Arms Deliveries to Afghanistan in the 1990s

Marat KENZHETAEV

Researcher

Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

In the 1990s, Afghanistan, wreaked by civil war, became a source of instability in Central Asia, a sponsor of terrorism and supplier of narcotics. There had been no real state system in Afghanistan from April 1992, when the central government of Mohammad Nadjibulla fell, until about September 1996, when the forces of the Taliban, pushing out beyond the borders of regions populated mostly by ethnic Pushtun, gained control of about 60% of the country's territory and captured Kabul and Jalalabad. But the constant warring between various ethnic and religious groups continued right up until the beginning of the current American campaign. With the launch of the American anti-terrorist operation, the civil war in Afghanistan took on the form of a fight between the anti-Taliban alliance against the Taliban movement.

In the past, the fighting in Afghanistan was done largely with weapons of Soviet/Russian manufacture. But the geography of sources for the flow of these weapons to the warring parties was not restricted to just Russia and other CIS countries.

USSR/Russia

The Soviet Union began to supply weapons and military hardware to Afghanistan as early as during the rule of the Nadir-Shah dynasty. The first Soviet arms deliveries were made in 1955, when the government of the USSR presented the Kingdom of Afghanistan with an Il-14 transport plane. Starting in 1956-1957, the deliveries grew in scale and included T-34/55 battle tanks, MiG-15/MiG-17 fighter jets, Il-28 bombers, Yak-18 trainer jets and An-2 military transport planes. In 1979 the volume of military deliveries increased sharply, and continued to grow right up until the beginning of the 1990s.

The range of hardware already included MiG-21/-23 fighter jets, Su-22M fighter bombers, Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters, T-54, T-55 and T-62 tanks, BMP-1/-2 infantry fighting vehicles, BTR-50/-60/-70 armored personnel carriers, BM-21 Grad and 9P140 Uragan multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), 2S9 self-propelled artillery systems, D-30, M-46, M-1943 and M-1944 artillery guns, Scud (R-17) tactical missiles and Frog-7 (Luna) battlefield support rockets.

In the early 1980s Afghanistan received $100-400 million worth of weapons from the USSR, which is a relatively small sum compared to other major recipients of Soviet arms. But in the late 1980s the situation changed drastically: in 1989 Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan, and economic problems began to brew in the USSR. Due to economic difficulties, as well as the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union stopped free and subsidized arms shipments to all developing countries. Soviet military exports to all the leading recipients of Soviet arms fell sharply in the second half of the 1980s compared to the first half of the decade. But Afghanistan was an exception. The value of agreements for arms deliveries to Afghanistan in the second half of the 1980s increased by three-quarters compared to the preceding period. As a result, the volume of deliveries in 1986-1990 was six times greater than the amount in 1981-1985 (see Diagram I). After the withdrawal of the Soviet forces, the government of Nadjibulla continued to receive Soviet/Russian arms right up until the beginning of 1992, when Russia and the United States reached agreements to settle the conflict and end the Afghan war. Arms deliveries after the withdrawal of Soviet forces were so massive that, in absolute terms, the volume of exports in these three years (1989 through 1991) exceeded the amount of Soviet exports in the whole preceding period of military-technical cooperation with Afghanistan, beginning in 1955. And this dramatic increase in deliveries to Afghanistan occurred at the same time that Russia began to shift to a commercially-based approach in the area of military-technical cooperation, which means that the Soviet/Russian arms transfers to Afghanistan were extremely important to the country's political interests.

After the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989, the war in Afghanistan continued between the forces of President Mohammad Nadjibulla and the armed opposition forces backed and armed by the United States and Pakistan. The regime of Nadjibulla held on until the flow of military aid from the Soviet Union/Russia dried up, and fell soon after Soviet arms deliveries stopped in 1992.

Diagram 1. Exports of major Soviet weapons to Afghanistan in 1980-1991.

