SPETSNAZ covert raids into Pakistan during Afghan War

OK, is there any way that the Red Army woiuld've authorised secret raids by SPETSNAZ detachments- along similar lines to SOG's cross-border black ops into Cambodia & Laos during the Vietnam War- into Pakistan during 1981-88 to try to assassinate/kidnap key MUJAHIDEEN leaders or CIA agents (sorta like how Col. Trautman gets captured in RAMBO III), or to take out key supply bases or installations ? How would the ISI, CIA & Reagan admin have reacted had they bee made aware of such raids, & what retaliation could've ensued ?
 
Turns into another Cuban Missle Crisis and with Reagan in control of America and the hardline politburo and army generals ruling in the guise of Andropov it could hot.
 
OK, is there any way that the Red Army woiuld've authorised secret raids by SPETSNAZ detachments...


Melvin,

What makes you think they didn't?

The tribal areas along the Paki-Afghan border have been notoriously violent for millennia, all sorts of spec-ops shenanigans could be lost in "noise" of the daily clan/tribe scuffling. I think it's fairly certain that SPETSNAZ raids did take place across the border and such raids were carefully designed in size and scope as to allow both superpowers to pretend the raids didn't happen.

"Plausible deniability" was a watchword for both sides during the Cold War. Both sides pretended that Soviet pilots weren't really flying "North Korean" MiGs, that USAF missions didn't routinely violate Soviet airspace, that Soviet technicians didn't operate North Vietnamese SAM sites, and so on. It was only when some action was especially egregious, i.e. placing missiles in Cuba, or an overwhelming political advantage could be obtained by a revelation, i.e. the U-2 shoot down, that one side suddenly "discovered" the shenanigans perpetrated by the other.

A SPETSNAZ cross-border raid "blown" in some manner would allow Pakistan and the US to make all sorts of mouth noises, but in the end nothing substantial would happen. Neither side was willing to allow events in and around Afghanistan to ratchet up tensions. The USSR knew full well that the US was busily supplying and arming the mujahideen in camps across the border yet their rhetoric was oddly silent on the subject just as the US took great care to "launder" it's assistance through Arab nations and limit any public announcements of support.


Bill
 
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Also, the ISI is a lot smarter and sneakier than people give them credit for. I'm fairly certain the Soviets DID execute covert raids into Pakistan, but they were either on a small scale and could thus be plausibly denied as indicated by Bill, or they failed, and neither side wanted to make a big fuss about it.
 
Also, the ISI is a lot smarter and sneakier than people give them credit for.


Strangeland,

Very much so.

So sneaky in fact that if you want to believe the story Pakistan would like you to believe, ISI managed to run a nuclear weapon program and produce such weapons without the Pakistani government knowing a single thing about it.


Bill
 
CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN

I remember reading in that Tom Clancy novel an incident where there's a Soviet air-raid on an Afghan refugee camp in pakistan- before the PAF c an scramble interceptors- never really thought bout whether that sorta thing happened for real...
 
Turns into another Cuban Missle Crisis and with Reagan in control of America and the hardline politburo and army generals ruling in the guise of Andropov it could hot.


Over that? no way. and Andropov was in charge, no generals bossed him around (although Viktor Grishin supposedly influenced him quite a bit)
 
There is a tl where this happens, its called otl. As has been pointed out before the Soviets knew full well that the US was running large training camps just over the AfPak border and that US special forces occasionally went into Afgan with the Muj, but they didn't make to much of fuss. Equally the US didn't make a fuss over the rountine violation of Pakistans sovreignty by the Red Army. Its called a proxy war for a reason, both sides wanted to advance their intrests without starting off WW3 and both sides worked to aviod escalation..
 
hmmm, just had another idea- WI a Spetsnaz team on a covert foray into Pakistan actually nabbed or knocked off Charlie Wilson (maybe together with1 of his girlfriends as well :) ) while he was on 1 of his visits to the Mujahideen camps ? Or maybe even Gust Avrakotos or Mike Vickers if they were present too ?

oh, I also read in a il hist article yest that, in 1988 I think, 1 of the DRA offensives against the Muj actually involved the heliborne landing of DRA commandos INSIDE Pakistani terrotiry near Zhawar, so in that respect, covert cross-border Spetsnaz raids could well have been an aspect of the secret war in Afghanistan...
 
hmmm, just had another idea- WI a Spetsnaz team on a covert foray into Pakistan actually nabbed or knocked off Charlie Wilson (maybe together with1 of his girlfriends as well :) ) while he was on 1 of his visits to the Mujahideen camps ? Or maybe even Gust Avrakotos or Mike Vickers if they were present too ?

oh, I also read in a il hist article yest that, in 1988 I think, 1 of the DRA offensives against the Muj actually involved the heliborne landing of DRA commandos INSIDE Pakistani terrotiry near Zhawar, so in that respect, covert cross-border Spetsnaz raids could well have been an aspect of the secret war in Afghanistan...

Any Spetsnaz unit, and the USSR as a whole, would have to have lost their whole case of marbles to kidnap or kill a sitting US Congressman. By the time the Russo-Afghani War was in full swing, both superpowers were well-familiar with the concept of the Cold War and knew the "rules." Under any circumstances, the kidnapping or murder of another country's politician would be an act of war; the USSR would not like the US response to such an event at all.
 
Any Spetsnaz unit, and the USSR as a whole, would have to have lost their whole case of marbles to kidnap or kill a sitting US Congressman. By the time the Russo-Afghani War was in full swing, both superpowers were well-familiar with the concept of the Cold War and knew the "rules." Under any circumstances, the kidnapping or murder of another country's politician would be an act of war; the USSR would not like the US response to such an event at all.

Maybe it was a ''rogue'' unit of the Afghan government's own special forces angered by Wilson's inference in internal Afghan affairs and funding of rebel forces.

Or it could be a faction the Muj themselves who did it as a provocation an attemting to ratchet up the tenstions between the USA-Soviets in order to get more support.

Hell Osama's boys arnt the most rational of people, and they also arnt a united monolitic group. It's not an impossablty, and if Charle is anything as slezey as Tom Hank's potreayed him then good riddance.:cool:
 
[QUOTE

Hell Osama's boys arnt the most rational of people, and they also arnt a united monolitic group. It's not an impossablty, and if Charle is anything as slezey as Tom Hank's potreayed him then good riddance.:cool:[/QUOTE]

Mate, even more so :) George Crile's book of the same name goes into detail into how the real Charlie Wilson (who was btw 6'7", so Tom Hanks was defntly left literally standing in his shadow) liked to take different stunning blonde girlfriends with him on his in-country tours of Afghanistan, alongside all sorts of other womanising misdemeanours which his 'angels' did their best to cover up for him...
 
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