Initially, for the first few months, the Americans disappointed Zia. They adopted a wait-and-see attitude. President Carter was locked into the intractable Tehran hostage crisis, which soured American opinion against Islamic radicals, while advice from the Pentagon and CIA was that, with or without Pakistan’s backing, Afghanistan was a lost cause. They believed that the Soviet Army would control the country within weeks. Why, therefore, get involved? Why throw good money after bad, and needlessly antagonize the Soviets by aiding the Afghan resistance? It was a country within the Soviet sphere of influence, and the US policy-makers had seen it slipping into the communist camp for over twenty years. They had been unwilling or unable to stop it then, so what chance was there now with the Soviet military in situ?

I had always been incredulous at the Americans’ Afghanistan policy over the previous two decades. Their response to Soviet encroachment had seemed to be based on ignorance, apathy and appeasement, so their initial slowness in reacting positively had come as no surprise to me. The communist coup in Kabul in 1978, the climax of years of political and economic infiltration and subversion, produced no expressions of disapproval, no break in relations, in fact quite the reverse—the new regime was given automatic recognition. A top expert in Soviet affairs, Adolph Dubs, was sent out as the US Ambassador on the basis of business as usual. Within months Dubs died in a hail of gunfire from Afghan troops, under Soviet advisers, as they sought to ‘rescue’ him from four kidnappers in a Kabul hotel room. His death merited a weak protest, and the start of the phasing out of the already stagnant US aid programme. Nine years later another ambassador was to die violently in suspicious circumstances, again with possible Soviet involvement. This time the reaction was a cover-up.

It was 18 October, 1983, when I reported to the most carefully guarded office of the ISI, from which the war in Afghanistan was directed. Like all the other staff in this Afghan Bureau, I wore civilian clothes, little realizing I would never wear uniform on duty again. My headquarters was established in a large camp of some 70-80 acres on the northern outskirts of Rawalpindi, 12 kilometres from Islamabad, where General Akhtar had his office in the main ISI buildings. Inside the high brick walls were offices, a transit warehouse through which 70 per cent of all arms and ammunition for the Mujahideen came, at least 300 civilian vehicles with garage facilities, several acres of training area, a psychological warfare unit, barracks, mess halls for 500 men and, later, the Stinger training school, complete with simulator. It was called Ojhri Camp. Outside was the main road between Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Across the road was a Pakistan Army camp, and on the other sides the sprawl of houses that make up the fringes of Rawalpindi. International jet airliners flew directly overhead as they made their approach to Islamabad airport. Its very location within the confines of a major town made it inconspicuous. Of the countless thousands of passers-by none suspected it for what it was—the command post for the war in Afghanistan.

From being a straightforward infantryman I had become, overnight, a secret soldier. I referred to my staff by cover-names, never discussed work with my family, never answered the telephone directly, changed my car and number plates frequently, and never announced my travel arrangements in advance. Despite all these precautions I lived quite openly in a rented house in Islamabad. I normally carried a pistol but, as a mere brigadier, I did not rate an escort, or guard at my home. It was only towards the end of my stint with the ISI that I was told that I was near the top of the KHAD hit list, with a price of 10 million Afghanis ($50,000) on my head. During those four years I was never aware of any personal danger to myself or my family. I put that down to professional incompetence on the part of the communist agents, as I was far from well hidden, although my social life was virtually non-existent. I never visited the US Embassy; I never attended diplomatic functions or formal military occasions. The only exception was with the Chinese. Every year General Akhtar and I would go to the Chinese embassy for dinner after the official signing of the arms protocol, whereby China agreed to supply us with specified types of quantities of weapons and ammunition for the Mujahideen. This was typical Chinese. They always insisted on absolute accuracy in all their dealings. I remember the colossal fuss that was made, involving high-ranking embassy officials, when just one small box of ammunition among thousands went astray. We later recovered it, but very politely they had insisted we move heaven and earth to do so. What a contrast to everybody else.

I was answerable only to General Akhtar; he reported to the President it was as simple as that. Our chain of command completely bypassed the usual military hierarchy. Later, when we moved back to a more democratic government with a prime minister, Akhtar was supposed to report to him as the chief executive of government. I can only say that it was nearly a year before we at ISI were allowed to brief him on our role in Afghanistan. Zia did not want to let anybody know what we were doing, even the prime minister, if there was any possibility of his not staying in the post. The role of my bureau was top secret. Although it was well known that Pakistan sheltered the refugees and the Mujahideen and that supplies were channelled to them across Pakistan territory, officially it was always emphatically denied.

In theory the top post in Pakistan’s military establishment was that of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC). He presided over meetings of the three Service Chiefs of Staff (COS). The position was a sinecure, a post without authority or influence. For one thing the CJCSC commanded no troops, and for another with Zia still Chief of Army Staff (COAS) it made the holder senior to the President within the Services—an obvious non-starter. Eight years after Akhtar was made Director-General of ISI he was promoted to four-star rank and appointed CJCSC by Zia. This was less than 18 months before these two men died together in the plane crash.

On my first day I was taken round the offices, and to see the main warehouse, where I received my first shock. Lying in the open, in piles, under an arched roof were all types of small arms, mortars, rocket launchers and recoilless rifles, together with their ammunition. Just about every safety rule I had ever been taught for arms storage was being broken, and this within a densely populated area. The logistics officer’s response to my concern was, “Sir, we are fighting a secret war; you will soon get used to it”. He was proved correct.

Meeting the various officers of my staff quickly gave me a better understanding of how we ran the war, although I was not impressed with the atmosphere of distrust, and apparent lack of cooperation within the Bureau. Several officers warned me to watch my back as they felt some of the staff had been imposed on us as spies from the Director-General’s office. Our main headquarters and warehouse were located at Rawalpindi, but there were two forward detachments, one at Peshawar and another at Quetta. Each had operational, intelligence, logistics and liaison duties. They were located close to the offices and warehouses of the various Mujahideen Parties and Leaders to facilitate cooperation between ourselves as the supplier, and them as the receiver of the weapons and ammunition. The Quetta detachment had its own small warehouse because of the great distance from Rawalpindi. This enabled supplies arriving at Karachi by ship to be moved directly there instead of via our main warehouse—a substantial saving in time and cost.

During my time with the ISI the momentum of running a large-scale guerrilla war increased tenfold. The workload quickly threatened to overwhelm our original establishment, so I was authorized to expand. From 1984, through to 1987, over 80,000 Mujahideen went through our training camps, hundreds of thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition were distributed, while active operations were being planned and carried out in all of the 29 provinces in Afghanistan. I eventually had an establishment of some 60 officers, 100 Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs), who approximate to US or British warrant officers, and 300 NCOs.