Source: SIPRI, $ mln in constant 1990 prices, SIPRI trend indicator

Table 1. Quantity of weapons and military hardware in Afghanistan as of 1992

Category	Quantity	Type
Battlefield support artillery rockets, tactical missiles	22-30	Scud (R-17) Frog-7 (Luna)
Armor
Tanks	1000	T-54, T-55, T-62, PT-76
Armored vehicles	550	BMP-1/-2 infantry fighting vehicles
250	BRMD-1/-2 armored vehicles
1100	BTR-40/-50/-60/-70/-152 armored personnel carriers
Artillery
Towed weapons	Over 1000	76-mm M-1938 and M-1942, 85-mm D-48, 100-mm M-1944, 122-mm D-30 and M-30, 130-mm M-46 and 152-mm D-1, D-20, M-1937, ML-2
MLRS	185	122-mm BM-21, 140-mm BM-14 and 220-mm 9P140 Uragan
Mortars	Over 1000	82-mm M-37, 107-mm and 120-mm M-43
Recoilless Guns		73-mm SPG-9 and 82-mm B-10
Anti-aircraft guns	Over 600	14.5-mm, 23-mm ZU-23 and ZSU-23-4, 37-mm M-1939, 57-mm S-60, 85-mm KS-12 and 100-mm KS-19
Airplanes
Combat	30	MiG-23MF
80	Su-7, Su-17, Su-22M
12	Su-25
80	MiG-21
Trainers	24	L-39
24	L-29
Military transports	12	An-12, An-24
15	An-26
6	An-32
2	Il-18
12	An-2
15	Yak-11 and Yak-18
Helicopters	30	Mi-24
25	Mi-8
35	Mi-17
Air defense systems	6	SA-2 (S-75) missile launchers with 115 guided missiles
8	SA-3 (S-125M) missile launchers with 110 5V27 guided missiles
	FIM-92A Stinger weapon system, Strela -2/-3 (SAM-7, SAM-14)
Small arms	At least 10 mln units1

Sources: IISS, CIS, with author's changes.

In April 1992 the country was renamed the Islamic State of Afghanistan and power was handed over to the ruling council of the jihad (the mujahidin transition council). But after the victory of the opposition, various factions began to struggle for power. Russia had not supplied arms to Afghanistan since 1992, as the country was virtually overflowing with weapons. But these weapons required repairs and ammunition, and deliveries of arms to various factions by "unknown exporters" quietly continued.

In 1994 the Islamic Taliban movement entered Afghanistan's military and political arena, gradually took control of more territory and approached the borders of the CIS. Some of the warring factions "voluntarily" joined the Taliban, while others united in the face of the new danger into the so-called United National Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (UNIFSA), more commonly known as the Northern Alliance.

At around this time reports began to surface in the western press that Russia had been "illegally" supplying arms to Afghanistan at least since 1996. London's International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) even published information in its annual publication Military Balance that in 1997 Russia delivered an unspecified number of T-54/-55 tanks and MiG-21 fighter jets to Afghanistan. Russian officials denied the reports, saying that that the country had not supplied weapons to Afghanistan since the early 1990s. True, this did not mesh with the words of the Northern Alliance's military leader Ahmad Shah Masood, who had said several times that "Russia has repeatedly provided invaluable aid to the alliance," without which the Taliban would have long ago swallowed Afghanistan whole.

The military operation that the United States began in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 allowed many weapons exporters, especially Russia, to bring their arms shipments to the anti-Taliban coalition out of the shadows, although there was no legal reason to hide them since the mandatory UN embargo imposed on December 19, 2000 applies only to arms supplies to the Taliban movement. The UN embargo of October 22, 1996 on arms shipments to all sides in the Afghan conflict is voluntary.

