The spillover of the Soviet–Afghan War in Pakistan refers to a series of airstrikes, ground skirmishes and other military confrontations which took place inside Pakistan as a result of the Soviet-Afghan war.
Due to the Soviet Union's steadfast support for India, which contributed to the loss of Pakistani territory in the years leading up to the Soviet-Afghan War, Pakistani leaders moved to support the mujahideen in their fight against the Soviets. Western powers provided financial support to Pakistan in exchange for their involvement. The Pakistani military trained mujahideen and produced volunteers to help Afghan forces. As a result, there were attacks on Pakistan by both the Soviets and communist Afghan groups.
During this period, millions of Afghans fled to Pakistan for safety. The consequences of this were great and long-lasting: the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency established madrasas along the Afghan border, which fostered a dual religious and political ideology that contributed to the establishment of the Taliban. In the decades since the Soviet-Afghan War, there have continued to be disputes over territory and immigration between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Background
Shortly after the invasion, Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq chaired a meeting of his military government. At this meeting, Zia asked the Chief of Army Staff General Khalid Mahmud Arif and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Muhammad Shariff to lead a specialized civil-military team to formulate a geo-strategy to counter the Soviet aggression. At this meeting, the Director-General of the ISI at that time, Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for an idea of covert operation in Afghanistan by arming the Islamic extremist. As for Pakistan, the Soviet war with the Islamist mujahideen was viewed as retaliation for the Soviet Union's long unconditional support of regional rival, India, notably during the 1965 and the 1971 wars, which led to the loss of Pakistani territory to the new state of Bangladesh.
After the Soviet deployment, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started accepting financial aid from the Western powers to aid the Mujahideen, despite Leonid Brezhnev's opposition. In 1981, following the election of US President Ronald Reagan, aid for the Mujahidin through Zia's Pakistan significantly increased, mostly due to the efforts of Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos.
The Pakistan Navy were involved in the covert war coordinating foreign weapons being funnelled into Afghanistan. Some of the navy's high-ranking admirals were responsible for storing those weapons in their depots.
ISI allocated the highest percentage of covert aid to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hezb-e-Islami faction. This was based on his record as an effective anti-Soviet military commander in Afghanistan. Further, Hekmatyar and his men had "almost no grassroots support and no military base inside Afghanistan", and thus were more "dependent on Zia-ul-Haq's protection and financial largesse" than other Mujahiden factions. In retaliation for Pakistan's assistance to the insurgents, the KHAD Afghan security service, under leader Mohammad Najibullah, carried out (according to the Mitrokhin Archives and other sources) a large number of operations against Pakistan. In 1987, 127 incidents resulted in 234 deaths in Pakistan. In April 1988, an ammunition depot outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad was blown up, killing 100 and injuring more than 1000 people. The KHAD and KGB were suspected of perpetrating these acts. Soviet fighters and Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force bombers occasionally bombed Pakistani villages along the Pakistani-Afghan border. The target of Soviet and Afghan fighters and bombers were Afghan refugee camps on Pakistan side of the border. These attacks are known to have caused at least 300 civilian deaths and extensive damage. Soviet and Afghan forces were also involved in dogfights with responding Pakistani jets.
Pakistan actively trained the mujahedin rebels, which resulted in Afghan communist leaders ordering airstrikes in Pakistan at rebel targets. Many secular Pakistanis outside of the government were worried about fundamentalists guerrillas in Afghanistan, such as Hekmatyar, receiving such a high amount of aid, leading to the bolstering of conservative Islamic forces in Pakistan and its military.
Pakistan also provided volunteers who went to Afghanistan in order to fight, their numbers estimated at around 40,000 by General Mirza Aslam Beg, a former chief of the Pakistan Army.
Pakistan took in millions of Afghan refugees (mostly Pashtun) fleeing the Soviet occupation. Although the refugees were concentrated within Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan, at the time under martial law under General Rahimuddin Khan, the influx of so many refugees – believed to be the largest refugee population in the world – spread into several other regions.
All of this had a heavy impact on Pakistan and its effects continue to this day. Pakistan, through its support for the Mujahidin, played a significant role in the eventual withdrawal of Soviet military personnel from Afghanistan.
Timeline
A table covering the spillover incidents of the Soviet-Afghan War in Pakistan from 1980 to 1988 is as follows:
1979
On 18 March 1979, a Soviet APC carrying troops entered Pakistani territory, demanding that three Afghan personnel who had defected be handed over to them. However, Pakistani authorities refused, prompting the Soviets to launch 123 rounds of artillery fire from T-55 tanks in Torkham, forcing Pakistan to hand over the three Afghan defectors, two days later on 20 March.
1980
On 1 March, PAF intercepted a Soviet Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft and escorted it out of Pakistani airspace, back to Afghanistan.
On 4 May 1980, a building operated by Afghan Mujahideen in Pakistan was bombed, 11 people were killed.
On 25 November, eight people were caught and charged with spying on behalf of the Soviet Union by Pakistani authorities.
1981
The far-left militant faction al-Zulfikar hijacked the Pakistan International Airlines Flight 326 with support from KHAD and KGB on 14 March 1981 and the ensuing hostage crisis ended with the release of 50 prisoners by Pakistan.
On 26 April 1981, a DRAAF Mil Mi-8 helicopter was hijacked from Qandahar and landed at the PAF Base Samungli The helicopter numbered 285, during post-maintenance flight test from Kandahar Air Base by Captain Jamal ud Din.
On 8 September 1981, Afghan troops raided the village of Shabbaz Killy inside Pakistan to confiscate weaponry, wounding five people in the process. The Pakistani government claimed that around 40 Afghan troops came in trucks and APCs and retreated before the arrival of Pakistani Forces. Pakistan also claimed that the village had been attacked by Mig-17 aircraft in the week earlier.
