Summary of Afghanistan - The Bear Trap

Afghanistan - The Bear Trap is a non-fiction, historical book that is written on the personal life experiences and observations of an intelligence officer and his involvement in the Soviet Afghan war (1979-1988). It is a highly sophisticated and well written book with such details about the war, its strategies and operations which no other author or book on Afghan conflict has ever written before. It explains how the mighty super power Soviet Union was taken down in Afghanistan with the help of the Afghan mujahedeen with their guerrilla warfare tactics and strategies. This book can also serve as a reminder to those aggressive powers who think they might win a war in Afghanistan. Soviet Union was a giant economic and military power with its highly sophisticated advanced technology and military fire power, yet they lost a war against rag tag militias who called themselves as mujahedeen. These mujahedeen were outnumbered, they lack military might and military technology but they still managed to overcome and defeated this giant Soviet bear. This book is written by two authors who both happened to be army men. One is Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf who was born in the year 1937. He was commissioned as an infantry officer in Pakistan army in the year 1961. He has attended Command and staff collage Quetta and National Defense College at Rawalpindi. The other author is Major Mark Adkin who was commissioned into the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment in the year 1956. He has also participated in the US invasion of Grenada in the year 1983. He is also the author of many other books and he writes on military subjects, his books include Urgent Fury, The last Eleven?, Goose Green and The Charge. An important thing to note is that the main target audience of this book are military and defense strategists, army men, researchers, historians, war studies students and people who are genuinely interested in military affairs and strategies. The author has dedicated this book to former Director General Inter-Service-Intelligence General Akhtar Abdur Rehman.

In the first few pages after the contents, an introduction of the book is given. The author talks about his appointment in the Inter-Service-Intelligence. He says that he was an infantry Brigadier in Pakistan army as he was suddenly appointed to take over the Afghan bureau of the ISI. This was year 1983 and Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan for the last four years. In Pakistan General Zia-ul-Haq was the president who was secretly in support of the resistance movement which were called as mujahedeen. It was a shock to Brigadier Yousaf as he was an ordinary infantry soldier who had never even taken an intelligence course. He says that after hearing about his appointment, he thought his whole professional military career will now come to an unfortunate end. He was very reluctant to join the ISI because of number of reasons as he states. The ISI was a very secret intelligence agency of Pakistan, its activities were very covet and dubious. He says that when a military officer joins ISI, since then he is always seen with deep suspicion even by his course mates, this makes more enemies than friends. And the reason is because the ISI keeps an eye on senior army officers even top army generals. Nonetheless Brig Yousaf was to report to Islamabad within 72 hours. He came to know that the DG ISI General Akhtar Abdur Rehman himself had selected him for this job. General Akhtar was the most powerful man in the country after the president of Pakistan. At first Brig Yousaf was very reluctant to join ISI and he even confessed it to General Akhtar but being failed to deny the job, he was briefed about his duties as the head of Afghan bureau. Brig came to know that his job was not of direct intelligence gathering as it was perceived by him but rather a different type of job which was of his liking. His duties in the ISI was to be involved with operations against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was not just responsible for training and arming the Afghan mujahedeen but planning and executing these guerilla operations against the Soviet Union. His job was to be so secret that his activities was not even known by many of his senior generals. Neither Pakistan army nor Pakistan government accepted the fact that there were weapons being supplied to the mujahedeen against the Soviet Union. Today however this is an open secret and now he can talk about his secret tasks and activities of ISI in public, because it doesn’t have that much value now.

While talking about the war he discusses in detail about the guerilla warfare. He says that there is much more to be learned or re-learned from the guerilla warfare he had in Afghanistan. If the experience and knowledge of guerilla warfare from this book is applied in the future, then his writing is not a waste. Pakistan supported the Afghan mujahedeen with ammunition training, logistics, supplies and assistance in operations. Brig Yousaf says that during his four years’ service in the ISI, some 80,000 mujahedeen were trained and thousands of tons of arms and ammunition was given to them and billions of dollars were spent on the logistics and supplies. Another important thing the Brig Yousaf pointed out was that credibility of the books and personal accounts written by many journalists that were covering the Afghan conflict. He says that there were many journalists who for the sake of a good story for their newspaper wrote fake battle stories about the Afghan conflict. Not all the journalists wrote fake accounts but there were many journalists who used to stick with different mujahedeen commanders to get a glimpse of the war and if there was no action to write on, the journalist would often pay the commander to stage a fake conflict situation so that the journalist would see some action on field to write a good selling story. Furthermore talking about the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan Brig Yousaf compares it with the Anglo Afghan war (1839-1842), the defeat of British army and even Alexander the great’s army that marched Panjshir valley, he says that not much has changed in Afghanistan.

