arab spy network looked to their countries numerous mosques and religious organizations for

support. It was here that the covert organization found a basis for helping them facilitate the

recruiting and training efforts of Saudi Arabia’s endless supply of devoutly religious volunteers

willing to make the trek into the war zone with hopes of joining the fight against the Red

Army.25

The GID used two logistical sources to help them facilitate support to the Mujahidin

23 Coll, Ghost Wars, 81-82.

24 Coll, Ghost Wars, 82 and 86.

25 It should be pointed out here that the men who joined the volunteer fighters along the Afghan Frontier from Saudi Arabia and

elsewhere became known as the “Afghan Arabs” during this conflict. They have been defined as radical Islamists who were

mostly of Arab nationality and gained their military experience during the Soviet–Afghan War before then returning to their

fighters. One, the Muslim World League, (MWL) was led by the leader of the Saudi religious

establishment, Sheikh Abd al-Aziz bin Baz.26

Sheikh Baz was a former Vice-President at the

Islamic University of Medina and closely tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. While at the

University, Baz indoctrinated non-Saudi students coming from all over the world, including

many of whom were refugees that had left their suffering on the Afghan and Pakistani border to

embark on religious training in Saudi Arabia before then traveling back home to join the war.27

The second logistical source behind Saudi support to the Afghan Resistance introduces

Abdullah Azzam and the Islamic Coordination Council into the fray. As the Council’s leader,

Azzam oversaw Arab volunteers working for the Muslim World League while facilitating their

activities through the ICC as financial support from several Middle Eastern countries poured into

their coffers and was then later dispersed to the Mujahidin forces.28

In doing so, Prince Turki

and other Saudi officials only contact with the fighters was through private individuals or

intermediaries such as future and former Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden who was born in

Yemen and grew up in Saudi Arabia, and Afghani native, Abdur Rasul Sayyaf, who was also

linked to the Wahhabi preaching movement after previously studying at the Al-Azhar University

in Cairo, Egypt, as well as in Mecca.29

The Wahhabis’ movement was just one of the many

home countries with the intention of toppling the government and establishing an “Islamic State.” The actual number of fighters

making their way to war zone and taking part in the combat during this time is disputed and unknown. However it is estimated

that 5,000 men with these intentions in the late 1980s and early 1990s were from Saudi Arabia, another 3,000 came from Yemen,

and around 2,000 made the trek from Egypt during the first part of the war. It is also estimated there were 2,800 Algerians, 400

Tunisians, 370 Iraqis, and another 200 fighters from Libyan. Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, 3rd ed., 25.

26 Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 197.

27 Robert Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, (New York: Henry Holt and

Company, 2005), 128 and Chaliand and Blin, The History of Terrorism, 274-275.

28 Rubin, Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 197. See APPENDIX A for more information on Abdullah Azzam and Osama Bin

Laden and their overall significance to the Afghan Resistance Movement. Although Azzam is often overlooked by the historical

accounts of Bin Laden, the native Palestinian has often been described as his mentor and a forefather to the existing war radical

Islam is waging against the Western world and others the Islamists have deemed apostates to their own version of the religion.

29 Wahhabism dates back to the 18th century reformist/revivalist movement for socio-moral reconstruction of Muslim society.

Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was the founder and started the movement by proclaiming tawhid (uniqueness and unity of God)

strands of Islam having an impact on the warzone as it slowly, but surely spread to the border of

Afghanistan and Pakistan as the Arab nation’s volunteer fighters continually shared the message

to countless numbers of refugees who were then offered an opportunity to study at the Wahhabi

madrasas back home in Saudi Arabia.30

The success of U.S. foreign-policy towards the Soviet–Afghan War was intertwined with

the Saudi Arabian government’s common desire to aid the Afghan Resistance Movement. As

such, it has been important to examine their joint efforts because the Arab nation’s willingness to

monetarily match the Carter, and then later, Reagan administration’s support to the Mujahidin

dollar for dollar certainly helped the transformation of American foreign-policy that took place

between 1979 and 1984. So did the GID’s coordinated dealings with the CIA to send arms and

thousands of religiously inspired soldiers with training onto the battlefield. In light of the

extensive cooperation between the two country’s intelligence branches, Congressman Charlie

Wilson was able to come along in the early part of the 1980s to build upon the previous efforts of

former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, as we are about to see in the

following chapter, created a foundation for working with Saudi Arabia and others during his last

year or so in office working under President Carter. Both NSA Brzezinski and Congressman

Wilson, in their own unique ways, were determined to change the course of history – and the

as its primary doctrine in response to the perceived moral decline and political weakness of the Muslim community in Arabia.

