>>1839029kill gorby and yeltsin and prevent ussr fall. Najibullah was based and effective, but he could not do miracles.
https://investigaction.net/en-1989-un-petit-stalingrad-afghan/<In 1989, a little Afghan Stalingrad
>On February 15, 1989, the last Red Army soldier left Afghanistan, punctually honoring Mikhail Gorbachev's February 8, 1988 announcement of withdrawal to the United Nations General Assembly[1]. A perfectly organized withdrawal (in stark contrast to that of the United States, in August of that year) which resulted from the failure of negotiations in which the Soviets sought to negotiate their departure in exchange for a halt to American and Pakistani interventions, and which could only augur the imminent, almost automatic fall of the progressive Afghan government[2].
>This is exactly how the intelligence services and political administrations of the USA and Pakistan understood it, and decided to act without delay to "finish the job". In its February 11, 1989 edition, the New York Times revealed the existence of a secret meeting of the U.S. Security Council that had taken place on the 9th, concluding that, according to intelligence information, Mohammad Najibullah's government would only hold out for another three to six months, and recommending that President George H. W. Bush continue to arm the Mujahideen for this new and "final fighting season". The New York daily commented: "The Bush administration's decision confirms that the political objective of the United States is to accelerate the collapse of the Kabul government, now that the withdrawal of Soviet troops is virtually complete[3]." The participants in the meeting were thus following the advice and predictions of Mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had just declared that "the fall of Kabul will not be counted in months, but in a couple of weeks, and will take place without too many clashes in the city[4]." So they decided to precipitate it. Significant detail: at the meeting to which Pakistani officials were invited, no representative of the Afghan insurgents was present. This absence was explained by the same New York daily, which quoted a senior Pakistani official as saying that "no representative of the Afghan guerrillas was present at the March meeting because the ISI is in charge[5]". (ISI stands for Inter-Services Intelligence Agency).
>To demonstrate their determination and their certainty that the end of Mohammad Najibullah's communist government was only a matter of days away, the White House decided to close its embassy in Kabul, followed, as usual, by France and the United Kingdom. Following Washington's injunctions, the Pakistani government in turn decided, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto with her country's military leaders and the US ambassador, to step up and precipitate military operations aimed at ending the Afghan socialist experiment. Once again, the absence of afghan mujahedin leaders[6] at the meeting was notable.
>The promoters of this jihadist "final struggle" were so sure of their success that they decided to organize "post-communist" governance by forming a provisional government in advance, which would be presented to the "international community" as soon as they had found the city in which to install it. The choices were quickly made; the Pakistanis and the Americans each placed their colt among the jihadist leaders: Abdul Rasul Sayyaf for the ISI as Prime Minister and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar for the CIA as Foreign Minister. All that remained was to choose and occupy the city that would act as "provisional capital" until Kabul was taken. Jalalabad was chosen, the most important city in eastern Afghanistan, just 120 km from Peshawar, the Pakistani border town that concentrated arms and troop support for the Mujahideen, and perfectly situated halfway between Peshawar and Kabul.
<Hurry, because "American friend" Hafizullah Amin is no longer with us…
> It should be noted that the timing of this offensive was not only due to the departure of the Soviets, but also to the arrival of Najibullah, the country's new president. The latter was largely recovering popular support after years of terror and provocations, organized under an "ultra-revolutionary" label by Hafizullah Amin during his rule of the party and the country[7].
>Under maximalist proclamations of revolutionary transformations, Amin, a singularly ambiguous figure, undertook a campaign of massive repression and elimination of tens of thousands of people who did not submit to his exacerbated fanaticism.>An American academic has summed up his practices well: "His government issued several decrees questioning the customs of traditional Afghan tribal society and offending the beliefs of the people (…) Popular opposition then grew through armed struggle. In return, the authorities instituted a regime of terror, arresting, killing and torturing thousands of Afghans[8]." On a more political note, communist leader Anahita Ratebzad, a doctor, founder of women's education centers and later Minister of Education, drew a crueler assessment of Hafizullah Amin: "(…) a cruel and criminal murderer who had made terror, suppression and the crushing of any opposition force an integral part of his mode of government, and who began his days by putting opponents of his bloody regime in places of torture, prisons and slaughterhouses[9]."