Russia's emergence from the shadows entailed the announcement by Russian officials two days after the launch of American bombing of Afghanistan that Russia would "begin" to supply arms to the Northern Alliance. But Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov, speaking to the Federation Council on October 10, 2001, let it slip that Russia had "all these years provided military-technical aid to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan."²

This confirms information from a number of western sources about Russian military transfers to the Northern Alliance in 1996-1997. Apparently they included, besides the MiG-21s and T-54/-55 tanks already mentioned above, Mi-24 helicopters, ammunition for tanks, helicopters and artillery, communications equipment, and mine-clearing equipment. The volumes of these deliveries were probably tiny, since Masood and his allies never managed to secure a breakthrough in their campaign, and the Taliban managed to make it to the borders of the CIS. It is in 1996-1997 that analysts at IISS note a "sharp" increase in Afghanistan's arms imports, from about $20 million annually in 1994-1995, to over $60 million and $100 million in the subsequent two years (see Table 2). Analysts at the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) also noted an increase in Afghanistan's military imports, from $20 million per year in 1994-1995 to $50 million in 1996, though then they note a drop to just $5 million in 1997.

There is more exact information on the Russian transfers to Afghanistan in 2000 and the first half of 2001. In 2000 Russia provided the Northern Alliance with at least ten Igla-1³ SAMs, and in the same year the Northern Alliance bought ten Russian Mi-17 helicopters, which were delivered in two consignments of five, in 2000 and in 2001.⁴

In the fall of 2001 Russia announced plans to deliver a major shipment of arms to the Northern Alliance worth $35 million to $40 million. It included 40-50 T-55 and T-62 tanks, and 100 armored vehicles, including 60-80 BMP-1/-2 infantry fighting vehicles and several dozen armored personnel carriers.

Russia also promised to give the Northern Alliance 40 23-mm ZSU-4-23 anti-aircraft guns, two batteries of 100-mm MT-12 anti-tank cannon, six batteries of 122-mm D-30 howitzers, four batteries of 120-mm 2B11 mortars, two or three batteries of 82-mm 2B9 automatic mortars, as well as Malyutka and Fagot anti-tank missile systems, a consignment of mobile Grad-P missile launchers, and up to ten 122-mm Grad 9K51⁵ multiple launch rocket systems. According to information from various sources, Russian arms (tanks, armored vehicles, MLRS, ammunition transports) began to arrive in Afghanistan at the end of October-beginning of November 2001.⁶

Unlike the large-scale Soviet shipments at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, these deliveries can be called commercial - the arms supplied to the Northern Alliance in 2000-2001 were paid for, at least partially, by India.⁷ According to UNIFSA officials, including its leader Ahmad Shah Masood, the Northern Alliance paid in cash for all Russian deliveries before 2000-2001 as well.^{8                    .}

Diagram 2. Afghanistan's arms imports

Sources: ACDA and IISS

Table 2. Taliban arms (at the launch of the US operation in Afghanistan)

Source: Newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, 08.10. 2001

United States

The other major arms supplier to Afghanistan was the United States. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the CIA purchased Soviet-made weapons in Warsaw Pact countries through front companies and then used various channels, largely through Pakistan, to deliver them to the mujahidin fighting against the limited Soviet force in Afghanistan. It is estimated that the mujahidin received more than 400,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles⁹ from the CIA over the whole period that the Soviet troops were in Afghanistan. Western analysts¹⁰ estimate that between 1979 and 1989 the CIA spent at least $2 billion on purchases of firearms as part of its military aid to the Afghan mujahidin. The total amount spent by Washington to finance the anti-Soviet forces is estimated at $6 billion to $8 billion.

In order to supply the mujahidin the CIA did not only buy weapons in Eastern Europe - it bought Type-59 and AK-47 assault rifles from the Chinese government, antipersonnel mines from Italy and a number of other countries, mortars and light machine guns in Egypt, anti-aircraft missile systems in Britain, mobile anti-aircraft missile systems in Germany, anti-tank missiles in Italy, 122-mm multiple launch rocket systems and communications systems in China and Egypt, as well as Soviet-made weapons from Israel seized in conflicts with Arab countries. A major shipment of small arms and light weapons - 60,000 assault rifles, 8,000 light machine guns and 100 million bullets for them - was bought in Turkey; 50 Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns were bought in Sweden, and 100,000 assault rifles were bought in India. Furthermore, starting in 1986 the Afghans were supplied with 900 to 1,000 Stinger guided missiles made by General Dynamics.¹¹ All these weapons were delivered to Afghanistan through Pakistan.

