In the 1980s, the BND secretly supported the rebels against Soviet troops. Documents from the archives of the service reveal classified information
The German intelligence service BND has recently come under a lot of criticism. She is accused, for example, of failing to anticipate the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan, or of underestimating the speed with which Islamists imposed control in the capital, Kabul.
Self-criticism is not alien to the BND itself, which was surprised by the events. For years, access to intelligence in Afghanistan has been good, the service has a solid network in the country, and its residence in Kabul has been one of the largest in the world. Some of the local intelligence contacts have been around for decades.
Operation Summer Rain
But one fact remains little known to this day: German spies have been very active in the Hindu Kush since the 1980s, seeking contact with Islamist mujahideen insurgents in Afghanistan, some of whom later joined the Taliban. . Operation Summer Rain aimed to support the resistance against the Soviet occupation forces in the country and at the same time to gather information about the equipment and capabilities of the Soviet army.
In December 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan – shortly before, a pro-Soviet prime minister was assassinated in Kabul, and Hafizullah Amin came to power through a coup. Moscow fears that Amin may ally with the West and seek NATO’s help to consolidate his power. This led to the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.
What followed was a bloody nine-year war waged by the Soviet Union and its Afghan aides against the Mujahideen, which claimed countless lives and turned millions of Afghans into refugees seeking refuge in neighboring countries, mainly Pakistan.
In the mid-1980s, the Western secret services, and especially the US CIA, began supporting Afghan insurgent forces by supplying them with weapons and other equipment.
In the summer of 1985, Germany apparently also decided to get involved in helping the Afghan insurgents, through a secret operation that the public should not be aware of. GNI is in charge of its implementation.
On August 30, 1985, the BND leadership activated the secret operation “Summer Rain”, and on December 19 of the same year the first auxiliary delivery was made: 5,500 pairs of boots, 1,800 military jackets and 12,700 woolen sweaters. The shipment was delivered through a BND-authorized mediator in the presence of leading representatives of the Afghan resistance, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is now the leader of the Hizb Islami group.
In the following years, the BND carried out large-scale deliveries in the Hindu Kush – also medicines, sleeping bags, tents, stretchers, stoves, minesweepers, night vision devices, knives, off-road motorcycles, powerful percussion drills, radios, dinghies, field hospitals. However, the aid is not only material – the GNI transports severely wounded Afghan fighters for treatment in Germany.
Not just “for humanitarian reasons”
Gifts from Germany are delivered to Pakistan by Bundeswehr planes, and only in isolated cases by the BND official plane. From there, their distribution among the Afghan insurgents was taken over by the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI). To conduct the operation more effectively, the GNI also established a conspiracy unit in Peshawar in western Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan.
“Operation Summer Rain aims to support the insurgents in Afghanistan,” a BND document from September 1987 said. Its continuation was “appropriate and necessary for humanitarian reasons”. In addition, the operation strengthened Afghan resistance and served the interests of democracies, the note said.
However, the intelligence was not only driven by humanitarian motives, but also served “the interests of the Federal Republic of Germany in its security”. He hoped to gather valuable information about Soviet military equipment, as in Afghanistan the Soviet army used modern military equipment, partly unknown in NATO details until now. With the help of the mujahideen, the BND gained access to such military equipment, which was transferred to Germany for further investigation.
Sobering balance
In the course of the operation, a scheme for personal benefit was revealed: a high-ranking employee diverted funds with the help of forged invoices. It is a company in Munich, through which medicines for “Summer Rain” were procured. It issued invoices for overstated amounts using an anonymous bank account in Switzerland, presenting it on behalf of the GNI. After the fraud was discovered, the employee in question and one of his former classmates were brought to justice, and GNI suffered damages of 82,000 German marks.
In the early 1990s, the GNI terminated its covert operation. Even from the point of view of the spies themselves, it is not very successful. At the end of 1987, the service itself made a sobering balance: “Operation ‘Summer Rain’ for BND has so far not shown any serious intelligence benefit,” reads the assessment. Nevertheless, the service has continued to maintain contacts with Afghan insurgents and Pakistani secret services.
The text has been published HERE
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