Wahhabis’ followers proposed a return to an idealized Islamic past through reassertion of monotheism and reliance on the Quran

and hadith, while rejecting medieval interpretations of Islam and jurisprudence. Wahhabism is known for its emphasis on

education and knowledge to be used as weapons against non-believers. Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt was founded in 969

and 970, and it is speculated that the school was named after the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatimah “al-Zahra” (the

brilliant), as an ancestor to the founders of Egypt. The university adopted modern standards of higher education in 1961 with

programs in agriculture, engineering, medicine, commerce, science, and education. Outside of Egypt, Al-Azhar University is

known as a champion of Sunni Islam and the Arabic language. Mecca is located in Saudi Arabia and considered to be the holiest

city of Islam. It is also the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, and as such, the city is the destination each year for thousands

of Muslims each year during the annual pilgrimage to worship at the Kaaba. Esposito, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, 333, 32,

and 198.

30 Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 212.

Saudi Kingdom’s money, training camps, and ideology would help them do it over the course of

events between 1979 and 1984.

Egypt – Armaments, Academia, and Air Bases

The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan brought the Egyptian and American

governments, and more specifically their intelligence organizations, closer together as the 1980s

began. Yet, it was President Carter’s sponsoring of the Camp David Accords in 1978, as part of

a three-year conciliation process between Egypt and Israel that paved the way for the enhanced

cooperation between the Arab nation and the United States once the Soviet–Afghan War started.

It is important to briefly explore this Middle Eastern country’s role in the conflict because Egypt

played a significant part in not only providing guns and ammo to the Afghan Resistance, but they

also offered a safe landing zone across the Atlantic Ocean for American-supplied aid that would

later make its way into the hands of the Mujahidin. In addition, this Arab nation’s intelligence

apparatus, the General Directorate for State Security Investigations (GDSSI) worked with the

CIA in a joint effort to recruit and train many of those who eventually made their way onto the

battlefield.31

Although many of these volunteers came from a number of countries around the

world, many were native Egyptians or students at Al-Azhar University who came to realize that

they wanted nothing more than to travel to Afghanistan in order to join the jihad against the

Soviets.

31 The General Directorate for State Security Investigations (GDSSI) was Egypt’s main spy organization during both the Anwar

Sadat and Hosni Mubarak years of rule over the country while playing a major role in helping the United States carry out its

foreign-policy during the Soviet–Afghan War. The GDSSI was responsible for the collection of foreign and domestic intelligence

while serving as the State’s main instrument for cracking down on internal political dissent within its borders during the time

under study in this thesis, and is still part of the Egyptian government today.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/egypt/ssis.htm (Accessed: 12/8/2011)

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and his regime were the most outspoken of any foreign

country in regards to their willingness to provide aid to the Afghan Resistance Movement.32

Sadat even talked openly about supplying weapons to the Mujahidin fighters during a publicly

broadcasted interview on September 22, 1981 – just days before he was assassinated. In the

open pronouncement, the Egyptian President revealed that the United States had contacted him

soon after the Soviet invasion. According to his recollection, “America told him to open up his

stores so that they could give the Afghanis the armaments they needed to fight.” He then

answered presumably the next question by simply stating, “I gave the armaments.”33

The signing of the U.S. sponsored Arab-Israeli Peace Agreement between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat (left) and Israel’s

Menachim Begin (right), with U.S. President Jimmy Carter (center) on March 26, 1979. Photo: http://thespicebazaar.wordpress.com/2011/06/ (Accessed: 12/14/2011)

It is apparent why the United States wanted to foster an enhanced relationship with Egypt

once the Red Army invaded Afghanistan in late December 1979. Following a reconciliation of

32 Anwar Sadat (1918-1981) came to power in Egypt with the death of President Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser (1918-1970) in

September 1970. Before his death, Nasser had been an officer in the Egyptian Army, then the country’s Prime Minister prior to

becoming its President in 1956. Sadat was also an Egyptian Army officer and politician before his assassination on October 6,

1981 by members of the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in large part to his signing of the Arab-Israeli Peace Treaty

just a few years earlier. Sadat, Anwar, Anwar el-Sadat: In Search of an Identity, (New York: Harper-Collins Publishing, 1978).

