What's new

A completely ignored Pak-Afghan history from 1947-1979 a must read

There has been a lot of discussion on the Pak-Afghan relationship quite lately. The interesting aspect is that the Pak-Afghan history from 1947-1979 is completely ignored. The long proxy war of 26 years perpetrated by Afghanistan in the name of Pashtunistan (1947-73). Either we are unbeknownst or we do it intentionally which is intellectual dishonesty.

Now let me explicate you with what actions did the Kabul regime take during this time.

1. September 1947: Afghanistan became the ONLY country to vote against Pakistan’s membership of United Nations. Keep in mind how fragile the gov of Pakistan was at that moment while considering this extremely hostile beginning by Afghanistan.
2. September 1947: Pashtunistan flag was raised alongside Afghan national flag in Kabul. Afg started arming and funding proxies in the border areas (Afridi Sarishtas & Ipi Faqir) for the ‘Liberation of Pashtunistan’. This led to skirmishes between Pak forces and Afghan proxies.
3. June 1949: While pursuing miscreants who attacked Pakistani border posts from Afghanistan, a PAF warplane inadvertently bombed the Afghan village of Moghulgai on the Waziristan border.
4. July 1949: A Loya Jirga held by Afghan govt at Kabul unilaterally denounced all treaties related to Pak-Afghan international border and announced full support for Pashtunistan. 31st August was declared as ‘Pashtunistan Day’ which was regularly commemorated by Afghan Govt every year.
5. 1948-1949: Afghan-supported proxies announced the formation of ‘Pashtunistan’ in Tirah (Khyber) and Razmak (Waziristan), with Ipi Faqir as President.
6. 1950: Afghan airforce planes dropped leaflets in support of Pashtunistan, inside Pakistan’s tribal areas.
7. Sep-Oct 1950: Afghan army with artillery support attacked Dobandi area of Balochistan and occupied a strategic pass with the aim to cut off Chaman-Quetta Railway link. Pakistan army send reinforcements to the area and retook the pass after a week’s fighting.
8. 1950-51: Three Afghan-led Lashkars attacked Pakistani areas across Durand Line in Khyber Agency.
Afghanistan declared the miscreants as ‘Freedom Fighters’ and used its official Radio and Press for non-stop Pashtunistan propaganda.
9. Pakistan responded by using ‘go slow’ approach on Afghanistan’s trade transit routes.
10. 16 October 1951: Pakistani PM Liaquat Ali Khan was shot dead in Rawalpindi by an Afghan national Said Akbar Babrak. Afghanistan’s govt disowned his act.
Afghanistan’s material+propaganda support for Pashtunistan miscreants continued unabated throughout the 1950s.
11. 30 March 1955: Pakistan’s diplomatic missions in Kabul, Qandahar, Jalalabad were attacked at the behest of Afghan govt and Pashtunistan flag was hoisted on the chancery of Pakistan Embassy in Kabul.
12. September 1959: Afghan King Zahir Shah and PM Sardar Daud reaffirmed their support for Pashtunistan.
13. September 1960: Afghan army troops and militias attacked Bajaur. The attack was repulsed by Bajauri tribesmen with help of SSG forces from Cherat. An account of the battle is shown in the declassified US Embassy document.
14. March 1961: Afghanistan supplied arms and ammunition to proxies led by Pacha Gul in Bajaur’s Batmalai area for an uprising. The ammunition dump was destroyed by PAF aerial bombing.
15. May 1961: Thousands of Afghan troops disguised as militias attacked Bajaur, Jandul and Khyber. The attacks were repulsed by tribesmen with support of Frontier Corps and aerial bombing by PAF warplanes. President Ayub warned the Afghan side against unprovoked escalations.
16. 6 September 1961: Diplomatic relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan were cut off after Pakistan decided to restrict Afghan transit trade due to its continuous support for Pashtunistan proxies.
