The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

wish was for them to make the Afghan State Security Service as powerful as the KGB. Thescheme, proposed by the Soviets, was as follows:• To create a division of Foreign Intelligence analogous to the KGB’s First MainDirectorate, which would be initially oriented towards Pakistan and India, the twocountries that presented the main danger for the DRA.• To have a powerful counterintelligence service based on the Soviet model (SecondMain Directorate). Besides countering the infiltration of foreign agents, thisdivision would be tasked with studying politics involving the clerics and workingwith tribes.• To remove the military counterintelligence unit from the Ministry of Defense andsubordinate it to the state security services, as in the Soviet Union.• To transfer the resources of the operational-technical department of the Ministry ofthe Interior to the state security services. The advisers from the Federal Republic ofGermany had worked closely with the minister of the interior before the AprilRevolution and provided the Afghans with special technologies designed forrelated activities.• To organize the services’ departments dealing with external monitoring,informational, analytical, and investigative matters.This structure was named the Main Directorate for the Defense of the Interests ofAfghanistan (AGSA). Assadullah Sarwari, one of the heroes of the revolution, became thehead of AGSA.228