33 Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 223, Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 214, and Cooley, Unholy Wars,

34-35.

the two nation’s diplomatic relations in 1974, America needed allies in the regions surrounding

the combat zone that could offer the kind of logistical support necessary for the U.S. to carry out

its chosen foreign-policies aimed toward the war.34

Under the larger umbrella of the Cold War,

the Carter administration knew that Egypt held a large stockpile of Soviet-made weapons dating

back to the 1950s when the Soviet Union first attempted to enhance their own diplomatic

relationships and overall influence in a number of Middle Eastern countries as a result of their

burgeoning struggle against the United States.35

The Americans’ efforts began shortly after a

trip to Egypt in January 1980 by National Security Advisor, Brzezinski. Egypt gave the United

States government its full cooperation following this meeting as President Sadat agreed to

provide the U.S. Air Force with an opportunity to use the Middle Eastern nation as a base in

cities like Qena and Aswan for stockpiling arms to eventually be funneled to the Mujahidin

fighters.36

With the oldest and most experienced military establishment in the Arab world at the

time, President Sadat viewed the American response to the fall of the Iranian Shah and the Soviet

Union’s invasion of Afghanistan as timid. With an outlook of this nature, the Egyptian leader

was apparently willing to do what he could to help the Afghan Resistance Movement combat the

Red Army’s forces. This is evident when considering Sadat ordered his nation to begin

34 The United States and Egypt resumed cordial diplomatic relations in 1974 following years of growing discord between the two

countries in light of America’s support for Israel since the Jewish nation’s inception in 1948. The developing divide between the

U.S. and Egypt came to a head in 1958 when the Arab nation greatly reduced its trade dependence on the West in shifting many

of its exports to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. When considering America supported Israel and the Soviets provided

material support to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria during the Six–Day War of 1967, it is interesting to note how the Soviet’s invasion

of Afghanistan a little over ten years later brought the U.S. and Egypt closer once again. John Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser

and Sadat: the Political Economy of Two Regimes, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983), 395.

35 The Soviet Union attempted to develop better relationships with Middle Eastern countries during the early to mid-1950s as the

global Cold War began to take hold in order to lessen the American’s influence in the region. Waterbury, The Egypt of Nasser

and Sadat, 391-404.

36 Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 274-275 and Cooley, Unholy Wars, 32.

manufacturing spare parts and ammunition so they could be added to the supply of Soviet-made

weaponry being exported to the front lines of the war. The armaments and other supplies Egypt

was funneling to the Afghan Resistance Movement usually traveled from his country to Pakistan

via cargo planes.37

The Pakistani ISI knew what to do with it from there.

In addition to reaching an agreement that provided weaponry and other assistance to the

Mujahidin forces, the United States and Egypt also agreed to make a coordinated effort to use the

Middle Eastern country’s academic and religious institutions, overall population, and its soil for

recruiting and training members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other volunteers already living

in Egypt.38

Some within the American government realized that despite being part of President

Sadat’s biggest opposition, Egypt’s enlisting of radical Islamic leaders or recruiters such as the

previously noted Professor Ghulam Muhammad Niazi, and then later Ayman al-Zawahiri, were a

key to raising a volunteer army of mercenaries to fight the Soviet’s military. With the Egyptian

leader apparently undeterred by this necessity of appealing to his country’s academic and

religious institutions as 1980 came to a close, Sadat welcomed the presence of U.S. Special

Forces to recruit and train members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other volunteers who then

traveled to Afghanistan to fight in the war.39

Eventually the Egyptian government tried to distance itself from President Sadat’s earlier

remarks about openly supplying aid to the Afghan Resistance Movement despite the nation’s full

intentions of doing so. Following his assassination, Egypt’s Defense and War Production

Minister, General Kamal Hassan Ali, was interviewed and asked how the President’s death

37 Farr and Merriam, Afghan Resistance, 80-81. Farr and Merriam’s research cites the work of David Hirst and Irene Beeson’s

book, Sadat, (Faber and Faber Publishing, 1981), 345 and 348.

38 Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 274.

