The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War/Chapter 14

by Ali Ahmad Jalali

CHAPTER 14: URBAN COMBAT

Urban guerrillas are surrounded by potential informants and government spies. They must frequently move around unarmed and the government can usually react to their actions much faster than they can in the countryside. For this reason, urban guerrilla groups were usually small and fought back with short-duration actions. Many urban guerrillas lived in the countryside or suburbs and only entered the cities for combat.

VIGNETTE 1: KIDNAPING A SOVIET ADVISER

by Commander Shahabuddin

(Commander Shahabuddin is from Shewaki Village south of Kabul.)

We were in contact with an Afghan driver from Paktia Province who drove for a civilian Soviet adviser. The adviser worked with the DRA mining industry. We wanted to kidnap the adviser. The driver had trained for a short time in the USSR and so the adviser trusted him. The driver agreed to help us, but we did not trust the driver and asked him to prove his loyalty. He stated "I will bring my family to stay in a Mujahideen-controlled area as proof of my trustworthiness". The driver came to our camp with his wife and family. I sent his family to my village of Shewaki to stay while we captured the adviser.

One day the driver informed us that the adviser's wife was coming from the Soviet Union to join him. The driver would take the adviser to the airport to meet his wife. We gave the driver a small hand-held radio and told him to contact us if there were any changes. We would contact him within twenty minutes of his call. The driver called us one morning. He reported that the adviser's wife was arriving that day and that no one would accompany the adviser to the airport but the driver. We dressed one of our Mujahideen in a DRA military officer's uniform and put him in a car and sent him to wait at the bridge over the Kabul River at the micro rayon in East Kabul. He got out of the car and waited for the Soviet adviser's car. Soon, the Soviet adviser's car arrived. The driver pointed at our Mujahideen and told the adviser "That's my brother. He's going to the airport. Can we give him a ride?" The adviser agreed and they stopped to pick up "the officer". He got into the back seat behind the adviser and pulled out a pistol. He held the pistol to the adviser's back and ordered the driver to drive to Shewaki. Another car, carrying eight of our Mujahideen armed with pistols with silencers, followed the adviser's car. We had no trouble with the checkpoints since the guards saw the DRA officer's uniform, saluted and waved the car and its "security tail" right through.

We took the adviser to Shewaki and burned his car. The government launched a major search effort, so we moved the adviser again to the Abdara Valley. Government helicopters strafed Shewaki after we left and landed search detachments trying to find the adviser. We kept the adviser in the Abdara Valley near the Chakari monument (the Buddhist pinnacle) for two days. Then we moved him to Tezin, near Jalalabad, for a few more days. Finally, we took him across the border to Peshawar, Pakistan, where we turned him over to one of the factions. I do not know what happened to him.

VIGNETTE 2: FOUR URBAN BOMB ATTACKS

by Haji Mohammad Yakub

(Haji Mohammad Yakub, whose nickname was Mansur (Victor), was an urban guerrilla inKabul. He belonged to the HIH faction.)

Bombing is a necessary part of being an urban guerrilla. The object is to create fear and take out selected individuals. We got our explosives from Pakistan. Commander Azizuddin and Commander Meskinyar were our contacts in Paghman District who forwarded the explosives and detonators to us. They used elderly people as our go-betweens to carry messages and explosives to us.

[1] In April 1980, we carried out an attack on the Radio Afghanistan building. This housed the central offices for Afghanistan radio and television broadcasting. Soviet advisers worked at the building where they oversaw radio and television broadcasting and edited and cleared the news before broadcast. The Soviets were our targets. We received a bomb from our contacts and gave it to a woman who worked in the radio station. She smuggled it into the station and armed it. The bomb went off at 1000 hours on a workday. The explosion killed two Afghan Party activists and two Soviets. It also wounded a DRA soldier. For some time after the blast, Afghanistan Radio and TV stopped broadcasting. After this, the security procedures for the building were greatly increased and everyone was carefully searched. Our lady contact later managed to get herself transferred to the payroll office of Kabul University.

[2] The communist regime converted Kabul University into a center for communist indoctrination. We decided to target the primary Party Organization at Kabul University in January 1981. Bombing seemed to be our best option. By this time, our lady contact at Radio Afghanistan was working in the payroll office at Kabul University. We gave her two bombs. the planted one in the University Administration building and set the timer for 1100. She set the second in the primary Party Organization building and set that timer for 1145. The theory was that, after the first bomb went off, people would mill around the site and then the key party activists would gather in the primary Party Organization building to discuss the bombing. The second bomb would attack this concentration. Our plan worked as we thought it would. Following the blast in the administration building, the party secretaries of all the various communist organizations gathered in the primary Party Organization building. The blast killed a Soviet adviser and several party secretaries. The bombs killed a total of 10 and wounded an unknown number.

[3] On 6 May 1983, we bombed the Ministry of Interior building in Kabul. We had planted 27 kilograms of explosive in a room on the second floor of the building close to the office of the Minister. The bombs were hidden in four large flower pots that had been there for some time. We had a contact who was a gardener for the Ministry of the Interior. He agreed to smuggle in the explosives, plant the bombs and set them for detonation. We trained him how to do the job. He mixed the explosives with limestone and smuggled them in plastic bags over a period of time. We planned to detonate the bombs during the daytime for maximum casualties. However, our HIH headquarters in Peshawar overruled us and told us to set the bombs off at night. HIH wanted to keep Minister of the Interior Gulab Zoy alive since he was a leading member of the Khalq faction and his survival would insure that the friction between the Khalq and Parchim communist party factions continued.