The CIA's massive secret operation yielded its fruit, and the balance of the war in Afghanistan tipped in favor of the mujahidin. After the Soviet forces were pulled out of Afghanistan, US interest in the country weakened - the confrontation of the two superpowers continued in the form of a war between the forces of the pro-Soviet president and armed divisions of the opposition and the mujahidin, backed and armed by the United States and Pakistan. After Soviet military support to Nadjibulla ended, American interest in Afghanistan virtually evaporated and the flow of weapons dried up.

Now, in connection with the anti-terrorist operation, the United States has again begun supplying arms to Afghanistan - the American military has been dropping light machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles and ammunition from planes in the Afghan province of Samangan since the end of October.¹² The forces of the Northern Alliance are also to receive communications, reconnaissance and optical equipment.

Pakistan

During the CIA-organized operation to supply weapons to the mujahidin, the United States used Pakistan as the main staging post and transit route for deliveries to Afghanistan. However, as was discovered later, from one- to two-thirds of these weapons stayed in Pakistan. Through unofficial or semi-official channels these weapons made their way to many hotspots on the Asian continent - primarily to Afghanistan, though already to the Taliban, as well as to the fighters of terrorist organizations in India. It is thought that at present Pakistan is also playing a decisive role in the illegal arms trade in Asia. The main role in these activities is played by Pakistan's military intelligence service, which managed and controlled the channel for American arms supplies to the mujahidin. Several former employees of the intelligence service have claimed that this organization still has access to 3 million AK-47 rifles, which weather long-term storage well.

The second source of weapons is small underground factories making copies of Soviet arms. The northwest border region around the cities of Peshawar, Darra Adam Khel and Malakand is a weapons bazaar where one can buy anything from handguns, submachine guns, rifles, grenades, mines, machine guns and mortars, to anti-aircraft systems.

Throughout the 1990s Pakistan supported the Taliban with weapons, military hardware, training and instructors.¹³ Military transfers to the Taliban continued even after December 2000, when the UN Security Council imposed an arms embargo on the Taliban. The American nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), citing confidential sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has reported that in April-May 2001 up to 30 trucks heading to Jalalabad crossed the Pakistani-Afghan border every day; at least a few of them carried tank and artillery shells, and portable grenade launchers.

Iran

Iran provides arms to the Northern Alliance for purely pragmatic reasons of security. Until the end of 2000, Teheran was considered the main supplier of arms and ammunition to the Northern Alliance.¹⁴ In the second half of the 1990s Iran considered Afghanistan, from the territory of which drug dealers and bandits penetrated its borders, as a source of instability. At the same time the Iranian leadership considers the Taliban a threat to Shiite Muslims, who make up the majority in Iran. The exact types of arms Iran has supplied are unknown. But one can assume with a fair degree of certainty that Iran supplies Afghanistan with arms and ammunition of Russian/Soviet make, including arms produced at its own factories. At one time Russia built production lines in Iran for ammunition for 122-mm howitzers and small arms ammunition.

It is known that Iran regularly supplied the Northern Alliance with anti-tank mines (for example YM-II), F-1 hand grenades and RPG-7 anti-tank grenade launchers, and rockets for Grad MLRS, 100-mm and 115-mm shells for T-55 and T-62 tanks, 120-mm mortars and ammunition for them, and 7.62-mm ammunition for small arms. Northern Alliance representatives have said that the Iranian arms deliveries to the alliance were made on a commercial basis.¹⁵

Iranian arms were delivered to the Northern Alliance by air while airstrips capable of handling the Iranian air force's An-24, An-32 and C-130 transport planes were accessible. In 1996-1998 a considerable number of flights of Iranian transport planes were reported to Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamian, before the Taliban captured these cities.¹⁶ For example, just in the two weeks after the Taliban unsuccessfully stormed Mazar-e-Sharif in 1997 the Northern Alliance received a significant amount of ammunition, mainly 122-mm shells, 120-mm mines for mortars and 7.62-mm ammunition, delivered from Iran with 20 flights.¹⁷ Arms deliveries to the Northern Alliance by air in 1997 were mentioned in a report on the situation in Afghanistan by the UN Secretary-General.¹⁸ The Northern Alliance's loss of major airports forced Iran to switch to delivering arms by land routes.

