Chapter 2 continues…

The initial US offer of US$ 400 million by the Carter administration was rejected by Zia as ‘peanuts’. However, the Reagan administration’s aid package of US$ 3.2 billion from 1981 to 1987 was greatly welcomed. An enhanced aid package of US$ 4.02 billion was granted in 1987, which was meant to be valid till 1993, but was never completed due to the Pressler Amendment.

Zia had also dispatched General Akhtar to Saudi Arabia in the hope of securing further assistance for the Afghan jihad. King Fahd agreed immediately, putting the General Intelligence Directorate in immediate touch with the ISI and providing funds in support of the mujahideen.

Although the Zia regime was keen to extend support to the Afghan mujahideen, it also wanted to keep control over the amount of support given to the Jihad. Islamabad was apprehensive about provoking the Soviet Union, which could have led them to attack Pakistan. It is for this reason Zia wanted to ensure that the “water in Afghanistan must boil at the right temperature” implying that the magnitude of support to the mujahideen should be such that it would keep the Soviet troops tied down in fighting an extensive guerrilla war, but not so much that it would provoke a Soviet retaliation across the Durand Line. Moreover, Pakistan wanted to make sure that US involvement in the Jihad was kept as discreet as possible.

Pakistan felt that US support for the mujahideen could be used as propaganda by the Soviets to discredit the Jihad and mujahideens within Afghanistan as being American pawns in their Cold War struggle against the Soviets, rather than being independent, religiously-motivated fighters against a foreign occupation.

To be continued…