The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

“I wonder who this person is? I haven’t seen his face before,” the chowkidar isthinking. Almost all faces in Kabul are familiar. Even if one doesn’t recognize the personspecifically, one will take notice and draw certain conclusions, particularly of foreigners.Foreigners dress differently, walk differently, speak differently, move too quickly, don’tknow what to buy where, what costs what, or how to bargain with vendors.From the point of view of intelligence work, the issue of not being recognized is oneof the most important elements. Where one can meet with a person so that nobody willknow and tell others that X and Y are somehow connected. In an out-of-the-way restaurant,in a park without benches, in a dirty side street, in the darkness of a movie house…hardly.The optimum variant was to meet at a safe house. That is what Soviet intelligenceoperatives did in those years.On the evening of February 18, Starostin was planning to have a regular meetingwith his agent Artem. He had reported his plan to meet with him to Osadchiy earlier thatday. Osadchiy had asked Starostin to, “find out what Artem knows about the people whomurdered Dubs. Who were they?” Nobody had identified them yet, which was hard tobelieve. In Afghanistan, they could not identify people who participate in political actions?“What’s known about the Dubs affair from our other sources?” asked Starostin.“You should familiarize yourself with the materials that we sent to the Center. Itmostly covers the technical aspects of the rescue operation. What we know doesn’t clarifywhat happened, however. It only raises more questions. We still can’t see the wholepicture. There is no logic behind people’s actions. As they say, there is no motive behindthis crime. Most importantly, the political reasons for what happened are unclear. Do youunderstand?”326