The gardener set all the time pencils for 2300 hours when he went home at 1600 hours. There was no sense setting different times since the building would virtually be deserted. The time bombs went off ontime and killed four duty officers and damaged the Minister's office.If we had set off the bombs during the day, we would have killed Gulab Zoy, Ghazi (his body guard), Sheruddin (his aide-de-camp) and perhaps a hundred others. The DRA closed roads around the building for 24 hours and conducted an investigation. However, they thought that the blast was connected to some internal quarrel within the communist leadership and never suspected our gardener.

[4] The Soviets lived in the eastern Micro rayon region of Kabul. We decided to attack the Soviets right where they were living. There was a bus stop in the area where the Soviets would wait for their buses to work. We checked the timing of the buses. There was a daily 0745 morning bus that drew the most Soviets. We needed to establish a pattern so that we could leave a bomb without drawing attention. We got a push cart and loaded it with the best fruits and vegetables that we could get. The produce came from Parwan Province. We charged reasonable prices. The Soviets and local people got used to seeing us there and buying from us. We kept this up for several days. At night, we would work on the pushcart. We put in a false bottom in the cart so that we could put our bombs in the bottom of the cart and they would be undetected even if the cart were inspected. We attacked on the 2nd of October 1983. We loaded five bombs into the bottom of the cart. We inserted time pencil fuses in the bombs and set them for 0743. Then we put in the false bottom and loaded the cart with produce. Six Mujahideen carried out the attack. None of us carried weapons. We brought the cart to the bus stop as usual. Thirteen Soviets crowded around it to see what was on sale. We slipped away from the cart and mixed with the local people. The bombs went off at 0743 just before the bus arrived. The blast killed 13, wounded 12 and damaged a nearby store. The DRA searched the crowd but made no arrests from our group.

COMMENTARY

Many people find such bombing attacks morally reprehensible, yet have no qualms when much larger bombs are dropped from aircraft. Neither type of bombing attack is surgical and both types kill innocent bystanders. The only real difference is in the size of the bomb and the means of delivery. The Mujahideen lacked an airforce but retained a limited bombing option. The Soviets had an airforce and conducted large-scale bombing attacks throughout the war.

VIGNETTE 3: INCIDENT AT QALA-E JABAR

by Mohammad Humayun Shahin

During Ramadan (June) of 1981, five Mujahideen were assigned to meet with a Soviet soldier in Qala-e Jabar to buy some Kalashnikov magazines from him. Qala-e Jabar is some three kilometers south of the Darulaman Soviet military base. Our group leader was Alozai, whowas known as Sher Khan. Hukum Khan, two others and I made up thegroup. We went to Qala-e Jabar and met with the Soviet soldier. Hesaid that his name was Hasan and he showed us his merchandise. Weagreed to buy the magazines and pulled out a wad of 50 Afghani notesto pay him with. The Soviet soldier was not familiar with the 50Afghani note. He demanded that we pay in 100s. Since we could notspeak Russian, Sher Khan tried to show him that two 50 Afghani notesequaled one 100 Afghani note. He even wrote it on a scrap of paper.The Soviet, however, apparently did not understand and kept demand-ing 100 Afghani notes. We did not have any 100 Afghani notes. As we tried to communicate, the Soviet got louder and louder. Wewere fairly close to the Soviet camp and were beginning to worry thatthis might be a trap. Hukum Khan grabbed the Soviet in a headlock andwrestled him to the ground while Commander Sher Khan stabbed theSoviet to death. Then we grabbed the rifle magazines, plus the Soviet'sAK-74 assault rifle and left the area. COMMENTARY: There was a regular commerce between the Sovietsoldiers and the Afghan populace. Soviet conscripts would sell fuel,ammunition, weapons, batteries and military equipment for hashish,food and Afghan money. They would use the money in the bazaars ofKabul to buy western stereos, music tapes, cigarettes and clothing.Some goods were available in the Soviet PX, but conscripts had littleaccess or cash so they tried to shop locally for items they wanted. Mohammad Humayun Shahin joined the Mujahideen as a high school student and served asa combatant and commander in the HIH urban guerrillas in the southwestern suburbs ofKabul in the Chardehi District. His high school student identification enabled him to movearound Kabul until he graduated in 1981. Then, he was provided with forged documentsshowing that he had completed military service. This enabled him to stay in the city andavoid being press-ganged into the army. His group often conducted combined actions withthe famed Mohseni urban guerrillas. After the collapse of the communist regime, Shahin wasappointed regiment commander under the Islamic government and promoted to BrigadierGeneral. There is no map with this vignette. Page 372 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War

VIGNETTE 4: AFSHAR AMBUSH

by Commander Asil Khan

On 28 May 1982, I led a group of four Mujahideen in an ambush at the very gates of the Soviet garrison in Kabul. At that time, elements of the Soviet 103rd Airborne Division and some other units were based in Darulaman about 10 kilometers southwest of downtown Kabul. The headquarters of the Soviet 40th Army was also located there in the Tajbeg Palace. I was a small unit commander in my father's front. My father is Haji Dawlat and the Front's main base was at Morghgiran, 10kilometers west of Darulaman.

I selected the ambush site after we spent several days in reconnaissance and surveillance of the Soviet traffic around Darulaman.During the reconnaissance, we detected a pattern in Soviet vehicular movement along the road from Kabul to the Soviet headquarters in the Tajbeg palace. Just north of the Soviet Darulaman base is the small village of Afshar. (Map 14-1 - Afshar) It has a typical suburban bazaar with several grocery and fresh fruit stores and stalls.Soviet soldiers frequented this bazaar and would stop their vehicles there to buy cigarettes, food and imported vodka. Afshar looked like a good ambush site. Soviet soldiers felt secure there, there was room enough to set up an ambush, and site entrance and exit were fairly easy. The path to and from the ambush was mostly concealed and we could easily reach Mujahideen bases and safe houses in the Chardehi District using this path.