In further pages titled as prologue – Crash, Culprits and Cover Up. The author talks about the unfortunate yet mysterious plane crash of General Zia-ul-Haq. The author first gives a graphical description of the plane crash. He says that it was a camouflage painted Pakistan Air Force C-130 aircraft that hit down at an angle of 65 degrees after five minutes in air. He asserts that there was so mid-air explosion, there was so missile attack, and there was no fire and not even smoke coming from its engine. Onboard were the president of Pakistan General Zia-ul-Haq, DG ISI General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, US ambassador Mr. Arnold Raphel and Pakistan army’s top eight generals. A national disaster it was. Here the author gives very interesting reasons and assertions. He says that neither General Zia nor General Akhtar Abdur Rehman were to be aboard on that aircraft. He says that both were forcefully persuaded to attend a demonstration of M-1 battle tank which the Americans were about to sell to the Pakistan army. The author says that this event was low level and the presence of General Zia-ul-Haq and DG ISI was not of any importance. This type of event is usually handled by Vice Chief of Army staff General Mirza Aslam Beg. He also says that Major General Mehmood Durrani insisted General Zia to go to this event which was not of that much importance. When General Zia ul Haq insisted General Aslam Beg to accompany him in his aircraft as both were to go to the same destination, General Aslam Beg made excuses and avoided getting onboard. Another thing which the author also talks about is what is usually thought to be the cause of the crash, the mango crates that were loaded in the aircraft without any checking. The mysterious and odd thing was that this aircraft lacked both the black box flight recorder and a cockpit voice recorder. Then the author talks about the potential culprits that might have been involved in this crash, he says that General Zia had made many foreign and domestic enemies who wanted him killed. The Soviet Union’s KGB and the Afghan intelligence KHAD and the Indian RAW wanted General Zia and especially DG ISI dead because of their support to the Afghan mujahideen. Despite US being an ally in war against communists in Afghanistan, the Americans also wanted to get rid of General Zia for the reason that the Soviets were almost defeated and it was risky for the Americans to have an Islamist dictator who might create trouble for them in the future. In short General Zia’s purpose was competed. If we talk about General Zia’s domestic enemies, the biggest political enemy in Pakistan was the Bhutto family. Mutaza and Shahnawaz Bhutto with the help of Afghanistan and Soviets had created a terrorist group called Al-Zulfiqar, whose main purpose was to avenge the “murder” of late Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Infect Al-Zulfiqar also tried six assassination attempts on General Zia which included a very close missile attack on his aircraft.

