between Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the USSR and US acting as guarantors, stating provisions for the withdrawal of Soviet forces and mutual non-interference between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Process of military withdrawal The withdrawal of the Soviet military began on 15 May 1988, under the leadership of General of the Army Valentin Varennikov (with General Gromov commanding the 40th Army directly). As agreed, the withdrawal was "front-loaded", with half of the Soviet force leaving by August. The withdrawal was complicated, however, by the rapid deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan. While the United States was not bound by any commitment to stop arms shipments and continued to supply the Afghan mujahideen in Pakistan, the latter was not delivering on its commitment to prevent weaponry and militants from flowing into Afghanistan through the Durand Line. Likewise, the mujahideen also continued their attacks on withdrawing Soviet forces. The Soviet Union repeatedly reported these violations of the Geneva Accords to United Nations monitoring bodies, and even pleaded with the United States to influence the factions that they were supplying. The desire of the Soviet Union to withdraw, however, coupled with the United States' inability to control the behaviour of the mujahideen, meant that the Soviet objections did not yield any results. The following conversation between a Soviet diplomat and a station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency in Islamabad (as told by the latter in a book he co-authored), is cited by Kalinovsky: As the Soviet military withdrawal and rebel attacks continued, the deteriorating security of the Najibullah government caused policy disagreements between the different services of the Soviet Union. For example: while the Soviet military had succeeded in establishing a de facto cease-fire with Ahmad Shah Massoud's forces as Soviet troops withdrew through territories under his control, the KGB and Shevarnadze attempted to convince Gorbachev that an attack on Massoud was necessary to guarantee Najibullah's survival. In the words of Soviet military commanders, Najibullah himself also aimed to retain the Soviet military in Afghanistan – Generals Varennikov (in charge of the withdrawal operation), Gromov (commander of the 40th Army), and Sotskov (chief Soviet military advisor in Afghanistan) all pleaded with top Soviet military and political leadership to control Najibullah's attempts to use Soviet troops to achieve his own security, and to convey to him that the Soviet military would not stay in Afghanistan. After the departure of Yakovlev from the Politburo in the