Operation Cyclone

"Operation Cyclone" is the name under which the CIA's Afghan program became famous, largely through journalism after the fact. The declassified State Department record calls it simply the Afghanistan covert action program. Its editors describe it as "a modest beginning to an operation that would ultimately become the longest and largest in U.S. history to that point."^3,5

Non-lethal beginnings, 1979

Afghanistan had a communist government from April 1978, and by early 1979 a rural revolt was under way. US officials began weighing options after the kidnapping and death of Ambassador Adolph Dubs in Kabul in February 1979; at that stage, the FRUS editors note, lethal aid was considered too risky.³

At a Special Coordination Committee meeting on 26 June 1979 the Director of Central Intelligence reported that contacts with Afghan insurgent leaders had been made in Pakistan. The committee approved propaganda and psychological operations, radio access to the Afghan population through third countries, and support to the insurgents in cash or non-military supplies, and agreed to encourage Saudi Arabia to fund similar aid.² President Carter signed two findings on 3 July.² A State Department summary written the following May puts the money for non-lethal supplies under the first findings at $695,000.¹

The committee also agreed that Pakistan would be told of the support but that the CIA would run it unilaterally, and it deferred options for routing humanitarian supplies through Pakistan or a third country until Pakistani reactions and "other political fallout" had been assessed.²

Arms after the invasion

Soviet forces entered Afghanistan on 25 December 1979 and killed President Hafizullah Amin. On 28 December Carter signed a new finding authorizing lethal military equipment for "the Afghan opponents of the Soviet intervention," supplied directly or through third countries, with training outside Afghanistan.^6,3,1 In February 1980 a further sum was authorized, to be matched by Saudi Arabia.¹

By May 1980 the pipeline was working. The State Department's intelligence bureau briefed the new Secretary of State, Edmund Muskie, that the arms were Soviet-made rifles, machine guns, mines and anti-tank rockets, first from CIA reserve stocks and then bought on the international market. They were flown by US Air Force C-141s to Saudi Arabia and on to Pakistan in Saudi C-130s. No Americans in Pakistan handled logistics or training; Pakistani officers trained the Afghans, and the CIA station chief in Islamabad worked out the details with Pakistani intelligence and President Zia. Egypt had donated 15 Soviet-made SA-7 anti-aircraft launchers, and the CIA was buying more from a Bulgarian source through cut-outs. Zia had threatened to stop all cooperation if there were further press leaks.¹

Growth under Reagan

The program expanded greatly in the 1980s. Pakistani intelligence (the ISI) controlled which of the seven resistance parties got what, and favored the Islamist factions.⁵ The 9/11 Commission summarized the arrangement: "Saudi Arabia and the United States supplied billions of dollars worth of secret assistance to rebel groups in Afghanistan," funneled through Pakistan, where the ISI "helped train the rebels and distribute the arms."⁴ From 1986 the CIA supplied US-made Stinger shoulder-fired missiles, which the mujahideen used against Soviet helicopters.⁵ Britain's MI6 ran a separate effort, with its own favored commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud.⁵ (See Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).)

The Soviet withdrawal was completed on 15 February 1989. US aid continued during the fighting that followed, with Congress funding the program into fiscal year 1992.⁵

The bin Laden question

Osama bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan in 1980 as one of thousands of foreign volunteers, notable chiefly for his family money.⁴ The 9/11 Commission found that he and the "Afghan Arabs" drew largely on a Gulf-based fund-raising network, and concluded:⁴

But Bin Ladin and his comrades had their own sources of support and training, and they received little or no assistance from the United States.

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