The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

The third guest, Watanjar, remained recalcitrant, perhaps due to his poor Russian.By the deadline, Valery completed his detailed character descriptions, as well as facialand figure sketches of the Khalqi ministers, and brought them to the embassy. He wouldonly later discover the rationale for his assignment.During this period, Kabul and Moscow were conducting intense, off-line negotiationsunder the codename “Operation Rainbow.” The goal of the operation was to covertlyextract Assadullah Sarwari and his friends from the Afghan capital. By then the KGB had asolid base in Afghanistan, but the risk factor of the operation still remained very high. Thethree Khalqi rebels were officially considered state criminals and were the targets of anational manhunt. If the operation failed, the attempt to get them out of the country wouldresult in a huge international scandal.After lengthy deliberations, the following plan was authorized. It took advantage ofthe fact that the end of the term of duty for some Zenit officers was approaching and therewould therefore be new arrivals from the Soviet Union. These replacements would bring anassortment of cargo, ranging from weapons and ammunition to various technologicaldevices. The same kind of cargo would return to the Soviet Union with the officers leavingKabul. The cargo containers were marked “diplomatic,” a label that did not necessitatedisclosure.In Balashikha, the suburban Moscow location of the special services trainingheadquarters, three wooden cargo containers were produced for the purpose of smugglingout the fugitives. Each container was large enough to accommodate a person and had holesdrilled for ventilation. The containers also had oxygen canisters and mattresses inside. Onthe outside, the containers were painted dark green so as to resemble typical military-575