لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
Afghanistan: Out from the Shadows…Post-Cold War Notes
‘Massoud worked for us…he kept the Salang open for us…he would not allow anyone to attack us’…Mikhail Gorbachev…16 February 2004… BBC Pashto Service Interview
Recently de-classified Russian documents earmarked ‘Top Secret,’ have disclosed that the late Ahmad Shah Massoud met secretly in 1994 with Evgeny Primakov, former intelligence (KGB) chief and Soviet Prime Minister in Kabul. The purpose of the clandestine meeting as reiterated in Primakov’s newly published autobiography ‘The Years of Life in the Politics’, (1999, pp. 178-186), was to enlist the support, military muscle and influence of Massoud in maintaining President Imomoli Rahmanovs’ monopoly on power in neighboring Tajikistan. Rahmanov, an avowed Communist was in danger of being overthrown by the resistance fighters of opposition-leader Sayed Asadullah Nouri. (1)
Massoud agreed with and to Primakov’s request to deny sanctuary to Nouri and his followers in neighboring environs of Afghanistan. He also agreed to use his military against Sayed Nouri’s forces if necessary to insure and aid the continuation of Rahmanov’s presidency. In addition, notes Primakov, was a plea by Massoud and Rabbani that Moscow take the necessary steps to immediately re-open the Russian Embassy in Kabul and to put pressure on Tehran to provide the Shura-i-Nizar with additional military and economic assistance. (1)
The source of this information was substantiated by a published Associated Press (AP) news report dated late 11/27/1994, which reported that in Northern Afghanistan along the border with Tajikistan armed followers of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud assisted the Russian 201st Motorized Rifle Regiment in attacking and killing 30 insurgents alleged to be drug traffickers. At that precise time, in late 1994, it was reported by al Jazeera (12/7/94) that Tajik opposition leader Sayed Asadullah Nouri had sought sanctuary in the northern areas of Afghanistan where many of his men alleged to be drug traffickers were ambushed and killed by a combined contingent of re-assigned Special Operations Russian/Afghan forces under command of Russian General Ruslan Sultanovich Aushev. (2, 5)
From one of Massoud’s former pilots that had recently defected to the Taliban comes the information that during the Jihad he had personally flown Soviet military officers including generals to confer with Massoud in Panjsher, and on at least one occasion had flown Primakov to meet with Massoud when he was then the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union (USSR). This information was passed along to me and my Afghan journalist colleague Sayed Noorulhaq Husseini during an (1997) interview and conversation in Kandahar with Taliban ace-pilot, Jalal Wardak. Wardak also indicated that this pilot defected under threat of death by Massoud when he questioned and criticized his cooperation with and contractual obligations to the Soviets/Russians. (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
We were also advised that Massoud had sold US-manufactured and supplied ‘Stinger’ surface-to-air-missiles (SAMS) to the North Koreans through their embassy in Kabul during 1994, and shipped contraband arms in large quantities to Somalia from 1992-1995 aboard Ariana Airlines aircraft. The weapons, of Soviet manufacture, had originally issued from ‘battlefield pickup’ inventories collected during the 1967 Arab/Israeli Wars and subsequently re-issued to the Afghan Resistance by the CIA. (5)
Evgeny Primakov’s autobiography, as noted and in concert with the publication of recent memoirs by a number of intelligence (GRU/KGB) and military high-ranking Soviet officials, to include Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, General A.A. Liakhovskii, General V.I. Varennikov, KGB Director of Foreign Intelligence, Leonid Shebarshin and Soviet 40th Army Commander General Boris V. Gromov, all of whom had served in Afghanistan and or were responsible for the overall strategy and implementation of the war during the Jihad, have recently provided exhaustive, expositional, new and invaluable information and corroboration for determined researchers and historians pursuant to and engaged in uncovering the truth relevant to and in contrast with government dictated day-to-day battle propaganda. (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9). Propaganda disseminated and dominated by a sympathetic media-induced American global righteousness and personality-driven faux-hero-narratives of collaborating high-profile Afghan personalities during the Jihad-Period.
Bruce G. Richardson
Notes:
(1) Translation: Our thanks to Dr. Quyyum Kochai for the translated (Russian) passages of Evgeny Primakov’s revealing autobiography ‘The Years of Life in the Politics’, 1999, pp.178-186. Primakov’s autobiography ($27.95), as with all Russian titles enumerated in the text, are available in Russian language from East View Press, Minneapolis Minnesota. For additional details of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud’s contractual agreements with the Soviets see:
(2) American Raj, Liberation or Domination, Resolving the Conflict between the West and the Muslim World, Eric S. Margolis, 2008, From p.196 Margolis contends: ‘While pretending to fight the Soviets, Massoud actually devoted his main efforts to combatting the Pashtun Mujahideen, thwarting their main efforts, backed by Pakistani intelligence agents, to blow up the strategic choke point of Soviet logistics, the Salang Tunnel. Massoud also intrigued to co-join Tajikistan with the northern environs of Afghanistan and to convince Moscow to ditch its current Communist puppet ruler, Najibullah, and make him ruler of an Afghanistan’, an Afghanistan incorporating elements of certain conscripted-territories of Tajikistan, p.196.
(3) Plamya Afgana, A.A. Liakhovskii, Military Adviser to Najibullah, 1999, Translated for Cold War in History Project, Washington, DC (CWIHP) by Gary Goldberg, pp. 485-486.
(4) Main Intelligence Directorate (MID) of the General Headquarters, USSR Armed Forces. Titled: ‘Lion of the Panjsher’, Article no. 18, (No. 882/83-3-S-77, Fond 80, Perechen 14, Document 77, Translation of excerpts by Elena Kretova, Information Services Moscow.
(5) Afghanistan, a Search for Truth, Bruce G. Richardson, 2009, ‘Field Report:’ An Interview: with former Taliban ace pilot Jalal Wardak, Bruce G. Richardson and Sayed Noorulhaq Husseini, Kandahar, October, 1997, pp. 29, 30, 217, 227.
(6) Limited Contingent, Boris V. Gromov, 1994, Translated by Professor Ian Helfant, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, Harvard University, pp. 188-197.
(7) The Pandzhsher from 1975-1990, S.E. Grigorev, 1997, Translated by Professor Ian Helfant, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, Harvard University, p. 40.
(8) The Hand of Moscow, Leonid Shebarshin, 1992, KGB Director of Foreign Intelligence, Translated by Professor Ian Helfant, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, Harvard University, pp.177-214.
(9) Afghanistan, a Search for Truth, Bruce G. Richardson, 2009, ‘Field Report:’ An Interview: with Shah Nawaz Tanai, former DRA Defense Minister, Bruce G. Richardson and Sayed Noorulhaq Husseini, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, November 12, 1997, pp.29-30.
