It can, regrettably, be said with more than a touch of trust, that the Mujahideen 'snatched defeat from the jaws of victory'. I believe that the process started with the promotion of General Akhtar to four star rank by President Zia, and his consequential appointment as Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. In March, 1987, the tide of war in Afghanistan was moving slowly but perceptively towards a guerrilla victory. The Soviets had realized they could not win on the battlefield. Gorbachev was considering how to make a military retreat into a political victory in Moscow, and to an international audience. A withdrawal of the Red Army was firmly, if covertly, in the Kremlin's agenda. At the moment, the man who was largely responsible for the Soviet humiliation, who during eight years had been overtaken in rank by his peers as he struggled to wage a guerrilla war on a massive scale against a superpower, was removed from ISI by promotion.

It came as a shock to Akhtar himself. For a week or so he declined to formally hand over his duties to his successor, Major General Hamid Gul, in the forlorn hope that he might be able to retain control over the Jehad in his new appointment. It was not to be.

It is my conviction that Akhtar was primarily removed by Zia to appease the US. Certainly, to promote him out of ISI at that time would bring personal advantages to the president - the credit for a likely forthcoming victory for example - but American pressure was surely the key factor. As I have explained earlier it was always Akhtar that frustrated American efforts to take over the training of the Mujahideen, or to have a say in the allocation of arms, or to by-pass the political parties in their distribution. To many in the US Akhtar was seen as having outlive his usefulness by early 1987. They acknowledged that he was the architect of victory in the field, but once that looked like becoming a reality he could, indeed should, be dispensed with.

The Americans saw Akhtar as an inflexible supporter of an Islamic fundamentalist government in Kabul. They believed, erroneously, that he had for years favoured the fundamentalist with US purchased supplies on religious grounds. They knew he was dedicated to a simple military victory, brought about by the collapse of the Communists in Kabul. The Americans on the other hadn wanted the Soviets out, but not the fundamentalists in. They had a