17. The relations were resumed two years later, in 1963, when Sardar Doud (the main engine behind Pashtunistan) resigned as PM.
18. September 1964: Afghan Loya Jirga again reiterated support for Pashtunistan (though much mildly than in past).
19. 1964-1972: Relative calm in relations due to Afghanistan’s domestic power struggle issues and democracy experiments. The Pashtunistan issue went on backburner and Pak-Afghan relations normalized to such extent that Afghanistan remained neutral in 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars.
20. 1972-73: Afghanistan restarted support for Pashtunistan; intensified Radio Kabul propaganda and sheltered NAP activists led by Ajmal Khattak.
21. July 1973: Sardar Doud led a bloodless military coup to overthrow King Zahir Shah and declared himself President. One of the reasons he quoted for the coup was Zahir Shah’s supposedly soft approach on Pashtunistan.
22. Afghan official gazette published the Pashtunistan flag and also ran inflammatory reports about terrorist activities of Pashtunistan miscreants. Radio Kabul’s propaganda reached a peak.
23. 1973: In response to renewed Pashtunistan focus by Afghanistan, Pakistani PM Z.A.Bhutto authorized a tit-for-tat response to Afghanistan. IGFC Naseerullah Babar was tasked to train dissident Afghans for proxy purposes inside Afghanistan.
24. This was Pakistan’s first act to use proxies against Afghanistan, after 26 year long proxy war perpetrated by Afghanistan in the name of Pashtunistan (1947-73).
25. Feb 1974: Afghan animosity to Pakistan was so great that Afghan President Doud didn’t
participate in the ‘OIC Leaders Summit’ held in Lahore.
26. Abdul Rahman Pazhwak, the Afghan delegate at the summit, tried to raise Pashtunistan issue on this Unity forum too but got snubbed as no Muslim country’s leader paid any heed.
27. 1973-78: Soon after Doud assumed power, Afghan govt started supporting the Baloch insurgents fighting against Pakistan. Afghanistan sheltered thousands of Marri tribesmen and gave them training+weapons for militant activities inside Pakistan.
28. 1973-78: Afghan govt under Doud continued to support the Pashtunistan proxies. NAP’s militant wing ‘Pakhtun Zalmay’ was funded / trained / armed by Kabul for terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
29. These facts have been confirmed by Jumma Khan Sufi, a close aide of Ajmal Khattak, in his memoirs ‘Faraib e Na Tamam’. Sufi remained in exile for 20 years in Afghanistan and was involved in the Afghan proxy activities in Pakistan.
30. 1973-onwards: Not only was Afghanistan supporting NAP terrorism in Pakistan itself, it also became a hub for Indian interference into Pakistan via Pashtunistan and Balochistan proxies.
31. 1973-onwards: Not only was Afghanistan supporting NAP terrorism in Pakistan itself, it also became a hub for Indian interference into Pakistan via Pashtunistan and Balochistan proxies.
32. NAP leaders were paid monthly stipends and other funds by Indian govt as admitted by Jumma Khan Sufi in his memoirs.
33. February 1975: Hayat Khan Sherpao, Senior PPP minister and ex-Governor NWFP, was killed in a bomb blast. The assassination was carried out by NAP militant wing operating out of Afghanistan (as confirmed by Jumma Khan Sufi some three decades later).
34. April 1978: Afghan President Doud and his whole family were massacred in the Soviet-sponsored ‘Saur Revolution’. The new pro-Communist regime announced all-out support for Pashtunistan.
35. December 1979: Soviet secret service KGB assassinated Afghanistan’s President Hafizullah Amin and nearly 100,000 Soviet forces entered Afghanistan. Babrak Karmal was installed as President by Soviets who pledged to free the ‘holy land of Pashtunistan’ (from Pakistan)

