External Actors in the Afghan Problem
continues...

After the Soviet intervention, Pakistan’s involvement with Afghanistan was focused on training, equipping and planning of operations for the resistance fighters to tie down Soviet Union.

Later, when it became clear that Soviets may leave, Pakistan became more ambitious and worked to have a government in Afghanistan which is friendly to Islamabad. In 1988, when the Soviet withdrawal was imminent, ISI and CIA predicted that after Soviet withdrawal, the Najibullah regime will crumble quickly. In May 1988, Zia promised the US Congressman, Charles Wilson that “I will give you Jalalabad as a Christmas present, with Hekhmatyar in charge.” In 1989, during Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s first term in office, ISI embarked on the Jalalabad offensive to take the city as a base for interim government.

At that time, both United States and Pakistan agreed on this plan but for different reasons. It was the wish of some hawkish Americans to see the outright bloody assault on major cities and the humiliation of Soviets clinging to their helicopters as this would be the befitting revenge of Vietnam. On the Pakistani side, some born again ‘holy warriors’ of defence establishment were dreaming of heading the victory parade and entering Kabul as modern day Saladin and earning the lofty title of ‘Victors of Kabul’.

The then ISI Chief, Lt. General Hamid Gul, told the Afghan Cell (the meetings were attended by the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, her National Security Advisor, Iqbal Akhund, Chief of ISI and the US ambassador) that the city could be taken in a week “if the government was prepared to allow for a certain degree of bloodshed.”

Pakistan was not too much concerned with the irritant of bloodshed as it was mainly Afghan blood that was to be shed. Some astute Afghan commanders on the field were furious about ISI’s decision of frontal attack of the city.

To be continued...