The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

A very cautious Bogdanov was not prepared to accept Amin’s conditions. Inresponse, he would say that he personally did not know any of those people and thereforecould not claim responsibility for their actions. “So, you see?” said Amin, shruggingmockingly. “We are left to act in accordance with law.”The reality was that there was no law. People were kept in prisons without trial orreason. They were tortured cruelly. Mass executions were conducted every night. Thosewho were doomed to death dug their own graves before their executions.At the same time, the KGB Representative Office grew rapidly. An adviser from theNinth Directorate, Yuri Kutepov, arrived to organize the security for the leading figures ofthe state, such as Taraki. His main partner in this undertaking was Major Yaqub, the head ofthe Afghan Guard, who would later become chief of staff.Senior officers were sent to Kabul from Moscow to create border troops and toorganize a system for the defense of the Afghan border. The Kremlin elders could notunderstand why the Afghans chose not to secure their border with Pakistan when rebelscrossed freely into Afghanistan. The Soviet leaders lived in a country where, almostimmediately after 1917, all borders were reliably sealed by barbed wire and were guardedaround-the-clock by an elaborate system of military outposts. In Afghanistan, there couldbe no border in the south. In the first place, Kabul would never accept the so-called DurandLine that separated Pashtuns living in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To place outposts alongthe Durand Line would mean complying with a historical injustice committed by Britain. Itwould mean giving away the disputed territories to Islamabad. Millions of nomads movedfrom the south into Afghanistan every summer. The local economy depended oncounterfeit goods that were readily transported across the border. Secondly, Afghans235