One rail train of 16 carriages with seven tonnes of weapons and ammunition hidden in containers of flour was seized in October 1998 at the Osh rail station in Kyrgyzstan by the Kyrgyz national security service.¹⁹ This cargo was going from Iran to Afghanistan, and its passage had been cleared with Kyrgyzstan's top authorities, but the "unsanctioned seizure" occurred due to a lack of coordination among various Kyrgyz government agencies. In the course of the ensuing scandal, it turned out that, besides the discovered cargo of ammunition, there were other trains that had safely made it through to Tajikistan. When the UNIFSA, in its battles with the Taliban, lost access to the Iranian and Uzbek borders, land shipments from Iran to the Northern Alliance could be made only across the borders of four countries: Turkmenistan, then Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and on to Afghanistan.

Besides the supplies of arms, Iran also helped the Northern Alliance with instructors and military advisers. Iranian military instructors were constantly among the Northern Alliance's divisions in the provinces of Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamian right up until the Taliban captured them in 1998. Also, 80 to 150 Northern Alliance junior officers were constantly taking training courses at a training center close to the village of Farhar in the province of Tahar with the help of Iranian military instructors, learning how to command units, studying military tactics and the ins and outs of military hardware.²⁰

Uzbekistan

In the summer of 1994 a number of officials in the Afghan government of Burhanuddin Rabbani accused Uzbekistan of illegal deliveries of weapons to General Abdul Rashid Dostam and of supporting the opposition forces in the war against the legal government of Afghanistan.²¹ According to information cited by these officials, Uzbek transports violated the Afghan border. It is noteworthy that the sharp increase in Uzbek arms exports in 1994-1995 noted by SIPRI analysts occurred immediately after the Russian deliveries to Uzbekistan in 1992-93. Regarding the Russian deliveries to Uzbekistan, there is only reliable information about armored vehicles, but it is possible that there were also major deliveries of small arms, light weapons and ammunition. That is, it is possible that in this case the Uzbeks may have been conducting re-exports, because at that time Russia itself was not supplying arms to Afghanistan. Later Uzbekistan continued to make relatively large military deliveries to Dostam, right up until the general suffered a major defeat in 1998. At this time General Dostam received a considerable amount of small arms, artillery, ammunition, armored vehicles, spare parts for armor and fuel from the Uzbek city of Termez. Furthermore, Dostam's aircraft and helicopters were regularly repaired at the Termez airport. The exact amount of Uzbek military is unknown, but according to the ACDA Uzbekistan exported a total of $180 million in arms in 1994-1997 and one can confidently assert that a significant part of these exports went to Afghanistan, to the forces of Abdul Rashid Dostam. Besides its own direct deliveries, Uzbekistan participated in arms shipments to Afghanistan by providing its railroads and roads for Iranian shipments to the Northern Alliance.

In addition to the above-mentioned Uzbek arms deliveries to Dostam, reports in the media, citing Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masood, have said that Uzbekistan, together with Ukraine, has supplied arms to the Taliban.²² While with Ukraine the situation was ambiguous (official Kiev may not have supplied arms to the Taliban,²³ but this cannot be said for sure about Ukrainian companies and organizations), as far as Uzbekistan is concerned such deliveries would be illogical. Uzbekistan has an interest in seeing stability in Afghanistan. Problems with the fighters of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is supported by the Taliban, are a direct threat to the Uzbek state and the rule of President Karimov.

