For more than 20 years, he was the face of impartiality as a top newsreader on ITN’s flagship News At Ten bulletin.
But behind the scenes, veteran Scottish broadcaster Sandy Gall was personally lobbying Margaret Thatcher’s government to step up support for Afghanistan’s Mujahideen rebels in their war against the Soviet-installed regime, according to declassified papers.
Gall, whose death at the age of 97 was announced last week, became a passionate supporter of the Mujahideen cause and a confidante of their leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, during trips to the country as a war correspondent.
He first visited Afghanistan in 1982 when he was smuggled in by resistance fighters to make a documentary highlighting claims of Russian brutality towards the civilian population.
During a 60-year career reporting from the world’s trouble spots, he would become an unofficial emissary of the British government to the Mujahideen and in 1986 he and his late wife Eleanor founded a charity to raise money for victims of the war.
After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the country descended into civil war with various rival factions fighting the Moscow-backed government of President Mohammad Najibullah.
Sandy Gall became an unofficial emissary of the British government to the Mujahideen
Veteran Scottish broadcaster Sandy Gall was personally lobbying Margaret Thatcher ’s government to step up support for Afghanistan ’s Mujahideen
When Gall returned to Afghanistan on a fact-finding mission, he wrote to the prime minister’s private secretary, Charles Powell, raising concerns about the deteriorating situation.
He wrote: ‘I came away with a very strong feeling that the situation is critical. The main fact I learned from a couple of talks with Massoud is that he has received no weapons via the Pakistani pipeline at all this year.’
During the Soviet occupation, MI6 formed close links with Massoud, who was regarded as more pro-Western than his rival Mujahideen commanders, and provided his group with substantial military aid, including Blowpipe anti-aircraft missiles, channelled through the Pakistani ISI intelligence service.
But Gall learned the ISI had cut off the supply of weapons.
‘This is a deliberate policy,’ Gall wrote. ‘They have always resented his independence, and his refusal to take ISI instructions has now infuriated them to the extent of cutting off his arms supply.’
He urged Mrs Thatcher to increase military support for Massoud and press the Pakistani government to restart the flow of weapons.
Mr Powell replied that ‘our own ability to influence the conduct of the war is very limited’.
Gall, whose death at the age of 97 was announced last week, became a passionate supporter of the Mujahideen cause
President Najibullah was eventually overthrown in 1992, but after four more years of civil war and in-fighting the country was taken over by Massoud’s arch-rivals the Taliban.
Massoud was assassinated by al-Qaeda linked suicide bombers in 2001. Born Henderson Alexander Gall in British Malaya, Gall was the son a rubber plantation manager.
The family moved back to Scotland when he was four and he was educated at Glenalmond College, in Perthshire, and Aberdeen University.
He joined ITN in 1963 and made a name as a fearless foreign correspondent, landing himself in countless scrapes. He fronted News At Ten for many years until his retirement in 1992.
In 2011, Gall was appointed CMG in recognition of his service to the people of Afghanistan.