@PakSword @Zee-shaun @Areesh @Arsalan @waz @Horus Hazrat @Zarvan @django @Zibago @Umair Nawaz @Major Sam @Patriot & Ready @Pan-Islamic-Pakistan @DESERT FIGHTER @maximuswarrior @Maxpane @Pakhtoon yum @Army research @Hakikat ve Hikmet @war&peace @HRK @Rafi @Dubious @BHarwana @Windjammer @Indus Pakistan @Khafee @Irfan Baloch

Credit to the Original Author..
I'm enraged we didn't have the balls deal with them post 65 ,
 
Fascinating. We always have our blinders on regarding afg because "they are Muslims and moreover many of them are pashtuns like our own pashtuns". It is as though the crap the kabulites have done to us since 1947 is totally disregarded.

This narrative needs to be widely disseminated so that Pakistanis and non-Pakistanis alike are well aware of the reasons behind our siding with USA against the Soviets during the cold war. The Soviets, Kabulites and Indians would have split us up if it wasn't for our alliance with the Americans. I am sure many Pakistanis like myself are amazed at the sheer extent to which afg has gone to in order to try and carve Pakistan up.
 
I don't see why a compromise isn't possible: the Afghans support the Durand Line in exchange for the limited extraterritorial rights Afghan Pushtuns exercised before independence, chiefly migrating their sheep into Pakistan for the winter.

This sort of thing is not unheard of. For example, in the peace treaty that ended the U.S. Revolutionary War the American fishermen retained their traditional rights to use Canadian shores to dry their fishing catches.

They were allowed to by Pakistan, for more than half a century, no questions asked. Even when they were pulling all the jackass-ery posted by OP. But you see, they couldn't help being, well, Afghans. They just could not stop themselves from being the ungrateful leaches that they are; you know, a little anti-state activity here, a little terrorism there. Naturally, we closed the border. Sucks to be them. Even more so since Pakistan, Pakistanis, and the rest of the planet does not give two bits about them recognizing the Durand Line.
 
Last edited:
References, please.

I was mistaken. Apparently, they are still being allowed to cross over, just through the official border crossings. Anyway,

"STUDY ON CROSS BORDER POPULATION MOVEMENTS BETWEEN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN" - UNHCR

https://www.unhcr.org/4ad448670.pdf

The Pashtuns can easily travel back and forth across the border

Like most people who cross the border frequently, Khan has no travel documents. He relies on his tribal connections and cultural bonds to ensure an unhindered journey.

https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-border-cant-separate-afghan-and-pakistani-pashtuns/a-19304328

The Kuchi nomads number about 2.4 million and traditionally migrate in winter from eastern and central Afghanistan to graze their herds in frontier areas inside Pakistan.

This year, Pakistan has closed its border crossings amid tensions with its neighbor.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...n-blocks-access-to-grazing-land-idUSKCN1G31UJ


You can find quite a bit more. Even documentaries on how Afghan nomads were crossing over the border with their livestock, destroying the local flora and hunting the endangered Markhors in the National Parks near the border.
 
Last edited:
I told you all from the start we need a divorce afghanistan is the biggest hater and need to keep as little involvement as possible and completely cut off from them and keep a closed border still many P@kis wanna be butt buddies with them because "ummah"
 
When in 1978 the 31-year old Afghan Communist politician-activist, Mohammad Najibullah, arrived in Tehran, “exiled” to neighboring Iran as Afghanistan’s Ambassador, I had just left Iran where I had worked throughout the year of 1977. Najibullah’s political party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) had come to power in Kabul in April, 1978 in what is known as the Saur Revolution, the name of the month in the Afghan calendar when the Communist Revolution took place. Far from united, the PDPA was divided into two factions: the more revolutionary faction (Khalq-People’s) that first took power in Kabul in that crucial year of 1978 (crucial in both Afghanistan and Iran), preferred to have the charismatic Najibullah of the Parcham faction (Banner) of the PDPA far from the halls of power.

Moreover, the entire country was divided, much of it opposed to the Communist revolution. The chief resistance forces were the also divided. One might conclude that the Afghan War was a proxy war, between the USSR and the USA, the USA to control these two contiguous countries near the top of the world, Iran and Afghanistan, both bordering the Islamic part of the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union to defend itself from incursions into its Islamic republics in Central Asia.

As subsequent history would show, Najibullah’s approach to resolving the civil war in Afghanistan was quite different from that of the PDPA faction heading the government which favored more rapid steps toward the realization of the socialist revolution. However, for the observer today, Najibullah’s more political National Reconciliation policy (which failed) between the government and the Mujahideen opposition and the clergy is a key to understanding not only contemporary Afghanistan but also Afghan-Soviet relations in general and the withdrawal of Soviet troops ordered by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989: the significance of the 10-year Soviet military presence in Afghanistan should not be underestimated.

Since 1979 the 110,000 Soviet troops had guaranteed the relative stability of the Afghan Communist PDPA government. Though the U.S.-backed Mujahideen guerrillas already controlled many parts of the country, they were unable to defeat government forces and dislodge the PDPA government in Kabul as long as Soviet troops were present. The Soviet leadership had to know that that stability would quickly break down when its last soldiers departed.

