The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

Intelligence information that was delivered to Andropov objectively described Aminas an unreliable, morose, and capricious person, inclined to unpredictable behavior, whowas beyond their control. Amin was issued a de facto death sentence in October, afterdetails of his involvement in Taraki’s assassination emerged. Only one question remainedin this regard—how to proceed technically to physically eliminate Amin? Initially, the mostpopular approach was to mobilize the figures within the PDPA who were either in overt orconcealed opposition to the Afghan dictator. Later, when it became clear that they were tooweak and uncoordinated, the possibility of a combined approach to the execution of thetask was studied: Afghans would step forward with the support of the KGB and GRU’sspecial forces. At some point, however, it became clear that even those resources couldturn out to be insufficient to ensure success, and it was feared that the planned operationwould result in too many casualties. It was only then that Andropov agreed to the militaryoperation.Did he himself propose it, or merely agree to it?In a memorandum sent to Brezhnev in early December, the KGB chairman evaluatedthe situation in Afghanistan as critical. He repeated his concern about Amin’s secretcontacts with representatives from radical Islamic opposition and perceived secretmeetings with American representatives. It was suggested that the Afghan leadership wasmulling over a decision to modify their exclusive orientation towards the USSR. Criticismsof Soviet politics and actions against Soviet specialists and advisers working in the DRAwere cited as evidence for such a shift. Andropov again confirmed the readiness of theopposition leadership (Karmal, Sarwari, and others) to combat Amin. However, referring tothose Afghans’ intentions, he pointed out that the success of such a campaign would be663