Though not officially a belligerent during the Soviet–Afghan War, the United Kingdom was heavily involved, playing a key covert role in the conflict. Also known as the Second Great Game, the British provided both indirect and direct support for the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet Union, including secretly arming, funding and supplying various factions. Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) primarily supported the Mujahideen group Jamiat-e Islami, commanded by Ahmad Shah Massoud who, having received little support from the US and Pakistan, became Britain's key ally in the conflict. Fighting in the Panjshir valley, Massoud and his fighters with British support and intelligence, overcame nine Soviet offensives and held out up to the Soviet withdrawal from the vital valley in 1986. Massoud became the most successful and feared of the Mujahideen commanders.
The British also played a vital role in support of the US government's Operation Cyclone, from which the latter provided far more in financial and material terms. Unlike the US which had to funnel its program through Pakistan, the UK played a more direct combat role in Afghanistan itself – in particular, using retired or seconded Special forces such as the Special Air Service and private military corporations to support the resistance groups in practical manners. One of Britain's greatest contributions was training the Mujahideen; not just in Afghanistan and Pakistan but also in the Gulf states and the UK itself.
The UK's role in the conflict entailed direct military involvement not only in Afghanistan but the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union. By the war's end, Britain's support to the Afghan resistance turned out to be Whitehall's most extensive covert operation since the Second World War.
Background
Britain had fought in Afghanistan in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. British paranoia of Tsarist Russia's threat against British India – the so-called Great Game – brought Afghanistan into the fray. Britain intended to gain control over the Emirate of Afghanistan, and as a result, three major wars were fought there; the first in 1842 which ended in a humiliating withdrawal. The second was fought in 1879 which ended in British ally Abdur Rahman Khan being installed as puppet with the Durand Line being established by 1893. The third was fought in 1919 in which Afghanistan attempted to invade India. Although they were repelled, Afghanistan did secure independence but a new diplomatic mission was secured so that it could act as a buffer state between the British empire in India and the new Soviet empire. In effect, Britain controlled Afghanistan's foreign policy and paid the government to maintain stability. This lasted well into the 1940s until the independence of both Pakistan and India in 1947.
After the 1940s, Britain played a very little role in Afghan politics, and this opened the door for the Soviet Union's involvement. In the 1960s the new People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a Marxist–Leninist political party was founded and supported by the Soviets. The PDPA, led by Mohammed Daoud Khan had taken power in the 1973 Afghan coup d'état by overthrowing the monarchy of King Zahir Shah. However Daoud Khan was overthrown six years later in the Saur revolution which took Moscow by surprise, who preferred that the pro-Soviet Daoud Khan stay in power.
Discontent fermented amongst the people of Afghanistan, and anti-government revolts in March, June and August took place after the revolution had ended. The Soviets were keen to get in and stabilise the country citing the Brezhnev Doctrine as a basis for their intervention. Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders believed that the West were behind the uprisings in Afghanistan in the context of the Cold War, and the rebellions were seen in Moscow as the first stage of an alleged Western plot to instigate rebellions or 'Jihad' in Soviet Central Asia where the majority of the population was Muslim. On Christmas Day 1979, the USSR began its military occupation of Afghanistan.
In May 1979, Margaret Thatcher became the British Prime Minister, and had a reputation for being firmly anti-Soviet. The nickname 'The Iron Lady' was first coined in an article in the Soviet military newspaper Red Star. British officials were concerned about the possibility that Moscow might subsequently exploit opportunities to destabilize fragile South Asian states to expand its influence within them. British concern was not with neighboring Pakistan, but the ongoing revolution in Iran and the potential hijack by the Iranian Communist Party – the Tudeh. Thatcher saw détente as a sham which enabled the Soviet bloc to wage the Cold War by other means, and professed in her memoirs that their intervention in Afghanistan came as no surprise.
Britain's involvement
Within three weeks of the Soviet invasion, the cabinet secretary, Robert Armstrong, was negotiating how to channel covert military aid towards the Islamic resistance fighting the Russians. Secretary of State Peter Carrington attempted to visit Moscow to try to persuade the leader of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev to withdraw his troops from Afghanistan, but this proved fruitless when Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko refused any meeting on the matter. Armstrong then sent a note to Thatcher, Carrington and "C" (Sir Colin Figures the head of MI6) arguing the case for military aid to "encourage and support resistance". Carrington then visited Pakistan on 17 January meeting with President Zia-ul-Haq touring the border and assuring them of support. A further meeting with West German, French and US representatives took place in London the following month. All looked to support the Mujahideen in some ways but not to provide direct aid – the French proposed channeling military aid via the Iraqis, but the West Germans were concerned about American intentions and the danger of a third world war. France agreed to provide some support, but only with the medical group Médecins Sans Frontières. Thatcher, on the other hand, wanted to wage a covert war even if it meant putting British troops on the ground. However any overt military action to counter the USSR was out of the question, not just because of the risks of escalation, but the severe limitations on the UK's military capabilities. The Conservative government wanted to focus Britain's armed forces on Europe, and the risks of conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Thatcher had a long conversation with US President Jimmy Carter and both agreed to give as much assistance to the Afghan rebels. She also enthusiastically backed Carter's tough stance towards the Soviets, but did not go as far as boycotting the Moscow Olympic Games which the US had done.