>Trained in the United States during his youth, Amin was gradually suspected of being an agent in the service of the Americans.>According to the British journalist (head of the Guardian's international service) and writer Jonathan Steele, Amin had admitted "(…) to having received money from the American secret service before the revolution[10]." Communist leader Babrak Karmal, his replacement in power, told the German press in 1980: "Today, we have precise information that a CIA-trained agent was able to infiltrate our party and lead the revolution in the wrong direction (…) There is evidence that Hafizullah Amin had secret talks with senior American officials at an extraordinary UN conference. After his return to Afghanistan, he slowly usurped power. This evidence was published in Kabul[11]." Amin's behavior during his reign was so strange that the British ambassador in Moscow from 1988 to 1992, Rodric Braithwaite, reported that his American colleague Adolph Dubs, ambassador in Kabul, after meeting Amin on several occasions, had approached the State Department wondering whether Amin was not an agent in the service of the USA[12].
>More concretely, and this is confirmed by documentary evidence, confidential diplomatic cables, revealed via the U.S. Freedom of Information Act procedure, specify that Amin met discreetly with the last two U.S. Chief of Mission to tell them of his wish to draw closer to the United States.>The first, Bruce Amstutz, was received by Amin in early October 1979 at the latter's request. In one of his confidential cables, entitled "President Amin's Desire for Better Relations", the diplomat stated: "President Amin has made it clear to me that he is willing to meet with any Chief of Mission the U.S. Government may designate". Amstutz advised against this because, in his words, "conditions on the ground were becoming terrible, with mutinies in the garrisons and series of executions perpetrated by Amin's regime[13]." With Amstutz gone, Amin asked to meet the new and last chargé d'affaires, Archer Blood, who was a little more explicit in the confidential cable he sent to the State Department. "(…) Amin told me, to begin with, of his affection for the United States since his student days. I believe he would like to see an improvement in US/Afghan relations". And this, according to Blood, (sic) "in order to have long-term protection against too much dependence on the Soviet Union[14]."
>There's every reason to believe that the head of Soviet intelligence at the time, Yuri Andropov, was not mistaken when, in December 1979, he wrote in a handwritten memorandum to Leonid Brezhnev: "We have received information about Amin's behind-the-scenes activities, which could signify his political reorientation towards the West.He is hiding from us his contacts with American businessmen[15]." Writings and words that the aforementioned American academic clarified: "In order to achieve his goals and ensure his survival, Amin attempted to establish closer relations with other countries, notably Pakistan and the United States[16]."
>Amin's thirst for power led him to order the assassination of President Taraki, a member of his own political wing[17], in order to take his place, before being assassinated himself, with the participation of a Soviet commando, during the USSR's military intervention in the country[18].
<The great race against time
>The task ahead for Najibullah could therefore not have been more difficult or risky. With total commitment to saving a revolution in peril, he immediately set about rectifying Hafizullah Amin's provocative measures. He proposed an immediate ceasefire to the mujahedin and convened a national reconciliation conference, in radical opposition to the irresponsible measures taken by Amin, which were totally out of step with the social and cultural reality of the country. He also ensured that the new constitution of 1990 no longer referred to communism, but recognized Islam as the national religion. Najibullah's response to Amin's furious madness, which had gone so far as to change the traditional Afghan tricolor into a red flag to erase the Islamic green, was a "new version of the Afghan tricolor with a medallion of a red star (…) surmounting an open Koran"[19]. This last detail testifies to the depth and intelligence of the change, in a new framework where small traders and farmers could recover their businesses and their plots of land. And where, in the cities, there would be no more vindictiveness towards veiled women.
>At the same time, he began to negotiate the departure of Soviet troops, believing that, having put an end to Amin's disastrous experience, the Afghan people could, by overcoming most of their divisions, face up to the obscurantist insurgency of the jihadists. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, very close to Najibullah, also believed this. According to Ambassador Braithwaite, "Eduard Shevardnadze was convinced that the Afghans could fight indefinitely thanks to a flow of oil and arms from the USSR[20]."
>Such was the progress of Najibullah's democratic and unitary approaches, including on the military level, with the less fanatical sectors of the insurgents, that the New York Times revealed, almost at the same time as the CIA and ISI were preparing "the final assault", that "(…).high-level officials are beginning to find more acceptable the idea, rejected by the guerrillas, that Najibullah's government might be given a role in a political solution[21]." It was therefore necessary to hurry up and launch the "final" military aggression before Najibullah's new policy continued to bear fruit.