Things had begun changing with the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev to power in Moscow in 1986. Though Soviet-controlled Afghanistan was a dangerous place to be, one of Gorbachev’s gravest mistakes was to pull his troops out of Afghanistan in 1989, leaving Najibullah and his government to face the growing firepower of the Mujahideen ... and the threat of U.S. intervention. The then President Najibullah understood this quite well and did all in his power to convince Soviet authorities to leave their troops in place.
Though divided by internal conflict among the tribal peoples and by foreign intervention for centuries, Afghanistan had made some progress toward modernization by the 1950s and 60s, toward a more liberal and westernized lifestyle, but obligated to cater to the conservative factions. Exotic and Oriental Kabul at that time was an “in” place for the international elite who frequented Afghanistan to visit the soaring mountains of the Hindu Kush, the huge central area of Afghanistan, in a way truly the top of the world. After the assassination of his father, Mohammad Zahir Shah succeeded to the throne and reigned (not ruled) as monarch from 1933 to 1973. In 1964, he had promulgated a liberal constitution that produced few lasting reforms, but instead permitted the growth of unofficial extremist parties of both left and right. Because of the turbulence at home, the king went into exile in Italy in 1973 and lived in the Rome suburbs near my residence. I tried to get an interview with him but never got past his secretary-watch dog; he had allegedly survived an assassination attempt in 1991 so was extremely stingy with interviews.

Though officially neutral during the Cold War, Afghanistan was courted by both the USA and the Soviet Union: machinery and weapons from the USSR and financial aid from the USA. Progress was halted in the 1970s by a series of bloody coups and civil wars. One will be surprised that despite modernization, the average life expectancy for Afghans born in 1960 was 31.

Dr. Najib as Najibullah was called because he had a degree in medicine from Kabul University, became the President of Afghanistan in 1987 at the age of 40. Born in 1947 in Gardiz, the son of a prominent Pashtun family, he joined the Parcham faction of the PDPA in 1965 at the age of 18, became an activist and was twice jailed for his militancy. His factionof the Communist PDPA was in disagreement with the Khalq over the proper path to Communism in Afghanistan, the Khalq favoring more rapid steps toward the realization of Socialism than the Parcham.

Since his return from exile in 1980, the longest and most important part of which was in Moscow, Dr. Najib headed the dreaded Khad, the secret police, during which time he personally acquired a reputation for brutality: torture and execution of the opposition was the norm, as its was in Iran, as in most of the world today. He had the close support—if not control—of the KGB. His Khad was modeled on the Soviet Committee of State Security (KGB), was militarized, grew in size to the point it allegedly had 300,000 troops, and was considered effective in the pacification of wide parts of the country.
In an attempt to give the Afghan story a personal touch, I have added this curious historical coincidence. I moved to The Netherlands in 1978 where I broke into Dutch journalism with articles about Iran. As a result of published articles in the press and my stay in Tehran I somehow became a consultant to a prominent TV producer who at the time was working on a series of specials on Iran. Since I had studied Turkish at Munich University and had become interested in the Soviet Central Asian republics, the former Russian Turkestan, especially Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan which border northern Afghanistan, I proposed a series of colorful reportages on landmarks in the Central Asian republics such as Samarkand and Bokhara. So in late spring of 1978, armed with a stack of Dutch TV credentials I set out for Moscow. The plan was to interest Soviet television in a cooperative effort.

I finally met with a person at the Ostankino TV center and presented the idea of a cooperative production of Soviet and Dutch television about Soviet Central Asia. In retrospect I came to understand that Moscow TV people must have thought I was insane: an American representing Dutch television proposes a joint TV production about the vast area bordering with Afghanistan and the Soviet-backed Communist government in Kabul in a struggle with a U.S.-backed opposition. Ludicrous. Moreover, and unbeknownst to me, Najibullah was also present in Moscow lobbying for a Soviet intervention in his country to bolster the Communist government in Kabul while I was proposing a TV production about areas between Moscow and Afghanistan. Soviet TV people were not interested and I instead cut a ridiculous figure, while Dr. Najib’s contacts were extremely interested in his proposals and in him personally. His major sponsor was the powerful KGB, a relationship which lasted until the bitter end of his life. The documentary series I proposed was about the lands over which Soviet tanks and armored cars would pass not many months ahead on their way to Afghanistan, accompanied also by the young Afghan political figure, Mohammad Najibullah.