Support for the Afghan resistance was approved by the British government who then authorized MI6 to conduct operations within the first year of the Soviet occupation. This was to be coordinated by MI6 officers in Islamabad in liaison with the CIA and Pakistan's ISI. Carrington was also eager to get 'scenes of Afghans fighting communists onto television screens' hoping for a televised style war like Vietnam.
Thatcher discussed British military aid with Pakistan's foreign minister Agha Shahi in June 1980 and welcomed Zia-ul-Haq in a state visit four months later. Following this Thatcher then visited Pakistan in October 1981 and met Haq again, on a state visit. She was flown by helicopter to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp, where 12,000 people were staying close to the Afghan border. Thatcher toured the refugee camp and then told a gathering of Afghan elders that her Government would continue to press Moscow to withdraw its troops from their homeland. She then gave a speech telling them that the hearts of the free world were with them, and promised aid. Thatcher then went to the Khyber Pass inspected some captured Soviet weapons, briefly crossed the border shaking hands with an Afghan Soldier, before flying back to Islamabad for a state banquet. The Kremlin on the other hand responded to the whole visit by critiquing Thatcher's "provocation aimed at stirring up anti-Soviet hysteria."
Ahmad Shah Massoud MI6 sought to find the faction that they could support – after approval for operations the first move was in February 1980 just two months after the Soviet invasion, MI6 officers led by the Far East's Controller Gerry Warner met tribal leaders in the Pakistan border area within a school to offer help and support if necessary. Warner then briefed an officer to find a Napoleon-style Afghan commander. Examinations from reports in the field and intercepted Soviet communications were filtered through – at first it was thought that helping the Mujahideen in the Helmand Province was a feasible option. However, attention was soon turned to one of the factions that, in the view of the British, were the ones giving the Soviets a bloody nose – the Jamiat-e Islami. Led by political leader Burhanuddin Rabbani, this was one of the most powerful of the Afghan mujahideen groups – Rabbani's commander was Ahmad Shah Massoud, a young Tajik commander in the Panjshir Valley. This area had within it 150,000 people, in a fertile river valley but it also had strategic areas, such as the Salang Pass, the supply route for the Soviet 40th Army and was only fifty miles North East of Kabul. Here Massoud's men ambushed Soviet and Afghan communist convoys travelling through the pass, causing fuel shortages in Kabul.
There was the issue that Massoud's faction were mostly Tajiks and Pakistan only supported the hardline Islamic Pushtuns tribes. Despite this however the British sent out a team to meet Massoud – posing as journalists, they met Massoud's British-educated brother Ahmad Wali Massoud in a Peshawar hotel. They then set off crossing the border into Afghanistan where they came under fire from the Soviets or their Afghan allies before they eventually met Massoud. The meeting was a success – the British gave a large sum of money to Massoud and asked what he needed. He said he had enough weapons, much of it captured from the Russians and their allies but what he needed was expert military training, radios and other high-tech supplies. The British agreed to support Massoud despite the challenges of the Pakistanis, and to set up an operation to fund, supply and train Massoud's forces.
MI6's battleground – the Panjshir Valley
Fighting in the Panjshir valley became the Soviet Union's major focus for offensives in Afghanistan.
Through MI6, Massoud accepted an annual mission of two of their officers as well as military instructors (a total of five to eight men) for him and his fighters. These men were composed of special forces – SAS and SBS. As it was considered too dangerous for serving British soldiers to travel in the country they were 'de-badged' and then seconded to SIS under false identification. There were also contract labourers who had to be trained in intelligence techniques and were provided military instructions by MI6 personnel so that these men had to handle the dangerous cross-border operations from Pakistan. Altogether these men were known colloquially as the 'increment' or the Revolutionary Warfare Wing (RWW). The first of these arrived in the summer of 1981, having made the difficult two-week journey walking North of the Pakistan border into Nuristan, over the Hindu Kush mountains and finally into the valley itself at a secret location. They went so far as much as to look and dress like the mujahideen wearing the Shalwar kameez and stayed for three weeks or more in the Panjshir mountains using caves for shelter and cover, where a small base was established.