We spent the day of the ambush in Qala-e Bakhtiar--a village six kilometers to the west of the ambush site. We had four AK-47s and anon-Soviet manufactured light anti-tank grenade launcher. In the early evening, we moved out toward Afshar. It was the Muslim month of Ramadan when Muslims fast during the entire day. Few people were out at sunset since this is the time to break the daily fast. Since our ambush site was in the immediate vicinity of the Soviet base, I decided to conduct a very quick attack on a single Soviet vehicle and to take prisoners if possible.

We moved through a narrow street of Afshar which opened onto the main road north of the Darulaman palace.

Commander Asil Khan was a famed urban guerrilla commander in Kabul. He served the NIFA faction. Page 374 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War

Around 1930 hours, as my leading riflemen reached the street intersection, a Soviet GAZ-66truck approached from the east on its way to the military camp. The truck had five passengers—a driver, a soldier in the right front seat and three soldiers in the back. One of the soldiers had a back-packed radio. I told my anti-tank gunner to fire when the vehicle was in the kill zone. He fired, but he narrowly missed the truck. The truck came to a sudden halt and its occupants jumped out of the vehicle, took up positions and started firing at random.

During the brief fire fight, we killed one Soviet soldier. Two soldiers ran away to the southwest toward their camp. One soldier crawled under the truck near the rear tires. The radio-man rushed into an open grocery store and hid there. One of my Mujahideen was close to the shop behind a concrete electric pylon. I told him to follow the Soviet radio-man into the front of the shop while I went into the shop's back door and introduced myself as a "friend". The Soviet soldier was flustered at first, but when he saw the foreign light anti-tank weapon in the hands of my Mujahideen, he uttered "dushman"[enemy]. He kept quiet as we bound his hands and led him out back.I recalled my team and we quickly left the area. The whole action lasted only a few minutes.

Fearing enemy retaliation, we moved out swiftly in the dark, heading to Qala-e Bakhtiar. From there, we went on to Qala-e Bahadur Khan, Qala-e Jabar Khan and Qala-e Qazi until we reached our Front's base at Morghgiran around 2200 hours. We kept our prisoner there for three days and then transferred him to NIFA headquarters in Peshawar, Pakistan.

COMMENTARY:

Detailed reconnaissance and knowledge of the enemy's movement and security arrangements contributed to a work-able ambush right in the heart of the Soviet garrison area. The Soviets had not posted a vulnerable point adjacent to their garrison--either through overconfidence or negligence on the part of lower-level commanders. Selection of a small group of fighters with an effective mix of weapons, and good selection of the ambush site played a significant role in the action. However, using a non-standard anti-tank weapon probably caused the gunner to miss a large target at close range. One wonders if the gunner had any training or practice with the weapon before he used it. An RPG-7 and an experienced gunner were needed. One wonders why the Soviets stopped their truck in the middle of a kill zone once the Mujahideen rocket missed them. Since the

Chapter 14, Vignette 4 Page 375

Mujahideen rocket missed the vehicle, there was no need for the truck to stop and the soldiers could have escaped through the small-arms fire before the anti-tank gunner had a chance to reload. The Soviets failed to react effectively. Stopping in the kill zone under small-arms fire was a risky and unwise move that cost the Soviets the life of one soldier while another one was captured.

QALA-E •CHITGAR ME •• ALAUDDIN ■ ■ QALA-EWAZIR QALACHAR QALA-Ei PAKHCHAK Sit. wawa - OM /\ . /\ WI ■ QALA-E. • • BAHADURKHAN QALA-EALI MARDA •\1141k" OALA-EBAKHTIAR \'‘JUVENILE • .N. PENITENTIARYAFSHAR DARULAMAN PALACE(MINISTRY OF DEFENSE) TAJBEG PALACE40th ARMY HQALIMARDAN

Map 14-2

0'I KM Page 376 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan. War

VIGNETTE 5 - REMOTE-CONTROL ATTACK ON A CONVOY IN THE SUBURBS

by Mohammad Humayun Shahin There were some 40 guerrillas in my force. We lived inside Kabuland in the suburbs. Most of the men were ethnic Pashtun, but therewere seven Dari speakers from outside Kabul as well. The Pashtuspeakers often mingled with the Kochi nomads who would pitch theirtents and graze their herds on the outskirts of Kabul. The Dari speak-ers posed as dairy product buyers when the DRA checked the area. In October 1982, I was a combatant, not a commander. Ourcommander was Qarar. He led us on a convoy attack against the Kot-e Sangi--Darulaman road near Qala-e Alimardan (Map Alimardan). Itwas a combined action involving HIH forces under Commander Didar,Commander Firoz and Commander Qarar, as well as fighters from theMohseni faction. The combined force numbered 76 men. We expecteda convoy from Darulaman to Kabul the next day. We all moved to thearea at night and surrounded the area. Our mining teams emplacedseven remote-controlled (shartaki) mines Then they camouflagedthem. After positioning two observation posts and designating a deto-nation team, the Mujahideen withdrew. A Mujahideen known as SherBach-e Khala (a Hazara) and I were the detonation team. CommanderQarar was at the Darulaman observation post and another observerwas by the mined area. Sher Bach-e Khala and I spent the night in aclover field some 200 meters from the road. The next morning, Commander Qarar came down the road on hisbicycle. He told us that the Soviet convoy was moving fromDarulaman. We moved into our detonation position. CommanderQarar then moved to the other observation post. He told the observerto take off his turban and wave it when the first two vehicles hadpassed the mined stretch of the road. He would do this since we couldnot see the mined stretch from the detonation position. A momentlater, the convoy reached the site and the observer took off his turban,waved it and moved to a safe spot. We operated the detonator and fourof the seven mines exploded. The explosion destroyed or damaged oneBMP and three trucks. The four-man Mujahideen group safelyescaped from the area. Mohammad Humayun Shahin provided the material for a previous vignette in this chapter. Page 378 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War COMMENTARY: It is always a good idea for a detonation party to be ableto see the target area. Mujahideen communications were often primi-tive and, in this case, depended on one visual signal. The attack, likemost urban attacks, was a quick, single strike followed by an immedi-ate withdrawal. Such harassing attacks seldom had any major impactother than on morale. It was a good idea to have a small detonationgroup, but a 76-man force to secure the area while it was mined seemstoo large. Kabul was under a night-time curfew and a large groupcould be detected by patrols along main roads.