In the start of the book Brig Yousaf talks about a corruption scandal within the ISI which involved three Pakistan army officers which were arrested, court marshalled and imprisoned for taking bribe from mujahedeen commanders for issuing them extra weapons and ammunition more than they were originally allotted. The Brigadier which was previously the head of Afghan bureau of ISI was also involved in this scandal, he was removed and Brig Yousaf was put into his position. Regarding the responsibilities and duties of the ISI, the author says that it is responsible for all the intelligence affairs at national level, from political, internal, external security and counter intelligence. He says that an ordinary army officer always felt that the ISI was keeping an eye on his activities and whenever someone joins the ISI, his course mates and peers always looked him with suspicion and isolated him socially. This was something that the author himself felt when he joined the ISI. Then the author talks about his boss, the DG ISI General Akhtar Abdur Rehman. He says that he looked impressive as a soldier with a clean, tidy uniform and a firm and strong physique. He had a pale skin with a proud Afghan blood he inherited. He looked much younger than 59. While talking about the nature of President General Zia-ul-Haq the author says that despite of being the President he would always rose up from his seat to greet the guests, he would come forward to approach them and not wait for them to come to him instead. The author talks about the border security problems that Pakistan faced. He states that on the West Pakistan was bordering Afghanistan which was occupied by the Soviet Union, their troops were very close to the Pakistani borders and on the east we had India who was an ally of Soviet Union. Like the author many other army officers thought that it was a constant threat that India with the help of Soviet Union could strategically squeeze Pakistan out of existence. He further says that because of the war Pakistan had overwhelmingly received a huge flow of Afghan refugees who came from Afghanistan to Pakistan in order to save their lives. Most refugee camps were located on the border areas of Balochistan and NWFP. In the year 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, General Zia called on his DG ISI for his advice on how to react to this aggression. On this General Akhtar Abdur Rehman gave a presentation that suggested that Pakistan should support the Afghan mujahedeen’s guerilla strategy in order to protect Islam and Pakistan. The mujahedeen would act as Pakistan’s first line of defense against the Soviets. The ultimate target of Soviet Union was to cut Pakistan through Baluchistan. Nevertheless General Zia was persuaded and Pakistan was soon working on making Afghanistan Soviet Union’s Vietnam. After seeing General Zia’s decision to act against communists the west in particular the American came running to Zia for help and assistance. General Zia also had an Islamic reputation in the Arab world so he also got his Arab support to fight jihad against Soviet as well.

In the year 1983 the author reported to his ISI office in Rawalpindi form where the guerrilla war strategies were being operated. This was ISI’s Afghan Bureau. Just like the other staff Brig Yousaf used to wear civilian clothes, he says that he never used to wear uniform on duty. While talking his headquarters he says that inside high brick walls were ISI offices and an ammunition storage warehouse where about 70 percent of the weapons came that were for the Afghan Mujahideen. It contained several acres of training area, a psychological warfare unit later on a Stinger missile training school was established, it was called as the Ojhri camp. There were three main headquarters and warehouses of the Afghan bureau, one was in Rawalpindi, other in Quetta and the third one in Peshawar from which the operations were conducted. The author says that his headquarters had three main branches One was the operational branch which was under a full colonel, this branch deals with training, intelligence and day to day operations and selection of potential valuable targets to hit, the second branch was also commanded by a full colonel, its responsibility was logistics and supplies and the third branch was under a lieutenant colonel which was responsible for psychological warfare. Because Brig Yousaf had a very important and critical job in the Afghan war, he was told that he was on the top of the hit list of Afghan intelligence KHAD.

The author talks about the mujahedeen in detail and their ability to be a very practical and successful guerrilla fighter. He talks about the culture and demography of Afghanistan. In the north of Afghanistan there lies the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmans and in the south and east lies the Pashtuns. The author closely discusses and studies the Afghan guerilla fighter. He says that the Afghan guerilla fighters were very difficult to work with because of the reason that they did not liked to be commanded but rather the author was a guide to them. The author was quiet impressed and fascinated with the Afghan guerillas. While studying them the author says that these fighters were not afraid to die in the battle field as they were religiously motivated to go to Jannah after martyrdom. But the fact that they were afraid of mines because mines do not kill rather it makes the person handicap and then they were of no use either in peace time or in the war. Then the author talks about the Pashtunwali code of honor for the Afghan Pashtuns. He says that there are two aspects of Pashtunwali, one is their vengeance and the other is hospitality. In Pashto language the word “Badal” is used to define vengeance. Conflict between different families, tribes, and clan is calling for vengeance. It is a concept of eye for an eye, the author says that an Afghan will never present his other cheek to get slapped rather he will avenge the mistreatment that occurred his family, clan or tribe. He will protect his honor and fight till his death. These two elements are a very important part of the Pashtun lifestyle. Then again talking about the abilities of an Afghan fighter the author says that the hardy physique and his ability to endure extreme environment makes him a very good guerilla fighter which was excellent to fight and defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. But a disadvantage of Afghan fighters was their ego, they were very inflexible when it comes to adaptation of modern guerilla warfare techniques and strategies. The Afghans were very proud of their traditional way of fighting as it was very successful against the British troops in the 19^th century. Nevertheless the fighting continued. There were many political parties that were fighting against the Soviet invasion. But with the help of General Zia and ISI all the parties were somewhat united into a seven party alliance, these were seven major Afghan political and military forces in Peshawar called as the Peshawar seven. It was astonishing to see how General Zia and the ISI united them, there were many minor and major ideological and political differences between these parties, some were extreme fundamentalists, some were moderate and some were quiet liberal.

