KHAD-KGB campaign in Pakistan

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The KhAD-KGB campaign in Pakistan was a joint campaign in which the Afghan KhAD’s foreign "Tenth Directorate"^[3] and the Soviet KGB targeted Pakistan using prostitution spy rings, terror attacks, hijackings, serial killings, assassinations and the dissemination of propaganda to dissuade Pakistan from supporting the Afghan mujahideen.^[4]

In mid-1985 the Soviet Union and Kabul launched psychological warfare campaign against Pakistan in an attempt to morally destabilize society. As part of this strategy, the KGB and KHAD deployed hundreds of young girls of Afghan, Central Asian, and Russian origin to corrupt Pakistani society. This influx initially targeted the major urban centers such as Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad, Multan, and Quetta.^[5] These groups of prostitutes strategically selected affluent areas in these cities and operated within a well-organized structure. Many of these prostitutes had connections to KGB and KHAD agents, with high-ranking government officials and Pakistan army officers being their primary targets.^[6] This led to the emergence of a "galemjum (prostitute) culture" in Pakistani society, which attracted professionals, the local commercial class, and frustrated youth in various urban centers.

According to a report by the US Defense Department, approximately 90% of the estimated 777 acts of international terrorism committed worldwide in 1987 took place in Pakistan.^[7] By 1988, KGB and KhAD agents were able to penetrate deep inside Pakistan and carry out attacks on mujahideen sanctuaries and guerrilla bases.^[8] There was strong circumstantial evidence implicating Moscow-Kabul in the August 1988 assassination of Zia ul-Haq, as the Soviets perceived that Zia wanted to adversely affect the Geneva process.^[9]

Afghanistan's KHAD was one of four secret service agencies accused of perpetrating terrorist bombings in multiple Pakistani cities including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi during the early 1980s resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties.^[10] By the late 1980s, the US State Department blamed WAD for the perpetration of terrorist bombings in Pakistani cities.^[11][12]

On 14 July 1987 two vehicles drove into the Bohri Bazaar in Karachi, Pakistan packed with RDX and parked. The first car bomb detonated at about 6:30 pm outside a hairdresser's shop on Syedna Burhanuddin Street near a bus stop destroying eight shops and a hotel. The second car bomb detonated 30 minutes later on Raja Ghazanfar Ali Road which is about 100 yards away from the first car bombing.^[13] The car bomb detonated outside a record shop, setting multiple buildings on fire and destroying more dozen cars. The fires from the second car bomb continued burning for four hours. The double car bombing killed 72 people and injured 250. The Pakistani government blamed the Afghan intelligence agency for the car bombing.

A car bombing occurred in 1987, targeting the US consulate in Peshawar which ended up killing over 30 people.^[1]

On 10 April 1988, the Ojhri Camp, which was used as an ammunition depot for the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war, exploded. As a result, munitions and rockets expelled by the blast killed 93 people and wounded 1,010 others, although it’s believed the death toll was much higher.^[14][15] U.S. Defense Department officials believed that the explosion at Ojhri Camp was the work of the Soviet KGB and the Afghan KhAD state intelligence agency.

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 326 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by al-Zulfikar terrorists with support of Afghanistan's KHAD, from 2 March to 14 March 1981.^[16] It was a routine flight scheduled from Karachi to Peshawar, but the hijackers diverted it to Kabul, Afghanistan, and then Damascus, where the hostage situation ended with the release of prisoners by the Pakistani government.

Around some time in 1985, Pakistani police in Karachi were becoming alarmed by an increased number of killings. While the murders took place in different areas of the city, an investigation found these murders to be done in the same manner; a single blow to the head with a hathora (the word for "hammer" in Urdu). Upon investigation of the victims and their backgrounds, it was found that they were all street urchins or beggars on the streets.

None of the victims of the Hathora group survived apart from one person, who described the murderers as men in "white suits and black masks" who drove a white Suzuki vehicle. Upon realization that these murders were being committed by a group. newspapers across the nation began to report the victim's story and referred to these men as "the Hathora Group" oweing to their method of using hammers to murder their victims. Police didn't know who these men were and what motives they had to do commit these murders. For a while, these cases of murders stopped and then finally resumed around some time in mid-1986. For nearly 2 years, the city of Karachi was terrorised by the horrors of such group, with civilians fearing they would enter their homes and be killed by the Hathora group.

Some Pakistani newspapers alluded that the Hathora group was actually made up of members of the Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, and KHAD, who were striking back due to the Pakistani government backing the Afghan mujahideen against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.^[17] A sociologist, when asked about these killings, mentioned that the chaos that was occurring in Karachi was easily manipulated by groups for their own motives. The sociologist strongly believed that these killings were planned to spread more fear in the city, which could be the intention of KHAD and the motive behind the murders.

In response to these attacks, Pakistan intensified Operation Cyclone which eventually resulted in the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. In 1989, Pakistan would commence “Operation Jalalabad”,^[18] widely known as the Battle of Jalalabad, resulting in a decisive Afghan government victory.^[19]

• Soviet-Afghan war
• Operation Cyclone
• Afghanistan-Pakistan skirmishes
• Siege of Khost
• Operation Magistral
• Afghan SCUD attacks in Pakistan
• Pakistan–Soviet air confrontations
• Raids inside the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War

• Riedel, Bruce (2014). What We Won: America's Secret War in Afghanistan, 1979-89. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 9780815725855. Retrieved 2024-08-10.