VIGNETTE 6 - ATTACK ON THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE

by Mohammad Humayun Shahin In November 1982, some 60 Mujahideen from HIH and Mohseni'sHarakat-e Islami launched a night attack on the DRA Ministry ofDefense located in the Darulaman Palace (Map 14-3 - Darulaman).The security in the area was very tight and the area between theDarulaman Palace and the Tajbeg Palace (headquarters of the Soviet40th Army) was heavily patrolled. We decided to limit the attack toa short-range RPG attack. The HIH group were armed with AK-47Kalashnikovs, while the Mohseni group had British Sten guns1 andother weapons. The Mohnseni had the RPG-7 we used in the attack.Both sides provided ammunition for the RPG. We assembled in the staging area at Char Qala in the late after-noon. Char Qala is about three kilometers north of the target. Fromthere, we moved south in groups to the intermediate villages ofQala-e Pakhchak and Qala-e Bahadur Khan and Qala-e Bakhtiar.Our attack position was a water mill outside the JuvenilePenitentiary close to the Darulaman Palace. As we moved, wedropped off security elements. Most of the men in the group wereassigned to provide security during movement to and from thetarget area. Security elements were positioned at key locations,which facilitated our infiltration and withdrawal. Once our forwardsecurity elements secured the filing area, the RPG-7 gunner Saadat(from the Mohseni faction) took his position. He was about 250meters from the target. He fired two rockets at the building. Theenemy response was immediate. Guards from around the palacefilled the night with heavy small-arms fire. We did not return theirfire. Instead, we immediately began retracing our steps and pulledout along the route held by our security detail. We then scatteredinto hiding places and safe houses in the villages of Chardehi. Someyears later, a prison inmate who was on the DRA side during thenight attack told a Mujahideen contact that about 20 people werekilled or injured in our attack. Mohammad Humayun Shahin provided the material for the previous vignette. 1 The British Sten gun is a 9mm World War II submachine gun. It has a 32 round maga-zine and a rate of fire of some 540 rounds per minute. CHITGAR "•-■\ QALA-E WAZIFk CHAR (MLA QALA-E/, PAKHCHAKI /QALA-E './ALI MARDAN •■■ •IX • CIALA-E BAHADUR KHAN '`%.• Nr QALA-E BAKHTIAR •\■ JUVENILE •• PENITENTIARY •• ■ "`"1-- AFSHAR"mh. oe DARULAMAN PALACE(MINISTRY OF DEFENSE) TAJBEG PALACE(40th ARMY HQ) •DARULAMAN Map 14-3 1 KM ■ ■ ■ Page 380 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War Chapter 14, Vignette 6 Page 381 COMMENTARY: The Mujahideen urban warfare tactics were low-leveland fairly unsophisticated. Their actions were usually limited to a sin-gle strike followed by an immediate withdrawal to avoid decisiveengagement with a better-armed and supported regular force.Survival dictated the tactics, but their impact was political and psy-chological rather than military. The work and risk that the urbanguerrillas accepted was great and the results were often minimal ornot immediately evident. Mujahideen success in the urban areas was due primarily to thesupport of the population and the lack of DRA/Soviet control outsidethe areas that they physically controlled. The cities were under night-time curfew, but the patrols enforcing the curfew could hardly movesafely off the main city roads. The Mujahideen had great freedom ofaction outside the main thoroughfares and in the suburbs. However,they could not fully exploit this advantage due to insufficient training,poor organizational structure, a lack of modern weapons and equip-ment, an ineffective command and control system and a lack of tacti-cal cohesiveness among the various Mujahideen combatant groups.Lack of communications equipment, particularly in the early days of the war, severely hampered the Mujahideen.

VIGNETTE 7 - ALCOHOL CAN BE DEADLY

by "The Mountain Man" The DRA 8th Infantry Division was garrisoned in Kabul. We had acontact who was an officer in that division. Over the years he providedus with lots of good information. His cooperation put him, and hisfamily, at risk. He wanted to defect to the Mujahideen. We helped engi-neer his defection while hurting the enemy. We told our contact toarrange a party on September 24, 1983. He invited the Political Officerof the 8th Infantry Division with two Soviet advisers who worked withthem to his home in Kot-e Sangi. The three accepted his invitation andarrived at night driving their military jeep. Our officer had plenty ofWestern whiskey and shish kebabs on hand. The Soviets and thePolitical Officer ate and drank and became totally drunk. They passedout. Then our officer summoned us. We came into his house and carriedthe unconscious drunks out to their jeep. We drove them to the villageof Qala-e Qazi located to the southwest of Kabul. Since we were in theirjeep, no one stopped us or challenged us. We took the drunks out andsent the jeep back to the officer. He loaded his family into the jeep andtook his family to Pakistan. Then he joined our cause openly. We carried the drunks to a hideout in the Morghgiran Mountainvillage.2 When the drunks sobered up the next day, we offered them thechance to convert to Islam and to choose a righteous path. The Sovietsbecame very angry and began cursing us and insulting us. They statedthat "There is no way back from the path chosen. Afghanistan will becommunist. We will not accept you or your dirty religion." They refusedto cooperate. We could not get them out of the area without some coop-eration on their part and we could not shoot them because the shotsmight draw attention from nearby security outposts. So, we buriedthem all alive. We kept their clothing and papers which we eventuallysent to HIH headquarters in Peshawar. The next day, the Soviets sur-rounded the area, so we left and went to Parwan and Maidan. While theSoviets were looking for us, they had a clash with Mawlawi Rahmatgul'sforces. After the clash, the Soviets found where we had buried the three.They were all dead and their bodies had turned black. After we interviewed this source, the authors agreed that he should be provided anony-mity. There is no map with this vignette. 2 Morghgiran means "chicken snatcheirs".

