May 1979: CIA Begins Working with Hekmatyar and Other Mujaheddin Leaders Chosen by ISI

As the US mobilizes for covert war in Afghanistan (see 1978 and July 3, 1979), a CIA special envoy meets Afghan mujaheddin leaders at Peshawar, Pakistan, near the border to Afghanistan. All of them have been carefully selected by the Pakistani ISI and do not represent a broad spectrum of the resistance movement. One of them is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a drug dealer with little support in Afghanistan, but who is loyal to the ISI. The US will begin working with Hekmatyar and over the next 10 years over half of all US aid to the mujaheddin will go to his faction (see 1983). - May 1979: CIA Begins Working with Hekmatyar and Other Mujaheddin Leaders Chosen by ISI -- Soviet-Afghan War
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