1975 Panjshir Valley uprising

The 1975 Panjshir Valley uprising was an Islamist uprising led by Jamiat-e Islami against the government of Daoud Khan, and was the first ever ISI operation that took place in Afghanistan.[10][11] It was in "retaliation to Republic of Afghanistan’s proxy war and support to the militants against Pakistan".[12][13]

1975 Panjshir Valley uprising
Date21 June 1975[1]
Location
Panjshir, Republic of Afghanistan
Result

Afghan government victory

  • Uprising suppressed
  • Jamiat-e Islami commanders flee to Pakistan[2]
Belligerents

Afghanistan Republic of Afghanistan

Jamiat-e Islami
Pakistan Pakistan

Supported by:
Pahlavi Iran (alleged)

Commanders and leaders
Afghanistan Mohammad Daoud Khan
Afghanistan Abdul Karim Mustaghni
Afghanistan Faiz Mohammed

Burhanuddin Rabbani
Ahmad Shah Massoud
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Ghulam Jilani Khan

The Republic of Afghanistan support to anti-Pakistani militants had forced then-Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Naseerullah Khan Babar, then-Inspector General of the Frontier Corps in NWFP (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), to adopt a more aggressive approach towards Afghanistan. As a result, ISI, under the command of Major General Ghulam Jilani Khan set up a 5,000-strong Afghan guerrilla troop, which would include influential future leaders like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud, to target the Afghan government, the first large operation, in 1975, being the sponsoring of an armed rebellion in the Panjshir valley.[14] In a polemical assessment, Afghan feminist Alia Rawi Akbar writes that Massoud, during this uprising, "by the order of ISI", assassinated the mayor "of his home city", before he "ran to Pakistan".[15]

Background

In 1973, former Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan was brought to power in a coup d'état backed by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and the Republic of Afghanistan was established. These developments gave rise to an Islamist movement opposed to the increasing communist and Soviet influence over Afghanistan.[16] During that time, while studying at Kabul University, Massoud became involved with the Muslim Youth (Sazman-i Jawanan-i Musulman), the student branch of the Jamiat-e Islami (Islamic Society), whose chairman then was the professor Burhanuddin Rabbani. Kabul University was a center for political debate and activism during that time.[17]

The 1973 coup d'état brought president Sardar Mohammed Daoud Khan, a proponent of a Pashtunistan independent state and fiercely anti-Pakistan, helping both Pashtun and Baloch militants, convinced Bhutto to use Islamist rebels in order to fight the ethnic Pashtun or Baloch brands of nationalism, and he described the ISI plan in multiple phases, "phase one was stepping up intelligence collection in that country, including ferreting out potential Afghan allies and weaknesses in the Daoud regime. Under phase two ISI operatives contacted the exiled Afghan King in an unsuccessful bid to have him lead an anti-Daoud resistance movement. Phase three involved joint anti-Afghan operations with Iran, since both the Shah and Bhutto regarded the PDPA as a threat to the regional balance of power. Iran's intelligence service, SAVAK, backed several anti-Daoud groups unilaterally, but ISI wanted to entice the Iranians into joint missions against the Afghans.[18]

Uprising
Paratroopers of the 444th Battalion

Infuriated by the arrogance of his communist peers and Russian professors, a physical altercation between Massoud and his Russian professor led Massoud to walk out of the university, and shortly after, Kabul. Two days later, Massoud and a number of fellow militant students traveled to Pakistan where, goaded by another trainee of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Massoud agreed to take part in a coup against Daoud with his forces rising up in the Panjshir and Hekmatyar's elsewhere.[17] In July 1975, Massoud, with help from the Pakistani intelligence, led the first rebellion of Panjshir residents against the government of Daoud Khan.[19] While the uprising in the Panjshir began saw initial success, even taking the military garrison in Rokha, the promised support from Kabul never came and the rebellion was suppressed by Daoud Khan's forces sending Massoud back into Pakistan (after a day hiding in Jangalak) where he would attend a secret, paramilitary ISI training center in Cherat.[20] Dissatisfied, Massoud left the center and returned to Peshawar where he committed himself to personal military studies. Massoud read Mao Tse-Tung's writings on the Long March, of Che Guevara's career, the memoirs of General de Gualle, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, Sun Tzu's Art of War, and an unnamed handbook on counterterrorism by an American general which Massoud called "the most instructive of all".[20][17]

After this failure, a "profound and long-lasting schism" within the Islamist movement began to emerge.[16] The Islamic Society split between supporters of the more moderate forces around Massoud and Rabbani, who led the Jamiat-i Islami, and more radical Islamist elements surrounding Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who founded the Hezb-i Islami.[17] The conflict reached such a point that Hekmatyar reportedly tried to kill Massoud, then 22 years old.[21][16][22]