KABUL

Once back in Kabul, Dr. Najib became the director of Khad, the secret police, which operated under Soviet control. Not only an intelligence organization, it was a military force. It had tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters. A state within the state, Khad was charged with both counter-intelligence activities and intelligence gathering to eliminate active and potential opponents and counterrevolutionaries. Dr. Najib might have taken his cue from Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet Cheka, the predecessor of the KGB. On how to combat counter-revolutionaries, Dzerzhinsky said in 1918: “Don’t think that I seek forms of revolutionary justice; we are not now in need of justice. It is war now—face to face, a fight to the finish. Life or death.” That was also the belief of Che Guevara decades later. And that must have been the guideline for Mohammad Najibullah, who reigned with an iron fist over Khad from 1980 until he became head of the party and President of Afghanistan in 1987.

Once in power, Dr. Najib undertook his National Reconciliation policies. He eliminated the word Communist and references to Marxism from a new Constitution in 1990, labeled Afghanistan an Islamic Republic (as in Iran), introduced a multiparty system, freedom of speech and an independent judiciary. Yet the Mujahideen—which controlled wide parts of the country—refused to join in. With U.S. and western support the fanatical Taleban (religious students) emerged and conquered the country. When in 1992 they took Kabul, Dr. Najib found refuge in the United Nations compound where he lived until 1996. On September 27 the Taleban took Najibullah from his refuge, castrated him, dragged him behind a car over Kabul streets, finished him with a gunshot and hung his body from a traffic post.

In conclusion, some results of the Thirty Years War in Afghanistan are clear: the USA dream of control of these lands at the top of the world, in Afghanistan and Iran, was shattered. I tend to think of Iran and Afghanistan together. Twenty-five years of oppression and exploitation were too much for Iranians who rose up, made a revolution, and ousted America. Russia too lost something in Iran while Ayatollah Khomeini ruled; now that has been overcome and Russia and Iran are today allies … against aggressive “Yankee” imperialism. Iran was thus lost to the USA but Afghanistan seemed and perhaps in the minds of some Neocons continues to be a promising alternative. No oil but lots of poppies and valuable land and location. Soviet Russia had dreamed of a Soviet-friendly progressive Afghanistan to protect and secure its vast Islamic regions extending from the Caucuses to the Far East. It failed to quell the ruly, untamable Afghans as Americans cannot still today. Though U.S.-supported Mujahideen could not defeat in battle the Soviet-supported government in Kabul in the 1980s, it at least convinced the Russians to abandon a lost mission and to leave, a lesson that the USA has continued to learn and unlearn for 16 years. On the flimsiest of excuses it too invaded indomitable Afghanistan in 2001 after 11 September ... and is still there flailing at windmills, unable to completely abandon another lost war.

Dr. Najib is gone. The dream of a Communist Afghanistan is gone. The Soviet Union itself is gone. But a defeated America still hangs on in a tiny portion of the complex country of Afghanistan.

By Gaither Stewart
 
I don't see why a compromise isn't possible: the Afghans support the Durand Line in exchange for the limited extraterritorial rights Afghan Pushtuns exercised before independence, chiefly migrating their sheep into Pakistan for the winter.

This sort of thing is not unheard of. For example, in the peace treaty that ended the U.S. Revolutionary War the American fishermen retained their traditional rights to use Canadian shores to dry their fishing catches.

They have been given more then they could wish for, migrating sheep is no issue at all. Pak-Afghan border has been non existent for decades, and Afghans have taken full advantage of it, but that has not resolved the issues, despite the hospitality and magnanimity shown by Pakistan. Pakistani Pakhtoons are well off and entrenched into the establishment and have big say into the decision making of the state, while on the other hand, Afghan Pakhtoons are reduced to 2nd class citizens in the after math of post 9/11 Afghanistan , by American allies of northern alliance, the non Pakhtoon ethnicities (Takij, Uzbek, Hazaras). For the sake of Pakhtoons race, and their well being, the only viable solution is a complete merger of the lands in Afghanistan , the south, with Federation of Pakistan, perhaps greater KPK.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Reference, please.

Reference for what? Have you lived in Pakistan? I have. The amount of ingress given and allowed to Afghans within Pakistan is mind boggling.

Troll bait, yes?


It was not intended to be a bait, unless one consider himself/herself as a troll. But yes, facts can be taken as such depending on which group of allegiance one is associated with.
 
Back
Top Bottom