He explains, discusses and gives a very detailed study of the enemy, the Soviet Union. He discusses the military formation of the Soviet troops and the important and strategic bases and headquarters which were a potential target for the mujahedeen. At first Brig Yousaf discusses in detail the troop formation in Afghanistan. He points out the flaws in the Soviet formation and the reason why their troop lost the war on battle field. The author points out the fact that about 50 percent of the Soviet troops deployment in or around Kabul city. There were total two divisions that were deployed there with their artillery, transport, supplies, engineering units that guarded the headquarters in Kabul city. The most important and critical military base in Afghanistan was the Bagram airbase which had a huge number of Soviet troops to protect it. Another important point that the author noted that for the Soviet Union the north was very crucial and sensitive. The reason was not only because the entire war was supported by the base area just north of Amu River but that northern area contained a lot of natural gases and minerals. While closely examining the Soviet soldier Brig Yousaf states that Soviet soldier in Afghanistan was a complete different soldier when he was in WW2. He says that the Soviet soldier is neither trained nor capable of fighting in the harsh and extreme environment of Afghanistan. His life in Afghanistan is miserable and most importantly he has neither the courage nor the will to fight as he is not defending his homeland rather invading someone else’s. Brig Yousaf also discusses the bad condition of Soviet soldiers, they lacked basic living standards and were living in a harsh condition. They also lacked basic hygienic and bathing facilities which caused sickness among the troops. The soldiers were desperate and starved for food. There were also many incidents when hunger prevailed war and forced the troops to either sell their weapons to the mujahedeen for food or join mujahedeen. The desperate living conditions in Afghanistan also made many soldiers hashish and drug addicts. These were the characteristic and elements Brig Yousaf discusses which lead to the miserable defeat of Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

Further in the book Brig Yousaf talks about ISI’s ally in the war against communism, the CIA. He has acknowledged multiple times in the book that the Americans were very desperate to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. They were very eager to take revenge from the Soviet Union and wanted Afghanistan to become their Vietnam. This extreme motivation of revenge helped the ISI and mujahedeen in fighting the war. The only responsibility of the CIA was to help the ISI by providing different weapons and large sums of financial support for the Afghan mujahedeen. It was a basic defined rule of the government of Pakistan that no American citizen will go inside Afghanistan and that the CIA will not have direct contact with the Afghan mujahedeen either in weapon and money disruption or in training process. There was always a filter of ISI in between. Although the first rule was once broken only for US Congressman Charlie Wilson who went inside Afghanistan to see the action for himself. The author also gives a detailed compassion of Afghanistan and Vietnam. He also gives six reasons based on his experience and professionalism on the fact that Soviet Union’s loss was inevitable. The extreme environment, harsh terrain, mountainous areas were a delight for guerrilla fighters to use their techniques to a full potential. Brig Yousaf talks about the importance of communication and supply lines in a military intervention. He says like the arteries in a human body is important for blood to flow to every organ of the body, the supplies and communication are as important to the army. They supply with ammunition, food, fire power and all the basic necessity for an army to survive in an enemy occupied area.

Earlier as we discussed the role of CIA in the Afghan conflict. The author talks about the incompetence of CIA official regarding basic military knowledge of guerilla warfare. He points out that they were unaware of the situation of Afghan conflict, they did not even know what kind of ammunition and weapons could be useful in the guerilla warfare and what kinds of weapons were absolutely useless. This incompetence of CIA officials wasted a lot of time and money. He also talks about the corruption within the CIA. Although taking military advice from CIA on Afghanistan proves to be useless but the American intelligence, technology and satellite systems proved very helpful for the ISI to conduct and plan operations in Afghanistan. Further the author discusses in detail about the training camps for the mujahedeen that were located inside the bordering area of Afghanistan. These camps were very secret and nobody in the government or Pakistan army knew about their exact location. There were no foreign trainers or instructors, only Pakistanis. From small arms to heavy machine guns, RPG rocket launchers, anti-aircraft guns to Stinger missiles were being used by the mujahedeen trainees. The intensity in which the Afghan mujahedeen were being trained and the positive results they were showing in the battle field was evident that the rope was short on the Soviet Union’s side. The training the Afghan mujahedeen had were called courses and there were different courses in place for different commanders. The author also mentions a very important and strategic operation that was conducted by the Afghan mujahedeen. It was the Baghram airbase attack which was a major blowback to the Soviet and Afghan army.