VIGNETTE 8 - RAID ON BALAHESSAR FORTRESS

by Commander Shahabuddin A Soviet regiment was garrisoned in the Balahessar Fortress inKabul. In September or October of 1983, we decided to raid a securityoutpost south of Balahessar. This outpost formed part of the securitybelt around the fortress. I had 62 Mujahideen in my group. My arma-ments included eight RPG-7s and two 82mm recoilless rifles. My basewas some ten kilometers south of Kabul at Yakhdara. We planned theraid in our base at Yakhdara, moved in the late afternoon to the villageof Shewaki and waited until dark. We moved out at dark. On theway, there were several regime outposts. I detailed a five-man securi-ty element against each one as we passed it. The main outpost was atAkhozi and others were at Bagh-e Afzal and Qalacha. The securityelements mission was to secure our return trip so that we wouldn't beambushed by the enemy. We reached Balahessar fortress which is surrounded by severalsecurity posts. I retained a 15-man attack group and posted the restof my command as security elements guarding the other outposts. Idivided my attack group into a five-man support group and a 10-manassault group. We crept up to the outpost, climbed the wall, got up onthe roof of the outpost and then attacked it. I led the assault group.We hit the sentry with a RPG and he vaporized. We blew open thedoors with RPG. rockets and opened fire on the soldiers in the court-yard. We killed 12 of the DRA and captured three of their wounded.The rest escaped through a secret covered passage into Balahessarfortress. I had two KIA. One was Zabet Halim.3 We took our deadwith us. We could not carry the wounded prisoners so we left themthere. We captured 16 weapons—Kalashnikovs and machine guns, amortar and a RPG. As we left, there was a commotion in Balahessarand tanks moved out of the fortress in our direction. One tank cameclose to us and we destroyed it with an RPG. The other tanks then quitcoming toward us—they had lost their taste for a fight. We just want-ed to get out of there, so we left for our assembly area. We had a Commander Shahabuddin is from Shewaki Village south of Kabul. There is no map withthis vignette. 3 Zabat Halim was a legendary urban guerrilla who had been an NCO in the Royal AfghanArmy. His death was a blow to the Mujahideen. Page 384 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War designated assembly area and, as we approached it, we were chal-lenged and responded with the password. Once I assembled my entiregroup, we left. My security elements guaranteed a safe return. Thisraid was on the 10th day of the first month of the Islamic Lunarcalendar—the Day of Ashura. This day commemorates the anniver-sary of the massacre of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Husseinand his 72 followers at Karbala in Iraq. It is a day of mourning, reflec-tion and solemn thinking for Shia and others. On this Day of Ashura,we thought of our own dead who died defending truth and righteous-ness. They had died appropriately on the Day of Ashura. COMMENTARY: Many of the urban guerrilla commanders maintainedtheir main operating base within the suburbs or outlying villageswhere it was easier to assemble and train a group of men withoutgovernment observation. The guerrilla commanders maintained a netof informers and supporters who aided their entry and passagethrough the urban area. Still, guerrilla groups operating within anurban area had to secure their route of entry and withdrawal whichtook the bulk of their force.

VIGNETTE 9 - RAID ON THE KABUL METROPOLITAN Bus TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY

by Commander Shabuddin The Kabul Metropolitan Bus Transportation Authority is locatedon the eastern side of the city and served as the central bus terminalfor 130 buses. In October 1983, I assembled 120 Mujahideen for theraid at our base at Yakhdara. We had 16 RPG-7s, three mortars,three 82mm recoilless rifles and numerous small arms. I divided theforce into three 20-man teams to attack the Bagrami textile compa-ny, the police station, and our main objective, the city bus trans-portation authority. Sixty men constituted the security elementwhich would secure our route of advance and withdrawal. A primaryconsideration of the urban guerrilla is always covering his route ofretreat. We moved our force from our base and spread out into thesurrounding villages. To preserve mission security, only my subcom-manders and I knew the plan. Once we were in position, the com-manders would brief their men and tell them what to do. The firstgroup went to the textile mill. The second group, reinforced with a82mm recoilless rifle, a mortar and some RPG-7s, set out to attackthe police station at Kart-e Naw. I commanded the main attackagainst the bus authority. As we moved, we posted security elementsoutside all the security outposts in the area. I sent one group ofMujahideen to the Eqbal cinema to attack the security outpost locat-ed there so that they would not interfere with our raid. As ourMujahideen were getting ready to attack the outpost, a roving jeeppatrol came by. They destroyed the jeep with a rocket. The soldiersin the security outpost saw the burning jeep and ran away. TheMujahideen captured three Kalashnikovs at this site. I led my group to the large enclosure of the bus transporta-tion authority. When we got there, I posted a few guards to preventanyone from surprising us. Then we attacked the security detach-ment at the bus park. We killed eight, captured two and torched 127buses in the enclosure. Only three buses escaped destruction. Wealso captured 13-14 Kalashnikovs and 155 bayonets! We withdrewover our escape route to our base camp. I learned that the group Commander Shahabuddin is from Shewaki Village south of Kabul. There is no map withthis vignette. Page 386 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War attacking against the textile mill fired their mortar and heavyweapons and inflicted damage on the building. Kabul was withoutfull bus transportation for a good while. COMMENTARY: The urban guerrilla attacks the credibility of thegovernment by chipping away at morale, attacking notable govern-ment targets and disrupting the daily life of the populace. The busterminal was an optimum target since it clearly demonstrated thereach of the Mujahideen and slowed the life of the capital cityconsiderably.