Uzbekistan has now resumed and stepped up arms shipments to Dostam. The general's forces have begun to receive Soviet-made arms bought in Uzbekistan with American money, including Kalashnikov assault rifles, mortars, grenade launchers, anti-tank weapons, mines, as well as medicine and food.²⁴ General Dostam is thought to have received additional grenade launchers and tanks from Uzbekistan.

Ukraine

Ukraine is also considered a major supplier of arms to Afghanistan, but unlike other arms exporters, who are ruled mostly by political interests and considerations of security, Ukrainian exporters are ruled only by economic considerations. In the 1990s there were several established Ukrainian transfers to the Afghans, both the Taliban and their opponents. In 1995-1996 Ukraine sold the government of Afghanistan a major shipment of weapons and ammunition. A little later the Taliban bought a shipment of Ukrainian weapons. According to Ukrainian sources, Ukraine exported more than half a billion dollars worth of arms to Afghanistan through 2000.²⁵ According to the ACDA, the volume of Ukrainian deliveries is much more modest: in 1993-1997 Afghanistan imported $50 million to $60 million worth of arms from Eastern Europe, much of which came from Ukraine. True, ACDA analysts only take into account official state structures - in the case of Afghanistan this could be the government of Rabbani and the UNIFSA. The known contract for the delivery of Ukrainian tanks to Pakistan also did not take into consideration the political consequences: Pakistan, by buying a large number of Ukrainian tanks, is able to decommission a large number of obsolete Chinese tanks and ship them to Afghanistan, where they could be used by the Taliban against the Central Asian members of the CIS, including Ukraine's ally in the regional grouping GUUAM, Uzbekistan.

After the beginning of the U.S. anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan, and Russia's announcement of arms shipments to the Northern Alliance, Ukrainian officials in the military-industrial complex who have a role in decision-making in the area of military-technical cooperation said that, "from the point of view of taking into account the interests of the country's national security, deliveries of arms or provision of other military-technical aid to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan would not at this stage be expedient."²⁶ The president of the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Research, Anatoly Gritsenko, said "Ukraine does not have vital interests in Afghanistan…[and] does not earn anything from this [arms supplies], because the Northern Alliance does not have money."²⁷ These assertions illustrate exactly the idea that Ukraine does not have political obstacles to supplying arms to Afghanistan - commercial terms are more important.

Other exporters

It is known that, besides the countries mentioned above, a number of other Eastern European states also exported arms to warring Afghanistan. This became known as a result of the interception of several transports by third parties as cargos made their way to the customer.

In October 1995, Taliban aircraft intercepted an Il-76 transport plane piloted by a Russian crew and forced it to land in Kandagar. The plane was carrying small arms and ammunition bought by the government of Rabbani in Albania.²⁸ At the end of 1995, Kazakhstan's special services seized a plane at the Almaty airport belonging to a Belarussian airline that was carrying 35 tones of grenades under the guise of agricultural cargo.²⁹ One can assume that these countries also made successful deliveries of arms to Afghanistan.

Also, the ACDA has reported that an unidentified NATO country (not including the United States, France, Germany and Britain) supplied $5 million to $10 million in weapons to official Afghanistan in 1993-1997.

¹ According to UN estimates. Analysts call Afghanistan the biggest home of unaccounted weapons.

² Alexander Chuikov, "Rossiiskiye voyennye pomogayut Severnomu alyansu", Izvestiya, 27.10.2001.

³ SIPRI Arms Trade Database-2001.

⁴ SIPRI Arms Trade Database-2001; Amir Shah, "Russia giving opposition helicopters, Iran giving military advice", Associated Press, 24.02.2001.

⁵ Igor Korotchenko, "Rossiiskaya voennaya tekhnika - Severnomu alyansu", Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 05-11.11.2001; the given list of weapons and their number needs to be clarified and verified.

⁶ INFO-TASS data bank, Vega database, 02.11.2001.

⁷ According to SIPRI.

⁸ James Risen, "Russians are Back in Afghanistan", New York Times, 27.07.1998; HRW interview with Amrullah Saleh, Dushanbe, 29.05.1999.