In further chapter the author discusses the Soviet army’s causalities. He writes that between 4000 to 5000 men were killed. And 200000 Afghan allies suffered casualties. Despite of proper equipment the mujahedeen managed to take down 200 helicopter or aircrafts and 2000 vehicles including tanks and APCs. The he talks about the distrust among the different Afghan political parties and commanders. This was something very common and it was creating conflict of interest in the war. The party leader did not trust each other despite of fighting the same enemy. The mujahedeen commanders on ground at some moment’s fought with each other on land rather than the Soviet army which was the real enemy. Some commanders did not give other commanders form different party a passage from the area they had captured. The smuggling and drug business was also growing on the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. One of the reason that the author gives about the difference and conflicts between the parties and commanders were because of the KHAD agents who exploited their difference to break the unity among the mujahedeen, it was a sabotage plot. They tried to exploit the racial and ethical difference between the commanders. KHAD agents also infiltrated the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan to create problems for Pakistani government to hurt its motives against the Soviets. Author also mentions that sometimes there was a very high level and secret meeting that took place between the party leaders, ISI and the president himself. In this meeting the party leaders would give presentation and the developments they achieved in war and the problems they face.

In the next chapter Brig Yousaf talks about the importance and significance of Kabul city. He says that Kabul was the center of everything. All the important institutions, ministries and headquarters were situated in Kabul. It was always the center of Afghan politics. Historically three bloody coups took place which were all directed by the Soviet Union. The coup of King Zahir Shah, Sardar Mohammad Dawood Khan, Nur Mohammad Trakai and Hafiz ullah Amin. He talks about the Saur revolution in detail that was directly controlled by Moscow to overthrow Dawood in which he was killed with his family. The he talks about the communist puppet government that came after Dawood which also met the same fate and almost all were assassinated by Soviet Union. While talking about the strategic importance of Kabul the author talks about the strategic targets to hit that were of importance to him. According to him dams, power plants, pipe lines, airports were the perfect targets to hit. He also says that Soviets and Afghan government official were our main target to hit in Kabul. To the extent that the head of KHAD Dr Najibullah was a high level target that they tried to assassinate many times but failed, who later became the president of Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. The best and most effective way to hit Kabul was the rocket attacks which according to him the mujahedeen did often.

In the next chapter the author talks about an importance military development that he did. The Soviets according to him were very sensitive about the eastern provinces of Afghanistan that touches Pakistan. And even people in Pakistan were very concerned about the possible attack on Pakistan by the Soviet Union. Brig Yousaf broke the basic code of Guerrilla warfare and took over Khost, Ali Khel and Zhawar areas and tried to hold it. Khost was immediately fallen to Soviet army but the other two areas were somewhat under the mujahidin control. This was when the author himself visited Afghanistan and the areas which the mujahedeen were holding. Brig Yousaf wanted to see the area and the military base for himself and wanted to make sure we hold this area for long. This was a huge military achievement for the mujahedeen but it was against the guerilla warfare method. Unfortunately in the end the Soviet Union managed to retain all the area they lost to mujahedeen. What Brig Yousaf suggested that to prevent a possible Soviet attack we must deploy mujahedeen strong holds on the eastern provinces of Afghanistan so that if Soviet launches an invasion or so, the mujahedeen would resist it first and Pakistan army will buy some time to reassemble and deploy itself against the Soviet army to defend its territory.