<The Battle of Jalalabad
>Heavily equipped by its Pakistani, American, Israeli, Chinese and Saudi sponsors, the jihadist offensive involving more than ten thousand men (a very large proportion of them Pakistanis and a minority of Islamist Arabs) got off to a very good start, taking the town of Samarkhel and Jalalabad airport. All indications are that the advance will not stop there, and the Islamists are exultant. Wikipedia notes: "The capture of Samarkhel and the airport is hailed by all Western diplomats as a great success for the Resistance[22]." The jihadist victory was accompanied by a campaign of terror implemented by Hekmatyar against civilians suspected of supporting popular power. According to the English version of Wikipedia, this terror "(…) incited the communists to fight harder (…)[23]", with the first result being to halt the advance of the mujahideen, achieved thanks to a large civilian turnout of workers, students, teachers, peasants and, in particular, women: "Displaying great confidence in their support, the government distributed weapons to teachers, students and workers (…) They saw their fate as linked to that of the government. Faced with a counter-revolution that had shown what it was capable of, the people of the cities - especially the women - fought with determination to prevent a Mujahideen victory[24]."
>This halting of the advance was followed by four months of tenacious resistance and confrontation, with thousands of deaths on both sides, and ended with the total rout of the invaders. Jalalabad 1989 was a bit like Diên Biên Phu 1954[25]. "Government soldiers here and in Jalalabad were very enthusiastic today, laughing and raising their arms in victory," recounted a Washington Post correspondent[26]. According to Australian researcher Norm Dixon, "Kandahar and even Kabul were also successfully defended, for several months, by Afghan troops alone without Soviet help[27]."
>Based on various Anglo-Saxon sources, Wikipedia seems to confirm Dixon's assertion: "(…) contrary to American and Pakistani expectations, this battle proved that the Afghan army could fight without Soviet help (…) many local Hekmatyar and Sayyaf commanders concluded truces with the government. According to Brigadier-General Mohammed Yousaf, an ISI officer, 'the jihad never recovered from Jalalabad'[28]." It's not just Yousaf, the great head of CIA-ISI operations concerning Afghanistan, who says this. The British-Pakistani Trotskyist intellectual Tariq Ali, hardly suspected of pro-Soviet sympathies, considers that this battle played a decisive role in the consolidation of Najibullah's government.
<The second stab
>The successes of Najibullah's new policy of openness and reconciliation began to become impressive, particularly in the most sensitive and decisive area of all, the civil war: "By 1988, just two years after Najibullah came to power, 160 guerrilla commanders (out of an estimated 2,000 at the time) had reached agreements with the government and more than 750 were negotiating[29]."
>But 1988 was also the year when perestroika was in full swing in the Soviet Union, with its share of concessions and setbacks in its relations with the West. It was at this point that the USSR's support for the multi-agressed Afghanistan began to disintegrate, already under Gorbachev, and then, with Boris Yeltsin, took on the hideous face of open betrayal. Thus, in November 1991, Yeltsin decided to cut off all assistance to Afghanistan, including raw materials such as gas and oil, in which the USSR was rich. And then, quite simply, everything collapsed. Afghan tanks and planes could no longer advance or fly for lack of fuel. According to the aforementioned British ambassador Rodric Braithwaite, Yeltsin had secret contacts with the Mujahedin even before he came to power[30].
>Who better than a soldier of the time to enlighten us (in Le Figaro, not L'Huma!): "General Boris Gromov was the last Soviet serviceman to leave Afghanistan on February 15, 1989. He declared that, following Mikhail Gorbachev's decision to withdraw the armed forces, the Soviet Union continued to supply the country with equipment, ammunition, training and food. This sufficed for three years. But as soon as Boris Yeltsin stopped supporting Afghanistan economically, everything collapsed[31]."
>He's right, the Soviet officer, about the dirty role played by Yeltsin. And so it was that the Afghan revolution collapsed in April 1992, leaving power to the jihadists in great confusion, and fierce battles between them. Najibullah, on the other hand, remained in command until the last minute, and had no time to go into exile when his fate was sealed. He took refuge at the United Nations, trusting in the "international community". He remained locked up at the organization's headquarters for four years, with the Pakistani and American security services working together to ensure that he could not be extradited until the Taliban, whom they had nurtured and trained, came to power. Four years was too short a time for them to forget. They and their mentors had clearly understood that he, Najibullah, was the major obstacle to their reactionary and obscurantist plans. Following the dictates of their Pakistani mentors, a Taliban commando led by Mullah Abdul Razaq was tasked with making him pay for his resistance and, perhaps more importantly, his teachings[32]. After a long session of torture, Dr. Mohammar Najibullah - who had trained as a doctor - was castrated and dragged, still alive, by a car through the streets of central Kabul, before being paraded hanging from a lamppost[33].
>Vladimir Caller, Brussels, November 2021
>In 2008, Radio Kabul (en) carried out a poll asking: "Under which regime was Afghanistan best governed?" 93.2% of respondents answered: "Under Najibullah's regime ".