CIA and Its Afghan Agents
On the anniversary of the American forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, the fate of this country after the Taliban’s takeover remains a significant mystery. Concerns about the future of the country’s culture and society are growing daily, with women and ethnic and religious minorities being the most affected.
Despite everything, for Americans during the days of their forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, nothing was as infuriating as the billions of dollars spent and the lives lost during the years of America’s presence in Afghanistan. A country that, with a sea of wasted expenses and countless amounts of weapons and military equipment, was entirely handed over to the Taliban—the Taliban who supported Al-Qaeda, the executors of the September 11 attacks.
Among all the costs and programs of America and its allies in Afghanistan, the program to train various Afghan forces held a special place. It was these training programs for the police, army, security forces, and several similar programs that highlighted one of America’s greatest failures. The Pentagon could not train forces that would last even a month against the Taliban.
Although, to a large extent, this was the surface of the matter. It was Trump who had signed the agreement to withdraw the forces with the Taliban, and the Taliban, months before September 2021, by presenting this agreement to the leaders of various regions in Afghanistan, had frightened them about the future and secured their compliance. The various military and security forces of Afghanistan were left powerless, but in any case, they did not last, and all those costs were in vain. Among all these trained forces, the Pentagon was not involved in a particular case. The CIA had devised a new plan in Afghanistan.
Special Afghans
The bitter images of Afghans hanging from airplanes leaving Kabul airport were among the most tragic images of 2021. With the Taliban’s moment-by-moment advance in Afghanistan during the days of the Western coalition’s withdrawal, many were struggling to leave the country and escape the Taliban’s grasp. Kabul airport was a scene of unprecedented chaos, with Afghans on one side and foreign nationals on the other. Each foreign country had a special program for evacuating its nationals, and it was rare to see a successful order and arrangement in these programs.
However, the specific case of Afghans who were official collaborators with foreign forces during the years of occupation suddenly made headlines. The media, social activists, and most importantly, soldiers and veterans who were concerned about their Afghan colleagues and comrades insisted on evacuating them. Serious criticisms regarding the issues of evacuating Afghan collaborators with Western forces, who were the main target of the Taliban and whose lives were in danger, eventually led to the relatively successful execution of a program to evacuate many of them. However, many of them endured significant hardships, except for one group.
What the CIA Did
The activities of Western security organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan date back decades, specifically marking 1979 as the beginning of the CIA’s specific activities in recruiting Afghan guerrilla forces, which naturally began as an effort to counter the Soviet forces that had occupied Afghanistan. September 11, 2001, and the events following it started a new story. With the occupation of Afghanistan by coalition forces led by the United States and the fall of the Taliban government in that country, various Western military forces, from NATO to the US and British armies, established serious ties with Afghans.
Many were recruited to assist Western military personnel as translators, guides, and experts. Above all, it was natural that the priority was to create a cohesive police, law enforcement, and army for the central government being established in Afghanistan. Training programs for Afghans were designed and implemented, and law enforcement units and police structures, as well as the military, were formed. The efficiency of these was never notable even after several years.
It was the CIA that trained its paramilitary groups and used them in its special operations. Various units known as Unit Zero or Unit 01 carried out night raids on residential areas suspected of harboring terrorists. Afghan soldiers, who were now considered CIA agents, were, in fact, part of the paramilitary forces trained by the United States. In the first decade of the third millennium, competition between the CIA and Pentagon special forces created parallel structures.
Initially, there was little trust in Afghan forces, and both organizations were always worried about Afghan insubordination, theft of weapons by them, and above all, them turning against the Americans themselves. When the Taliban gradually stood back on their feet and resumed attacks and unrest, both special forces and the CIA set aside their doubts and relied on the paramilitaries to fight the Taliban. The formation and establishment of the special units Zero or Zero and One owe their existence to this process.
The Tragedy of Fratricide
The Afghan special forces, assigned to the CIA, executed successful operations attacking residential areas and eliminating suspected terrorists with maximum violence. They raided homes and, without any mercy, separated and executed the targeted individuals. The night raids and massacres eventually led to a Human Rights Watch report in 2019 documenting fourteen instances of night raids and summary executions by Afghan agents of the CIA as just a part of the massacres of their brothers and fellow countrymen.
The special forces committed strange acts of crime. They attacked medical staff in areas under Taliban influence to punish them for treating injured Taliban terrorists. All these occurred alongside the truly successful operations of these forces in fighting terrorists and the Taliban.
Journalists, media, human rights activists, and academic researchers insisted for a long time on following up on the activities and actions of Afghan agents of the CIA and achieved no results. The most important support for these forces was the mutual backing of the Afghan government and the Americans. Numerous reports and news coverage had no effect on changing their behavior, and ultimately, until the last day of the American forces’ presence, the Afghan special forces assigned to the CIA were the only effective, powerful, and efficient force trained that played a role.
Western journalists, during the days of the coalition forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, brought them back to the headlines by capturing images and conducting interviews with the commanders of the CIA-assigned special forces. They controlled Kabul airport and American bases, and their behavior with fellow citizens was unpleasant, demanding hefty bribes from their compatriots to pass through airport gates. The subtle point was that they were more certain of their future than all the Afghan refugees and those fleeing.
The news of America’s action to evacuate many of the CIA’s Afghan special forces and their families from Afghanistan before the coalition forces’ withdrawal was noteworthy. More than 7,000 CIA Afghan agents and their spouses and children were transferred to Qatar earlier than the Westerners themselves. None of them needed to hang from a flying plane to escape the Taliban.
An article titled ‘CIA’s Betrayal of Colleagues’ has been exclusively published on Iran Gate, which might be of interest to you.