See also

References
  1. "Dossiers of rebel field commanders | Wilson Center Digital Archive". digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org. Retrieved 2023-07-30.
  2. Owen L. Sirrs, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate: Covert action and internal operations, Routledge (2016), pp. 112-113
  3. Owen L. Sirrs, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate: Covert action and internal operations, Routledge (2016), pp. 112-113
  4. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/13/archives/afghanpakistani-trouble-brewing-again-near-the-khyber-pass.html
  5. Owen L. Sirrs, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate: Covert action and internal operations, Routledge (2016), pp. 112-113
  6. Kiessling, Hein (2016). Unity, Faith and Discipline: The Inter-Service Intelligence of Pakistan. Oxford University Press. The era of ISI action in Afghanistan now began. A first large scale operation in 1975 was encouragement of large scale rebellion in the Panjshir valley.
  7. Houèrou, Fabienne La (2014). Humanitarian Crisis and International Relations 1959-2013. Bentham Science Publisher. p. 150. The president Khan revived adversarial stance not only toward Pakistan, but to the sponsor, USSR. First Daoud Khan set off proxy war in Pakistan, but in retaliation faced growing Islamic fundamentalists movement within Afghanistan
  8. Newton, Michael (2014). Famous Assassination in World History:An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 106. By 1976, while proxy guerilla war with Pakistan, Daoud faced rising Islamic fundamentalists movement led by exiled cleric aided openly by Pakistani prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
  9. Owen L. Sirrs, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate: Covert action and internal operations, Routledge (2016), pp. 112-113
  10. "Afghan‐Pakistani Trouble Brewing Again Near the Khyber Pass (Published 1975)". 1975-08-13. Retrieved 2023-07-30.
  11. Kiessling, Hein (2016). Unity, Faith and Discipline: The Inter-Service Intelligence of Pakistan. Oxford University Press. The era of ISI action in Afghanistan now began. A first large scale operation in 1975 was encouragement of large scale rebellion in the Panjshir valley.
  12. Houèrou, Fabienne La (2014). Humanitarian Crisis and International Relations 1959-2013. Bentham Science Publisher. p. 150. The president Khan revived adversarial stance not only toward Pakistan, but to the sponsor, USSR. First Daoud Khan set off proxy war in Pakistan, but in retaliation faced growing Islamic fundamentalists movement within Afghanistan
  13. Newton, Michael (2014). Famous Assassination in World History:An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 106. By 1976, while proxy guerilla war with Pakistan, Daoud faced rising Islamic fundamentalists movement led by exiled cleric aided openly by Pakistani prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
  14. Hein Kiessling, Faith, Unity, Discipline: The Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, Oxford University Press (2016), p. 34
  15. Alia Rawi Akbar, Crises Confronting Afghan Women: Under the Shadow of Terror, Dog Ear Publishing (2010), p. 208
  16. Roy Gutman. How We Missed the Story: Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban and the Hijacking of Afghanistan (1st ed., 2008 ed.). Endowment of the United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC. p. 34.
  17. Shahram Akbarzadeh; Samina Yasmeen (2005). Islam And the West: Reflections from Australia. University of New South Wales Press. pp. 81–82.
  18. Owen L. Sirrs, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate: Covert action and internal operations, Routledge (2016), pp. 112-113
  19. Ansar, Massoud (9 September 2018). "Furious Kabul Residents Slam Govt Over Massoud Day Mayhem". TOLOnews.
  20. Gall, Sandy (2021). Afghan Napoleon: The Life of Ahmad Shah Massoud. London: Haus Publishing. pp. 20–21, 22. ISBN 978-1-913368-22-7.
  21. Marcela Grad (2009). Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader. Webster University Press. p. 310.ISBN 9780982161500
  22. Bowersox, Gary W. (2004). The Gem Hunter: The Adventures of an American in Afghanistan. United States: GeoVision, Inc. p. 100. ISBN 0-9747-3231-1. Archived from the original on 2021-08-08. Retrieved 2010-08-22. To launch this plan, Bhutto recruited and trained a group of Afghans in the Bala-Hesar of Peshawar, in Pakistan's North-west Frontier Province. Among these young men were Massoud, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and other members of Jawanan-e Musulman. It served Massoud's interests, which were apparently opposition to the Soviets. Later, after Massoud and Hekmatyar had a terrible falling-out over Massoud's opposition to terrorist tactics and methods, Massoud overthrew from Jawanan-e Musulman. He joined Rabani's newly created Afghan political party, Jamiat-i-Islami, in exile in Pakistan.
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