VIGNETTE 10 - WEAPONS RAID IN CHARIKAR

by Commander Sarshar Charikar, the capital of Parwan Province, has a compact city core,approximately one kilometer by one kilometer, and a large suburb.The northern section of Charikar is called the "new jail" area. Theheadquarters of the DRA militia forces (self-defense units) was in the"new jail" area. Malek Shah was our contact inside that headquarters.In October 1983, he promised to get us inside the militia compoundwhen the commander of the compound was asleep. I brought 65Mujahideen from my base camp for this mission. We were armed withtwo Goryunov heavy machine guns, three PK medium machine guns,four RPG-7s, and Kalashnikov and Enfield rifles. I divided my forceinto three security groups and an assault group. One security groupdeployed near the road northeast of the headquarters, while the otherdeployed to the northwest of the headquarters to cover the other flank.These two security groups protected the assault group. The third secu-rity group secured our withdrawal route north to Ofian-e Sharif. We approached the target in the night at 0200 hours. At 0300hours, we got a flashlight signal from the headquarters. I climbed thewall and the eight other Mujahideen in the assault group followed me.We were all inside the compound and Malek Shah was just starting topoint out the three rooms of the compound building when one of thesleeping militia got up. He saw us and began shouting. We had notime, so we burst into the three rooms firing as we went. I led thegroup into their commander's room. We killed 20 and I lost one KIAand one WIA. We captured 16 Kalashnikovs and I got their comman-der's Makarov pistol. Since all the firing was inside the rooms, muchof the noise was muffled and the other security outposts did not react.Apparently the other security posts did not know that we had takenthis post. We left the post before dawn. We went back to Ofian-eSharif and the following night returned to our base camp in Ghorband. COMMENTARY: The side streets of Charikar are narrow and crooked.Security of the flanks and withdrawal route were always a prime Commander Sarshar was a police officer in Parwan and worked clandestinely with theMujahideen. When his cover was about to be blown, he became a Mujahideen comman-der in Ghorband. He commanded a mobile group in the Ghorband front near Charikar.There is no map with this vignette. Charikar is found on Map sheet 2887. Page 388 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War consideration and took most of the urban fighters personnel. In thisinstance, 87% of the force was used for security. It was probably notexcessive. One wonders about the effectiveness of Charikar's securitysystem when 20 soldiers are killed with automatic weapons at 0300hours in the morning—and nobody notices.

VIGNETTE 11 - NIGHT RAID ON A CITY OUTPOST

by Ghulam Farouq I was a high school student in Kandahar. I used my student iden-tification to move freely around the city to support the Mujahideen. Iwould try to make contacts with DRA soldiers in the governmentoutposts during the day and then the Mujahideen would use thesoldiers' information to attack them at night. One day in January1984, I made contact with a soldier who showed a willingness to coop-erate with the Mujahideen in capturing his outpost. This was theSaray-e Saat-ha security outpost in Kandahar. The post was locatedon the second floor of a building in the Bazaar-e Shah section of thecity. This is across from the road junction of Alizai street and Bazaar-e Shah. The outpost was located there since the Mujahideen usedAlizai street to enter the city and the outpost controlled this path. I took the soldier with me on my bicycle to Chardewal—some sixkilometers south of the city. There, we met with my commander, AliYawar. We all discussed our plan and then I brought the soldier backto the city on my bicycle. That night, our group of 30 Mujahideenassembled. We entered the city on the south side near the Shekarpurgate (Rangrez-ha street). From there, we moved along Sherali Khanstreet near Bazaar-e Herat and from there to Wali Mohammad street.As we moved along this path, we posted security so we could withdrawsafely. We had agreed with my contact that we would arrive at 2200hours. We arrived on time and, as we approached the outpost, wesignaled with a flashlight. Our contact answered our signal. Wecrossed the paved road and posted our men at the gate. There were22 Mujahideen now securing the route and gate. The remaining eightof us entered the gate and climbed to the second floor. Everyoneappeared to be asleep. There was one soldier who just had completedhis turn as sentry and we assumed that he was asleep. He wasn't. Hegrabbed his Kalashnikov and fired at us, killing one The deadMujahideen's brother returned fire, killing the soldier and two of hissleeping comrades. We captured four other DRA soldiers plus nineKalashnikovs and a pistol. My contact deserted to us. Ghulam Farouq was a urban guerrilla in Kandahar. He belonged to the Islamic Movement(HI-- Harakat-I Islami) of Ayatollah Shaikh Asef Muhseni which is a minority Shia Muslimfaction. His nickname is Gulalai. There is no map with this vignette. Page 390 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War The firing alerted DRA forces and it would be hard to leave the citycarrying a body, so we started to take the body to a safe house wherewe could leave it for the night. As we were moving down the street, oneof our four captives escaped. A Mujahideen tried to fire at him, butdiscovered that he was out of ammunition. We knew that the escapedDRA soldier would report our whereabouts to the authorities and,since he escaped near the safe house, we could not now risk leaving thebody there. So we left the body hidden near a bakery. We covered theblood trail with dirt and then withdrew along the same route weentered. We exited the city at 0200 hours. Since the government knew that we had left our dead behind, theyblocked all entrances into the city. We tried to return for our dead thenext night but could not get in. On the third night, we tried a differ-ent route from the north of town through the Chawnay suburbs. Wetraveled from Kalacha-e Mirza to Chawnay. We got into the city andwe went to the bakery. The government had not found the body, so weretrieved it and took it outside of town for a decent burial. The personwho was killed was Hafizullah—a graduate of Kabul university. COM1VIENIARY: Movement through a city is high risk unless the routeis secured. In this case, over two-thirds of the available force securedthe route. This got the force out safely. On the other hand, prisonersecurity was not too good. Prisoners should be bound, gagged androped together in small groups for firm control. If possible, they shouldbe blindfolded so that they remain disoriented and unable to give muchimmediate information should they escape. Finally, a raiding forceshould be kept small, but the correlation of Mujahideen to DRA wasalmost one to one. Surprise gave the Mujahideen an advantage, butthe non-sleeping soldier offset that advantage.