39 Cooley, Unholy Wars, 31-32 and Dreyfus, Devil’s Game, 274-275. See APPENDIX A for more information on the early role

and overall long-term impact of Ayman al-Zawahiri as an Egyptian medical doctor making his way to Afghanistan during the

early years of the war.

would impact their country’s assistance to the Mujahidin fighters. General Ali expressed

sympathy for the situation and people in Afghanistan, but at the same time however, he offered

only evasive comments on whether or not the Egyptians were still providing support to the

Soviet Army’s opposition. Instead of echoing Sadat’s publicly stated policy that they would

provide weapons if needed; the General proclaimed, “The Afghan people have asked for help

from the United States. We are against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. If the Afghan

people request such facilities from the United States, the situation would be different.” When the

Defense and War Minister was pressed further and asked about whether or not shipments of arms

were on their way to the war zone; and whether or not any contacts were held with officials in

Afghanistan concerning the training of Afghan volunteers in Egypt - he responded on both

accounts, “I have no comment.”40

General Ali was next asked about the Minister of State’s pronouncement that Egypt was

studying the notion of providing military aid to Afghanistan. In his response, the General replied

that, “He could not speak for Mansur Hansan (Minister of State) and I do not want to enter into

details. The offer stands, and we are fully convinced that what happened was a Soviet occupation

of Afghanistan.”41

In hindsight, this steadfast pronouncement of support for the Afghan

Resistance by some of the remaining leaders of the Egyptian government following Sadat’s

death is a significant indicator of how strongly the Arab nation felt about the Red Army’s

aggressive move south. At the same time, it leads one to assume that had the United States and

Egypt not decided to work together in aiding the Mujahidin, the Middle Eastern country would

have still found a way to impact the war with its steady stream of Muslim men going back and

40

Farr and Merriam, Afghan Resistance, 81.

41 Farr and Merriam, Afghan Resistance, 81.

forth between the al-Azhar University in Cairo and the University of Kabul in Afghanistan. In

addition, based on the remarks of General Ali following Sadat’s death, one could also assert that

Egypt would have used its GDSSI to get their nation’s stockpile of Soviet-made weaponry to the

fighters without assistance from the United States.

Still, Egypt’s significance to the establishment and eventual transformation of American

foreign-policy towards the Soviet–Afghan War between 1979 and 1984 has been worthy of

further exploration because the United States needed countries such as this to provide them with

a way to carry out their plans of aiding the Mujahidin forces. The Carter and Reagan

administrations also required a partnership with a nation such as Egypt to help them plausibly

deny that it had become an American foreign-policy during the conflict to recruit, train, and arm

Islamic fundamentalists in their fight against the Soviet Union’s Red Army. The Egyptian

government, the nation’s intelligence network, and the Al-Azhar University led academic and

religious establishment offered the United States such an opportunity to do so.

Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.

Photo: http://cir.au.dk/en/ (Accessed: 12/14/2011)

Iran – An Ill-Fated Alliance

The evidence supporting Iran’s involvement in the Soviet–Afghan War is sparse and

somewhat conflicting amongst the authors who have written on this aspect of the overall topic.

However, the research that is accessible surrounding the Persian nation’s relationship with the

United States in helping America carry out its foreign-policy towards the conflict is worthy of a

brief discussion because doing so will provide further context to the final two chapters of this

work. With a chance to confront the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, many within the Carter

administration were willing to use any and all means available regardless of the notion that Iran

was holding American hostages if doing so would help the U.S. provide assistance to the

Resistance Movement and protect the Western nation’s access to oil.42

News reports that Iran

and the United States were collaborating to assist the Mujahidin forces emerged as early as 1980.

Many of the stories emanating specifically from Afghanistan’s western neighbor claimed the

CIA was covertly working with their nation to help the American spooks train fighters despite

the diplomatic strife between the two countries following the Iranian Revolution and Khomeini’s

ascension to power.43

Of all the research conducted for this thesis on U.S. foreign-policy

42 A memo reveals statements made by President Carter during a White House Briefing to members of Congress on January 8,

1980 regarding both the situation in Iran surrounding the overthrow of the Embassy and holding of American hostages, as well as

the Soviet Union’s recent invasion of Afghanistan less than two weeks earlier. Within the remarks, it is interesting to note how

the Carter administration claims it was unable to find anyone to seriously negotiate with inside the Iranian government regarding

the release of the hostages. The memo further points out that to the best of the administration’s calculations – each time it had

reached out through various channels – the recently installed Khomeini regime was in no hurry to negotiate and the terrorists who

actually held the U.S. citizen’s captive seemed to hold sway over the new Persian leaders anyway. Yonah Alexander and Allan

Nanes, Editors, The United States and Iran: A Documentary History, (Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America,

1980), 494-495.