⁹ Minch Vo, "Getting a Handle on Small Arms", Christian Science Monitor, 17.02.1999; "Small Arms Survey 2001", Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 2001.

¹⁰ Federation of American Scientists.

¹¹ "Weapons profile: Stinger missile", Arms Trade News, Aug/Sept 1996, Conventional Arms Transfer Project, USA; "Small Arms Survey 2001", Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 2001.

¹² INFO-TASS data bank, Vega database, 02.11.2001.

¹³ Direct and indirect military and military-technical aid was fairly large-scale and it is not possible to discuss it in detail within the context of this article. One can only not that the lion's share of the credit for the Taliban's impressive military successes belongs to Pakistan. The amount of military and military-technical aid provided to the Taliban by Pakistan considerably exceeded the volume of deliveries and supplies to the Northern Alliance by other foreign countries.

¹⁴ While Iran had a land border with the UNIFSA.

¹⁵ HRW interviews with Commander Daoud, Taloqan, 08.06.1999; and with Professor Daoud, Panjshir Valley, 17.06.1999.

¹⁶ Anthony Davis, "How the Taliban Became a Military Force" (Amin Saikal, "The Rabbani Government, 1992-1996," in William Maley, ed., Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban, New York University Press, 1998).

¹⁷ Human Rights Watch interview with a Tashkent-based journalist, Tashkent, 24-25.06.1999; Sayed Salahuddin, "Afghan defectors Say They Were Flying Iranian Arms", Reuters, 30.09.1998.

¹⁸ "Many sorties of military deliveries in unmarked aircraft to bases of the Northern Alliance", "The situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security", Report of the Secretary-General, 14.11.1997.

¹⁹ "Kyrgyzstan: Kyrgyz Seize Weapons From Iran Destined For Anti-Taliban", Interfax in English, 12.10.1998; "MNB sygralo v yaschik. Prodolzhayet raskruchivatsya skandal vokrug pribyvshego v Osh sostava s boepripasami," Vecherny Bishkek, 14.10.1998; "Boepripasy vernutsya v Iran? Vchera MNB prinyalo reshenie o prekraschenii ugolovnogo dela po faktu kontrabandy oruzhiya i o vozvrate ego v IRI," Vecherny Bishkek, 21.10.1998.

²⁰ Amir Shah, "Russia giving opposition helicopters, Iran giving military advice", Associated Press, 24.02.2001.

²¹ At this time the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan, headed by General Dostam, was in opposition and in a state of military resistance to the government of Afghanistan. See "Uzbekistan alleged to arm Afghan opposition", Radio Free Europe, 11.08.1994; Military and Arms Transfer News, No. 94/8, 26.08.1994, Farndon House Information Trust.

²² V. Yemelyanenko, "Ahmad Shah Masood: Afganskaya voina zakonchitsya v Pakistane," Izvestiya, 02.12.2000.

²³ After the publication of an article in Izvestiya Ukrainian officials denied these reports. See Olga Tanasiichuk, "Ukraina ne postavlyala oruzhie v Afganistan, zayavili v MID," Ukrinform, Kiev, 05.12.2000.

²⁴ "Taliby otvodyat svoi voiska ot granitsy s Uzbekistanom," RIA Novosti, 10.10.2001, citing the Washington Post.

²⁵ "Tenevoi sector v torgovle oruzhiyem", Vecherny Kiev, 19.12.1996; the source quotes a figure of $540 million, which is apparently a big overestimation.

²⁶ News and analytical site www.mignews.com.ua.

²⁷ News and analytical site www.mignews.com.ua.

²⁸ "Taliban refuses to release Russian pilots", The Open Media Research Institute (OMRI) Daily Digest, 10.10.1995; Robert Fisk, "Circling Over a Broken, Ruined State", Independent, 14.07.1996, London.

²⁹ V. Litovkin, "Belorussia na rynke vooruzhenii," Izvestiya, 08.08.1997.