VIGNETTE 12 - RAID ON KANDAHAR COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

by Ghulam Farouq

I continued to use my high school student identification to get around Kandahar. I would deliver messages for the Mujahideen and try to contact DRA soldiers who might give me valuable information or agree to cooperate with the resistance. In August 1984, I again found a DRA soldier who wanted to cooperate. His name was Hanif and he worked in the Kandahar Telephone Exchange Center. He and his friend in the DRA agreed to help us, so I took Hanif to our base south of the city in Chardewal to talk to my commander, Ali Yawar. Yawar said that the exchange was too strong to take in a raid, but Hanif said that he and his friends would help. Several nights later, Ali Yawar assembled 120 Mujahideen for theraid. We used the northern approach from Kalacha-e Mirza Mohammad Khan to Chawnay suburb. From Chawnay, we went to Topkhana—the Shia section of the city. Then we moved down Bala street. Ali Yawar posted about 100 Mujahideen as security along our route. Finally, we arrived at a point directly across from the outpost which guarded the telephone exchange. We gave our flashlight signal and Hanif answered it. Ali Yawar posted additional security and then we crossed the street one at a time. Twelve of us went inside the walled compound. It had a guard house and other buildings. Haniftook us all into the guard house. We sat there while the roving DRA security patrol passed outside. As usual, the security patrol came from the east and passed by the compound. They did not notice anything unusual. Hanif told us to remain quiet since another roving patrol was due from the west. We waited until they passed.There were three other sentries inside the compound that we had to neutralize. Hanif had held a tea break during the three previous nights. After the two roving patrols passed, the sentries would gather individually in the guard house to talk and drink Hanif's tea and eat his cakes. As the first sentry entered the guard house, we overpowered him, bound and gagged him and took him to the outside security group who took him away. In this fashion, we got rid of the three sentries. We spent some 35 minutes in the guard room dodging the patrols Ghulam Farouq contributed to, the previous vignette. There is no map with this vignette.

Page 392 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War

and getting rid of the sentries. We exited the guard room carrying our jerry cans of gasoline. We planned to burn down the telephone exchange and surrounding compound. As we entered the main telephone exchange building, the guard who was sleeping inside woke up.As we were climbing the stairs to the second floor, he took his Kalashnikov and began shooting. He killed Mohammad Nabi from Chardewahl and Sherandam. He wounded Ghulam Reza. Things became very chaotic at that point. We were firing in all directions and other people were firing back. No one knew what was going on. We grabbed nine Kalashnikovs and our dead and wounded and left. In our haste, we did not set anything on fire. We retraced our steps and reached Kalacha-e Mirza Mohammad Khan about 0230 in the morning. The next day, we learned that we killed four DRA soldiers plus some of their relatives who were staying there with them.

COMMENTARY:

The Mujahideen had a good movement plan through the city, but no plan for action once they were inside the compound.Consequently, there was no rehearsal before the raid. The commander left the critical inside plan to the collaborator—which is not always a good idea. In effect, the commander surrendered his command to an outsider at the critical phase of the raid. The raiding force spent 35minutes all together inside the guard house. This is very risky. The concentrated raiding force was very vulnerable in case the collaborator had not really turned. Further, sleepers don't always sleep throughout the night and guard houses get a lot of visitors. The raiders needed a covering force inside the compound. Maybe there was no other way to neutralize the other sentries, but this was high risk to the raiding party. The collaborator should have known about the sentry inside the telephone exchange, but apparently made no plan to silence him before the force entered the building. A raiding force needs to get in and out in a hurry Since the commander had abrogated his command for the critical phase, when things went bad, everyone acted on his own. The Mujahideen evacuation of dead and wounded and their capture of enemy weapons is commendable, but no one took 30 seconds to spill some gasoline and light a match. The main objective was to torch the exchange—and that did not happen.