On 2 December 1981, a helicopter gunship fired by Afghan forces killed seven people in Balochistan. On 18 December, six Afghan helicopters again attacked a refugee camp, this time in South Waziristan, killing a child and destroying two houses.
1982
In early October 1982, an Afghan defector moving towards Pakistan was killed as his Mig-17 crashed near the border in Chaman, but a helicopter was able to successfully make it across the border, later that month.
1983
In May 1983, the No. 17 Squadron while operating from Samungli Airbase along with the No. 23 Squadron "Talons" was put on air defence alert after a surge in aerial intrusions by Afghan and Soviet warplanes during the Soviet-Afghan war. It performed 682 CAP missions and 238 hot scrambles. Unfortunately, the record of the aerial interceptions and other events was not maintained.
On 17 September 1983, Afghan MIG-21s violated Pakistani airspace with the possible aim of targeting Mujahideen camps. The aircraft conducted a bombing raid in Parachinar, killing a man. Pakistan condemned the attack and summoned Afghan officials. A protest was held in Parachinar against the attack during the Islamic holy event of Eid ul adha.
On November 20, 1983, Captain Mohammed Nabi Korinzay defected to Pakistan with his Su-7BM fighter-bomber. The aircraft broke up during a crash landing on the runway at Dalbandin.
1984
On 16 July, an Afghan Mi-25 helicopter defected and landed in Miranshah.
On 13 August 1984, DRAAF bombed targets in Parachinar. On 14 August 1984, three Afghan aircraft bombed Kunj Alizai, near the village of Nisti Kot killing one and injuring five women. The next day, on 15 August, two Afghan jets again violated Pakistani airspace dropping two bombs over Pewar Kotal region, killing 13 people and injuring five. On 18, 19, and 21 August, Afghan Army conducted artillery strikes in Parachinar, followed by an airstrike on 23 August.
On 22 September 1984, Colonel Haji Fakir, flying an An-26 of the 373rd Transport Aviation Regiment defected from Afghanistan to Miranshah Air Base, Pakistan.
On 2 October 1984, Afghanistan denied the Pakistani claim of its forces conducting a bombardment campaign in Tari Mangal which had killed 33 people and injured 48.
1985
On 24 January, Pakistani authorities said that 2 Afghan aircraft had violated Pakistani airspace for three days near Arandu and had dropped two bombs, but caused no damage.
On 14 April, Pakistan claimed that two Afghan jets violated Pakistani airspace near Chitral and dropped two bombs, they also accused Afghanistan of further violations near Arandu. The accusations, however, were rejected by Afghanistan.
A POW uprising took place on 26–27 April 1985 in Badaber, when Soviet and Afghan POWs revolted at the fortress of Badaber where they were being held captive. The Jamaat-e-Islami forces and the Pakistani Army's XI Corps suppressed the rebellion. Most of the POWs were killed in the uprising while inflicting heavy casualties on the mujahideen and Pakistani forces and also managing to blow 3 BM-21 Grad MLRS,
2 million rounds of ammunition and
thousands of rockets.
In mid-1985, the Soviet Union and Kabul launched psychological warfare against Pakistan in an attempt to morally destabilize society. As part of this strategy, the KGB and KhAD deployed hundreds of young girls of Central Asian, and Russian origin to corrupt Pakistani society. This influx initially targeted the major urban centers such as Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad, Multan, and Quetta. These groups of prostitutes strategically selected affluent areas in these cities and operated within a well-organized structure. Many of these prostitutes had connections to KGB and KhAD agents, with high-ranking government officials and Pakistan army officers being their primary targets.
On 28 June 1985, two Afghan Mil Mi-24 helicopters with five crewmen defected to Pakistan, landing at Miramshah, the aircraft belonged to the 377th Independent Helicopter Regiment, piloted by Mohammad Ishak and Mohammad Omar. The helicopters were later transferred to the United States for evaluation, they were later returned and one of them is now at display in Khalid Aviation Base Quetta (Pakistan).
On 19 August 1985, 4 Afghan aircraft bombed the village of Kewas inside Pakistan, killing eight and wounding twelve, and five houses were also destroyed.
Around 1985, Pakistani police in the city of Karachi were becoming alarmed by an increased number of killings. While the murders took place in different areas of the city, an investigation found these murders were done in the same manner; a single blow to the head with a hathora (the word for "hammer" in Urdu). Some Pakistanis newspapers alluded that the Hathora group was actually made up of members of the Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, and KHAD, who were striking back due to the Pakistani government backing the Afghan mujahideen against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
In late 1985, Pakistani government sent 3,000 Frontier Corps personnel to capture Wali Khan Kukikhel, leader of a faction from the Afridi clan believed to be working with the DRA and to subdue the Afridi and Shinwari tribesmen under his influence and dismantle their smuggling networks.
50 people were killed and 150 were injured in Pakistan in 1986, in a Soviet-Afghan cross border sabotage campaign across the border.
1986
On 7 January, a roadside landmine planted by KHAD killed 15 Afghan refugees in Kurram Agency. On 23 January, KHAD targeted the PIA building in Peshawar with a bomb blast, killing five and injuring 25 Pakistanis. On 28 January, 4 Afghan Mi-24 helicopters violated Pakistani airspace and bombed Parachinar, killing one person and injuring 13. On 31 January 2 Afghan helicopters violated Pakistani airspace 3 times near Parachinar, dropping bombs which injured 3 women.
On 2 February, KHAD saboteurs disrupted the electric supply in Mardan by bombing an electrical grid station. The No. 15 squadron intercepted a couple of Soviet Mig-21s in February 1986 but were ordered not to engage them.