The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

which was witnessed by Kliushnikov, they were all sentenced to death and executedimmediately.Bogdanov, having heard this account, was not surprised. He shared another storywith his colleague. Often when arriving at his office at the security services early in themorning, he saw Assadullah Sarwari looking tired, with traces of mud on his boots andclothes. Gradually, Bogdanov discovered that every night the head of AGSA personallyparticipated in mass executions at a testing facility in the suburbs of Kabul. After sometime, Sarwari didn’t bother to hide that from the KGB operatives. “Today, another hundredtraitors will be sent to Pakistan,” he would giggle. That was the adopted jargon for theregime’s mass executions.In the fall, rumors spread that those who had been arrested and accused of counterrevolutionaryactions were not killed, but were taken to the Soviet Union, where theyworked in Siberian mines or in the Urals. Rumors spread of the existence of lettersdescribing deplorable conditions in Soviet uranium mines, purportedly accounts of theunfortunate Afghans.People couldn’t believe the more terrifying truth, that those arrested by AGSA wereexecuted right outside of their own homes. This widespread fear, however, had the effect ofproducing enemies of the regime rather than increasing its authority.News of rebellion in Nuristan arrived in the summer. Amin ordered the rebellion tobe suppressed immediately and without mercy. The entire region was reduced to rubble bythe Air Force. The unrest spread to Kunar province, adjacent to Nuristan. Bad news arrivedfrom the Pandjsher Gorge. For now the resistance there was unorganized, but according tointelligence, Afghan emigrants in Pakistan had begun to create an alliance of the most257