43 Author Henry Bradsher cites the Iran Times printed on January 8, 1980, as well as the Pravda and Izvestiya newspapers from

the Soviet Union, dated June 25, 1980 and January 17, 1980 respectively. Bradsher, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union, 222.

towards the war, this point over all others, stands alone as the most surprising piece of

information to emerge and speaks volumes about the Iranian’s apprehensive perspective of

having the Soviet Union’s military so close to its own borders while occupying Afghanistan. Yet

one such account notes how an Iranian newspaper published a June 30, 1980 report claiming,

“At least fourteen bases had been set up in Iran and that over 1,200 men could be trained at any

one period.” The story further mentions a number of groups by name being supported by Iran

and asserts, “These counterrevolutionary groups, most notably Yunus Khales’ Islamic Party of

Afghanistan, are treacherous and mercenary – and serving the U.S. interests.”44

At the same time however, Iran only provided support to the burgeoning Resistance

Movement to the point that it allowed the heads of Shia-led Muslim groups to set up offices

within their borders. Iran’s role in the war also reminds those interested in this topic of how

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt all considered their own interests first in that, “The goal Iran

seemed to be pursuing was one designed to strengthen its control over Shia minorities within

Afghanistan in hopes of using them as pawns for a regional expansion of power and influence.”45

As we are about to witness, this was indeed the self-serving intentions of the Iranian government

during the conflict and their efforts to do so may have even started a year or so earlier – before

the Khomeini Revolution came to a climactic end with demonstrators storming the U.S.

Embassy. The Herat uprising that occurred in 1979, which is worth noting took place just days

before the Egypt–Israel Peace Agreement was signed on March 26, led to the Iranian regime

supporting a change in its foreign-policy towards the situation in Afghanistan from that point

44 Philip Bonosky. Afghanistan: Washington’s Secret War, (International Publishers, 1985, 1st ed.), 181.

45 Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, 213.

on.46

These assertions are supported from information available in declassified material

provided by the National Security Archive. In a document dated on July 11, 1985, the

American’s intelligence report confirms that Iran’s involvement with the Mujahidin fighters

began at the very least once the Iranian Revolution witnessed a new regime taking over control

of the country. The document also highlights how the Soviet invasion was not the impetus for

Iranian support, but rather it was the Afghan Shiites living in Afghanistan who were affected by

the 1979 spring revolt that led to the Persian nation’s change in policy.47

The report additionally highlights how Iran aided Sunni-led fundamentalist groups that

were amongst the Mujahidin forces in the early months of 1980 until halfway through 1982. It

points out that an unspecified number of M-1 and G-3 rifles, land mines, shoulder-fired antitank

rockets, heavy machine-guns, uniforms, and boots were all supplied to a least Gulbuddin

Hekmatyar’s forces for operations he was conducting in the southern region of Afghanistan.

However, the memo additionally claims that their impartial support caused internal strife among

the Shia-led groups and severely weakened the overall Resistance Movement’s efforts in the

central and western provinces of Afghanistan. Finally, it goes on to reveal how Iran had decided

to sever its ties to the Sunni-based Mujahidin groups operating out of Peshawar by the middle

part of 1983 in light of their heavy interaction and reliance on the West for support. In

accordance with this point, the declassified report reveals that Iran was giving only limited

material support to the Shiite groups as the conflict in Afghanistan progressed as a result of

weapons and ammunitions shortages due to their own on-going war with Saddam Hussein’s

46 Cooley, Unholy Wars, 100-101.

47 The National Security Archive. “Volume II: Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War,” Defense Intelligence Agency, "Iranian

Support to the Afghan Resistance," July 11, 1985 (Document 7). http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/us.html

(Accessed: 9/19/2010)

neighboring Iraq.48

Prominent Afghanistan expert Rosanne Klass asserted the divisiveness of the

Afghan Resistance groups and the split between the Sunni and Shia sects of the Muslim religion,

as well as the impact of the Iran-Iraq War consequently reduced the Persian nation’s interest and

ability to help the opposition forces confront the Soviets.49

Having spent years in Afghanistan

during the 1960s and 1970s working first as an English teacher and then later as a humanitarian

for a non-profit organization, Klass goes on to claim, “Iranian attempts at using aid as an

instrument for controlling and influencing the direction of the Resistance proved in the end to be

destructive and self-defeating.”50

The U.S. and Iranian partnership focused on helping the Afghan Resistance Movement

fight the Soviet Union was a tenuous one to say the least considering its formulation after the

Khomeini Revolution and the Persian nation’s subsequent holding of American hostages during

the first year or so of the war. However, the idea that the two countries continued to maintain a

covert relationship in order to aid the Mujahidin forces while the Carter administration attempted

to negotiate their release continues to surprise and serves to further highlight the precarious

situation that both the United States and Iranian governments considered themselves to be in

with the Soviet Union’s military occupying Afghanistan as the 1980s began.