VIGNETTE 13 - ATTACK ON KHAD HEADQUARTERS

by Mohammad Humayun Shahin On the evening of 13 August 1986, I led a five-man attack on theKHAD headquarters in Kabul. The building of the First Directorate of the KHAD was located near Darulaman at Alla uddin in the south ofKabul. The directorate worked round the clock and was located in awell-protected part of town (Map 14-4 - KHAD). Therefore, we had touse a small group and hit the target and leave. We took an RPG-7grenade launcher and four AK-47s. Our plan was to sneak up on thebuilding at night, fire a rocket at the building and leave. In the groupwere my brother, Nurullah, Mamur Abdul, Shah Mohammad andMohammad Zaher. I had an underground headquarters in Qala-e Chitgar Village,which is located some 2.5 kilometers from the western edge of Kabul.We kept our weapons there. After each mission, we would clean andlubricate our weapons and then wrap them in cotton cloth and thenput them into sealed plastic bags. We would hide the plastic bags insewer pipes and other out-of-the-way, hidden spotg. We prepared forthe mission, took out our weapons and waited for dark. We left Qala-e Chitgar in the late evening. The village is some four kilometers westof the target building. When we reached a concealed area outside theKHAD building, I put my security and RPG gunner in position. Myregular RPG gunner was absent and so I had to assign anotherMujahideen to fire the RPG. Since we were urban guerrillas, wedid not have much opportunity for target practice and the gunnerhad never fired the RPG before. I served as his assistant gunner. Icarried his rockets and helped him load the weapon. From the lightsin the windows, I judged that the second floor was the most crowdedand told him to aim for a second floor window. I did not have any earprotectors for any of us, so I wanted the gunner to keep his mouthopen during the firing to equalize the pressure. In order to do this, Itold him to loudly chant "Allahu Akbar" [God is the greatest] threetimes before firing. My new gunner, who was a Shia, smiled and saidhe would do so but would add "Ya Ali" at the end of the litany.' Mohammad Humayun Shahin contributed to other vignettes in this chapter. 4 "Ya Ali" is a saying commonly chanted by Shia when asking for heavenly help. 1 KMKHAD Map 14-4 0 QAL-EGAR CHAR QA •••111 • QALA-E BAHADUR KHAN■ QALA-E BAKHTIAR Page 394 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War Chapter 14, Vignette 13 Page 395 My gunner aimed, chanted and fired the RPG-7. The rocket flew,but instead of hitting the second floor, it hit the fourth floor. A majorcommotion ensued, but no one fired at us. We immediately left thearea and withdrew to our base. Later on, we were told that more than20 people had been killed or wounded by our attack. COMMENTARY: There are better sites for weapons instruction and qual-ification than in the middle of a mission. In this case, the target waslarge enough that it was difficult to miss. Still, the gunner was off bytwo stories. Training to standard was a constant problem forMujahideen commanders. The best training was conducted in trainingcamps in Pakistan or in mountain bases. Unless urban guerrillas weresent out for training, they had very little live-fire training other thanactual combat. Usually, urban guerrillas would detail a large securityparty to hold the withdrawal route. In this case, the five-man teamrelied on local contacts to watch the area rather than posting routesecurity.

Vignette 14 - Raid on 15 Division Garrison

by Commander Akhtarjhan The DRA 15th Infantry Division was garrisoned in Kandahar city.We had contacts within the division. In the fall of 1987, our contactsinvited us to come and seize the weapons from the division's militarypolice company. We gathered about 100 Mujahideen for the opera-tion. I commanded a group of 15 within the larger group. We crossedthe Argandab River from our base camp at Chaharqulba to BabaWalisaheb and, from there, we went through the suburb of Chawnay.Local guerrillas secured our passage through Chawnay. We finallyreached the division's main garrison. We waited until the moon setaround midnight. The military police company building was at theend of the main compound. We crept to the building and saw that ourcontacts had placed a ladder against the wall for us. Some 50 of ourgroup took up positions outside the compound while our raidinggroup of 50 climbed the ladder up onto the roof of the building. Thenwe climbed down from the roof inside the compound walls. Some of our contacts were on sentry duty, so we had no troubles.Our contacts met us and led us into the barracks building. We assem-bled in a large empty room. Our contacts then took us to differentrooms where the soldiers were sleeping—five or six soldiers per room.Their weapons were stored in the rooms. We took their weapons. Nextto the barracks was a larger arms room. After disarming the sleepingsoldiers, we raided the arms room and took hundreds of weapons. Wethen started carrying all the weapons onto the roof and passing themdown to our fellows outside the compound walls. While we were doingthis, the company political officer got out of bed and saw us. He start-ed to make a noise, so we killed him with some of the bayonets. We fin-ished getting the weapons out and left for our base camp. Our contactsdeserted the DRA and came with us. We had some Arabs who werewith us for jihad credit. They had a video camera and all they wantedto do was to take videos. They were of no value to us. Commander Akhtarjhan was a Jamiat-e-Islami (JIA) commander in Arghandab Districtnorthwest of Kandahar. He was an elementary school student when he joined the jihad atthe age of twelve. At end of the war, he was 25 years old and a commander. He joinedthe Jihad since he had two brothers in the Jihad and they were both killed. He took theirplace as family tradition dictated. He served under Mulla Naqib, the most powerful Jamiatcommander in the area. There is no map with this vignette. Kandahar map sheet is 2180. Chapter 14, Vignette 14 Page 397 COMMENTARY: The Mujahideen penetration of the DRA was essentialfor successful raids like this. Entering a sleeping compound is alwaysa high-risk proposition since someone is always awake, or wakes up,besides the sentries. A secure approach and withdrawal route is essen-tial to urban guerrillas. Having local guerrillas secure the routeallowed the force to bring enough people to carry the weapons withoutworrying about being ambushed on the way out.

CHAPTER COMMENTARY

Urban combat is difficult for the urban guerrilla and the regularforce. Throughout the war, the Soviets and DRA were never able tocompletely control Kandahar and Herat. Finally, the Soviets dealtwith the Herat guerrillas by bombing 75% of the city into rubble. Thatstill failed to stop the urban guerrilla. The DRA had more success incontrolling Kabul—but still were unable to stop the rocket attacks andguerrilla actions. On the other hand, surviving urban guerrillas areharder to find to interview. The urban guerrilla must be anonymousand ruthless to survive. The Soviets and DRA devoted a great deal ofeffort to finding and eliminating the urban guerrilla.