Afghanistan in the 1980s: When the BND supported the mujahideen

In the 1980s, the BND secretly helped the Afghan insurgents in their guerrilla war against the Soviets. Secret service files give exclusive insights into Operation Summer Rain.

There is a lot of criticism of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) these days. The German spies did not foresee the Taliban’s takeover of power in Afghanistan and underestimated the speed with which the Islamists finally took control of the capital Kabul. “The BND has obviously made a wrong assessment of the situation, just like other services,” said Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas last week.

In the BND, too, people now practice self-criticism – and pretend to be surprised. Basically, the “intelligence service access situation” in Afghanistan has been quite good for many years. The BND had a strong local presence, and the residency in Kabul was one of the largest in the world. Some of the service’s contacts in the region go back decades.

Operation “Summer Rain”

What is hardly known to this day: the German spies in the Hindu Kush were already very active in the 1980s – and at that time they made contact with the Afghan insurgents, the mujahideen, some of whom later also joined the Taliban. Operation “Summer Rain” was aimed at supporting the resistance struggle against the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan and at the same time gathering information about the equipment and capabilities of the Soviet Army.

Of the WDR was able to evaluate numerous files on the BND operation, including lists of aid deliveries worth several million D-Marks, notes on transport flights, documents on financing and about the Afghan fighters. The documents give exclusive insights into one of the last major operations of the BND during the Cold War.

In December 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Shortly before, the pro-Soviet prime minister had been killed in Kabul, and Hafizullah Amin took power in a coup. Moscow feared that Amin might become an ally of the West and seek help from NATO to secure his power. There was a military intervention.

USA supported the fight of the Afghans

What followed was a nine-year bloody war between the Soviets and their Afghan aid workers against the “mujahideen”, claiming innumerable victims and turning millions of Afghans into refugees. They fled to neighboring countries, especially Pakistan.

Western intelligence services, especially the US CIA, began to support the Afghan fighters in the mid-1980s – with weapons and equipment.

In the summer of 1985 a delegation of German members of the Bundestag traveled to Pakistan and spoke to government representatives about the effects of the war in neighboring Afghanistan. The decision was apparently made that Germany should also participate in supporting the Afghan insurgents. In a secret operation that the public should not find out about. The BND was commissioned with the implementation.

Help from Germany

On August 30, 1985, the top of the BND ordered the secret, screened operation called “Summer Rain”. On December 19, 1985, the first delivery of relief supplies took place, which was flown to Pakistan on an Air Force transport plane. A few weeks later, the then BND President Hans-Georg Wieck wrote to Erich Riedl, the CSU member of the Bundestag, who had died in the meantime.

“It gives me particular pleasure to inform you at the beginning of this year that the German Bundestag’s aid to the Afghan resistance movement initiated by you and your colleagues on your trip to Pakistan has started,” said the BND head. They have already delivered 5,500 pairs of boots, 1,800 field jackets and 12,700 wool sweaters to the Afghan “mujahideen”. The things were handed over by a representative of the BND in the “presence of leading representatives of the Afghan resistance movement” – including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Mujahideen and the later warlords

Hekmatyar, now 72 years old, is the leader of the “Hizb-i Islami” group, fought as a “warlord” in the Afghan civil war in the 1990s and later even became prime minister for a time. Because of the particularly brutal behavior of his militias, he later became known as the “butcher of Kabul”. Today Hekmatyar is once again an important figure in Afghan politics. After the Taliban came to power, he is now one of the actors negotiating with the Taliban about the future of Afghanistan.

“On behalf of the other party leaders, Hekmatyar thanked them for their support and expressly asked that the members of the budget committee should also receive these thanks,” said the secret letter from the then BND president. “He described this type of handover and distribution as exemplary because of its correctness and fairness.”

In the following years the BND brought extensive material to the Hindu Kush. This includes not only tens of thousands of boots, jackets and other winter clothing, but also medicines, sleeping bags, tents, stretchers, stoves, mine detectors, binoculars, night vision devices, knives, off-road motorcycles, hammer drills, radios, inflatables and field hospitals. In addition, some seriously injured Afghan fighters were brought to Germany for medical treatment.

“Thanks and appreciation” for the BND

The gifts from Germany were first flown to Pakistan, the direct distribution to the Afghan fighters was handled by the Pakistani secret service ISI. Nevertheless, the help is “accepted by the resistance groups as German help,” noted BND employees, visibly satisfied. In order to be able to carry out the operation more effectively, the BND also founded a new branch, a conspiratorial shelter, in Peshawar, West Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan.

“Operation Sommerregen serves to support the insurgents in Afghanistan (…) this has been done since 1985 by delivering equipment and materials,” according to a BND note from September 1987. The equipment and materials are transported by aircraft from the Bundeswehr and occasionally with the service aircraft of the BND. A continuation of the operation is “sensible and necessary for humanitarian reasons,” noted the spies in Pullach. “It also serves to strengthen the Afghan resistance in the interests of the democratic states.”

Soviet war material in sight

Apparently, however, it was not just about humanitarian aid, but also about the “security interests of the Federal Republic of Germany”, as stated in the BND files. The service also hoped to gain valuable insights into the military equipment of the Soviet Union. Modern armaments from the Soviet Army were used in Afghanistan, some of which were not previously known to NATO in every detail. With the help of the mujahideen, the BND secured such war material and brought it to Germany for closer examination.

Misappropriated funds from secret operation

The BND also incurred additional costs because a responsible employee had apparently siphoned off money through bogus invoices. In August 1987, the BND came across “irregularities in the settlement” and launched the internal operation “capsule” to investigate the suspicion. It was about a company in Munich that had procured medicines for the “Sommerregen” operation. This company is said to have issued excessive bills, specified a numbered account in Switzerland and claimed that this was a BND account. The fraud was discovered, a BND employee and his former school friend were convicted, the BND is said to have suffered damage of 82,000 D-Marks.

In general, the years of financing the BND operation in the Hindu Kush were not without risk. After all, the spies did not get the gifts for the fighters in Afghanistan through the usual tenders. “After the screening has been lifted, the Federal Audit Office will most likely also review this matter and, if necessary, object to the failure to open the tender,” wrote the BND President in April 1986 to the Bundestag’s trust committee responsible for budget expenditure. “In this case, I hope the committee will support me.”

In the early 1990s, the BND stopped its secret support campaign. From the point of view of the spies, the undertaking should not have been too successful. At the end of 1987 they came to a rather sobering conclusion: “The Op Sommerregen has not yet resulted in any significant intelligence benefit for the BND”. However, the service maintained its contacts with the Afghan insurgents and the Pakistani secret service.