48 The National Security Archive. “Volume II: Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War,” (Document 7).

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/us.html (Accessed: 9/19/2010)

49 Klass, Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited, 219.

50 Klass, Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited, 220. Rosanne Klass has written a handful of books on Afghanistan while

helping establish the Afghan Relief Committee which provided humanitarian aid to the country. She served as vice-president of

programs for the Committee from 1980 to 1996. Later Klass managed the Afghanistan Information Center at Freedom House,

which is a clearinghouse for gathering human rights information about Afghanistan before making it available to the international

media. http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/msc/ToMsC900/MsC872/klassrosanne.html (Accessed: 12/6/11)

Iranian demonstrators storming the gates of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4th

of 1979. Photo: http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2008/11/on-this-day-november-4th-1979.html

(Accessed: 12/14/2011)

The full extent of covert dealings between the United States and Iran in helping the

Mujahidin during the first half of the Soviet–Afghanistan War will likely never be known. Yet

the reports that the American CIA was working with contacts in Iran in an effort to aid the

Soviets’ opposition in 1980 while others within the Carter administration were simultaneously

trying to negotiate the release of American hostages – is quite interesting and worthy of further

exploration at a later date. If the Soviet and Iranian newspaper accounts revealing such a covert

interaction are accurate – then these reports speak volumes about how the Carter administration

viewed the Soviet Union’s aggressive move into Afghanistan as the 1980s began. The removal

of the Red Army from one of its southern neighbors and the Persian Gulf region overall –

obviously took precedence over the release of a few dozen or so American hostages and the

destruction of a U.S. Embassy. Moreover, President Carter’s willingness to sign off on an

operation of this nature makes it is easy to understand why his administration, and then later, the

Reagan administration and members of Congress, developed enhanced diplomatic and secretive

partnerships with a number of other countries who could help them carry out their foreign-policy

decisions towards the Soviet–Afghan War. America simply needed help if the country’s efforts

of confronting their Cold War rival in Afghanistan were going to be successful and Iran was

clearly not a reliable ally at this point.

Chapter two has shown how the relationships that were developed between 1979 and

1984 by the U.S. government and countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iran were

essential to the establishment and eventual transformation of American foreign-policy during this

five-year period and beyond. American policy-makers would have been hard pressed to confront

the Soviet Union by providing the Mujahidin with money, weapons, recruits, and other material

support without the cooperation of these four states. Despite each interested nation considering

their own strategic interests first and foremost, the U.S. government needed their assistance and

logistical capabilities in order to successfully carry out both President Carter and President

Reagan’s foreign-policy of providing various forms of aid to the Afghan Resistance Movement.

Saudi Arabia matched the American’s monetary contributions dollar for dollar and provided the

CIA with training locations for the continuing flow of foreign volunteers making their way

through the camps in route to the war zone. Egypt contributed to the Western Superpower’s

efforts by offering the U.S. Air Force its bases to serve as a staging ground for eventually

shipping its vast piles of Soviet-made weaponry and other aid to the Afghan Frontier.

Despite the tumultuous turn of events between the United States and Iranian governments

in 1979, this chapter has additionally exposed how the American intelligence apparatus sought

out the Persian nation’s help to train even more volunteer fighters before sending them on their

way to the battlefield just across the border. Finally, this second chapter has revealed why the

Carter and Reagan administrations’ needed Afghanistan’s western neighbor and its highly

connected ISI to facilitate the last component in their logistical nightmare of getting the aid to the

Afghan Resistance by actually disbursing the money and material support to the various groups

once the shipments had reached the ground in Pakistan. Without the diplomatic cooperation and

covert assistance of these four countries and others – the American government’s support for the

Mujahidin forces during the Soviet–Afghan War would not have been possible.

American hostages held captivity following the Iranian’s takeover of the U.S. Embassy. Photo: http://www.historyguy.com/iran-us_hostage_crisis.html (Accessed: 12/14/2011)