In the next chapter Brig talks about the famous Stinger missile. He says that the government of Pakistan was very reluctant to give the stinger missiles to the mujahedeen because of some obvious reasons. Nevertheless the stinger were allocated and given to Pakistan army. Again the procedure was that no American was to train the mujahedeen directly so first Pakistani instructors were sent to US to get trained then they were to train the mujahedeen. The training camp was already set up with full simulations and everything in Rawalpindi ISI headquarters. After the mujahedeen were trained with Stingers, they were set to attack Soviet aircrafts and helicopters. The first successful attack using Stinger missile was conducted in 1986 in the Jalalabad airbase in which several Soviet aircrafts and helicopters were destroyed. The news spread and now every commander wanted the new Stingers as it was considered as a symbol of honor. Here Brig tells about the usual method of Soviet attack on a village. At first Soviet helicopter came and bombed the village and killed everyone including civilians. They used every kind of bomb and rocket. Then when the helicopter were out of rockets, they used helicopter mounted machine guns and shot everything on ground that moves, and in the end the Soviet troops moved in on foot for search and destroy operations. At one instance a Pakistani F16 was shot down near the Afghan border. PAF blamed the ISI for providing mujahedeen stingers that shot down the plan. Later it was found out that the F16 was shot down by Pakistan’s own jet that couldn’t recognize the difference between a Pakistani jet and an enemy jet. It was an embarrassing moment for PAF.

The author then discuss a very interesting thing which to a lot of people is still unknown. The ISI with the help of CIA using the Afghan mujahedeen started its offensive inside the territory of Soviet union. It was a very dangerous and risky task that the ISI was conducting. With the help of CIA the ISI planned a sabotage plan that would eventually start an uprising in Soviet’s Muslim territories. Different religious book and Quran in their regional languages were printed and was send to the central Asian republics that included, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. These were areas of Muslim majority that were occupied by the Soviet empire. They were not given religious freedom and were a victim of contract state torture. The ISI wanted to create conflicts inside the Soviet territory therefore to start an uprising the ISI used psychological warfare techniques and exploited people’s hate against the Soviet army. There were also military operations conducted inside Soviet Union which was so dangerous that at one point tit seemed that Soviet Union would attack Pakistan and a world war three would start.

In the second last chapter the author talks about the removal of DG-ISI General Akhatr Abdur Rehman and was replaced by Major General Hameed Gul. He was replaced with the consent of the president. According to the author the DG was changed so that all the credit of this supreme Jihad goes to the president. With his replacement the mujahedeen were not happy because they were very much satisfied with General Akhar. He understood the Afghan mindset and he know how to deal with the parties and resolve their issues. He author said that the CIA also wanted General Akhtar removed because he did not listen to the CIA and did not allow many things that the CIA wanted, which frustrated them. The author talks about CIA intention about the end of the war. He says that although the CIA wanted the Soviet Union defeated in Afghanistan but the CIA didn’t wanted an absolute victory to the mujahedeen. The Americans were scared that if the mujahedeen managed to make a government it will be a fundamentalist government and just like the Iranian regime it will be anti-American. During this time there was UN sponsored Geneva accords happening and the Soviet Union was thinking to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. In the last chapter the author talks about two disasters that happened and which were proven bad for the Jihad. One was the Ojirhi camp blast in Rawalpindi in which 100 died and 1000 got injured, then the airplane crash of General Zia-ul-haq in which General Akhtar also died and the second disaster was the battle of Jalalabad which was lost miserably and from which the mujahedeen never recovered. After two years General Hameed Gul was replaced with General Kallu who was in the favor of America and things began to worsen. Nevertheless after an intense bloody war that carried out for a decade, in which many innocent civilians lost their lives without any sin. In the year 1988 the giant Soviet Union with all its might, military power, advanced technology, strong economy slowly lost its foothold in Afghanistan and was forced to retreat back. Not only they lost control of Afghanistan but the mighty Soviet empire slowly disintegrated and lost huge chunk of land from central Asia and east Europe and lost its title of once being a super power of the world. According to the author Brigadier Mohammad Yousaf his book Afghanistan – The Bear Trap is a reminder to those aggressive powers of the world who are proud of their might, power and technology and think they can win a war in a country like Afghanistan but in the end the fact remains that Afghanistan is and shall remain a graveyard of empires.

Author: Muhammad Asim Khan A Mass Communication student of National University of Modern Languages Islamabad who often writes on international relations and particular interest in Af-Pak affairs.