Operation Cyclone

Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, prior to and during the military intervention by the Soviet Union in support of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The mujahideen were also supported by Britain's MI6, who conducted their own separate covert actions. The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups, including groups with jihadist ties, that were favored by the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Soviet-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan administration since before the Soviet intervention. Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken. Funding officially began with $695,000 USD in mid-1979, was increased dramatically to $20–$30 million per year in 1980, and rose to $630 million per year in 1987, described as the "biggest bequest to any Third World insurgency". Operation Cyclone is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the most expensive covert action in history. The first CIA-supplied weapons were antique British Lee–Enfield rifles shipped out in December 1979. By September 1986, the program included American-made state-of-the-art weaponry, such as FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, some 2,300 of which were ultimately shipped into Afghanistan. Funding continued (albeit reduced) after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, as the mujahideen continued to battle the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan during the First Afghan Civil War.