Chapter 2 continues…

The CIA had no control over the distribution of weapons, no direct links with the mujahideen and was not allowed to even enter Afghanistan. Its task was restricted to the purchase of arms and equipment, transporting them to Pakistan and funding the purchase of vehicles and transportation inside Pakistan and Afghanistan. The CIA was also responsible for providing training to Pakistani officials on how to handle new equipment and weapons, such as the Stinger missiles.

As soon as the weapons arrived in Pakistan, the CIA’s responsibility came to an end. From then on, it was the ISI that determined the allocation and distribution of the weapons to the mujahideen. The ISI would hand over the weapons to the Islamist leaders at their party headquarters in either Peshawar or Quetta, and it was the leaders then who allocated the 18Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin, seen weapons to their field commanders and distributed them inside Afghanistan.

The ISI also played a leading role in giving a great degree of organisation and cohesion to the otherwise disorganised mujahideen. The ISI organised the mujahideen leaders into seven political parties, which came to be known as the ‘Peshawar Seven.’ The ‘Peshawar Seven’ included the National Islamic Front for Afghanistan led by Sayyid Ahmed Gilani, the Afghan National Liberation Front led by Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the Islamic Revolutionary Movement of Afghanistan led by Maulvi Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi, the Islamic Society of Afghanistan (Jamiat-e-Islami Afghanistan) led by Rabbani and his military commander Massoud, the Hizb-e-Islami (Islamic Party) led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the Islamic Unity for the Liberation of Afghanistan led by Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf.

Each party was required to set up a military committee, whose heads would meet jointly with ISI agents every few months, and each commander was required to join a party. The ISI set percentage allocations for each party in quarterly meetings and roughly 80 per cent of the weapons were sent to the parties for distribution to the commanders.

To be continued…