CHAPTER 13
The Soviets developed their encirclement technique to deal with opposing mechanized forces. If enemy soldiers abandoned their vehicles to escape the encirclement, the result was still the same—the mechanized force was defeated. The Mujahideen were not mechanized and they discovered that the Soviet encirclement was usually porous and that the Soviet/DRA force did not have enough dismounted infantry to hold them in the pocket, particularly when it got dark. However, the Soviets and DRA routinely conducted large-scale encirclements, as part of cordon and search operations, and occasional smaller tactical encirclements of marauding bands.
VIGNETTE 1 — A TRIP TO THE “GOVERNOR’S HOUSE” GOES BAD by Commander Sarshar{155}
The governor of Parwan Province had his residence in the city of Charikar. It was located next to the Numan High School. There was also a security post in an enclosed house next to the governor’s residence and the high school. This post was called the Wali house and there were normally 30 soldiers in it. Everyone called the security post “the Governor’s House”, although it was not. In January 1983, we planned a raid on this security post (No map). I had about 200 Mujahideen armed with a 76mm mountain gun, five 82mm mortars, two 82mm recoilless rifles, 20 RPG-7s, Goryunov heavy machine guns, PK medium machine guns and Kalashnikov rifles. This was a severe winter and we moved across the mountains at night in the bitter cold. We came to the village of Ofian-e Sharif where we spent the day and planned our raid. I constituted a heavy weapons support team serving the 76mm gun, the mortars and the recoilless rifles. I constituted two security groups—one of which would secure the area to the north behind the heavy weapons support team and one to the south which would secure the approaches to Numan High School. I constituted an assault team to seize the outpost.
At night, we moved from Ofian-e Sharif onto the Ofian plain outside another security post at Qal-e Maqbul, which is just north of the target in Charikar. I launched the attack at night, but right as the assault group was moving forward in the attack, the mortar and recoilless rifle rounds landed in the middle of the assault group. I had 18 KIA and WIA. I aborted the attack and began evacuating the dead and wounded. Coincidently, the enemy had planned a major cordon and search operation which began the next morning. Early the next morning, the enemy moved through the area and cordoned it off with hundreds of tanks and APCs. They encircled hundreds of Mujahideen in the Bagram, Kohistan and Charikar area. We were trapped in our position. As the enemy approached us, we were glad to have the 20 RPGs. We joined the local Mujahideen in the fray. The battle went on for 12 days and we killed 1.2 armored vehicles during that time. We tried to break out of the encirclement. We moved through the villages to Pul-e Matak at the mouth of the Ghorband Valley. There, we exfiltrated through gaps in the enemy lines to the Ghorband Valley. We had 18 killed and two wounded. We destroyed 12 armored vehicles and four supply trucks. During the 12-15 days that the Soviets and DRA cordoned the area, they succeeded in entering many parts of the area and clearing it. Many Mujahideen managed to escape, but the Soviets and DRA arrested about 800 Mujahideen and civilians in the area.
COMMENTARY: Coordination of fire and maneuver elements is a problem for trained armies. It is a bigger problem for irregular forces. In this case, the Mujahideen fire support fell short of the target with deadly results. Although Mujahideen gunners who conducted regular shelling attacks against fixed targets were able to register their weapons over time, Mujahideen gunners supporting ground attacks seldom had the luxury of registering their weapons prior to the attack. This added greater risk to the assault force.
VIGNETTE 2 — THE BATTLE FOR MUSA QALEH by Akhund Zada Qasem{156}
We started the resistance using very simple methods. We had few antitank weapons and so our main defenses were antitank ditches and Molotov cocktails that we made in the villages. The people would wait in their antitank ditches with axes to sort it out. I remember one fight where I became so frustrated with our inability to stop armored vehicles that I set my turban on fire and threw it at the tank. However, we eventually received better weapons and set about regaining control of our country. In the summer of 1980, we Mujahideen liberated Musa Qaleh District and established our base there. (Map 13-1 Qaleh) Musa Qaleh is in a heavily-populated green zone on the Musa Qaleh Stream which empties into the Helmond River. The area around Musa Qaleh is high desert plain.
In June 1983, the Soviets launched an offensive to control Helmond Province. They began with an attack from Girishk moving north toward Nawzad (which is to the west of Musa Qaleh). This column attacked the Mujahideen of HIH at their base in the Farhad Mountain. The Mujahideen of Musa Qaleh sent their MRL to this fight to strike the Soviets. After the Soviets reduced the HIH base, they sent two columns to attack Musa Qaleh. The column that had destroyed the HIH base turned east and moved against us while a second column moved from Girishk along the river roads and approached us from the southwest. The columns met and cordoned Musa Qaleh.
We had established a perimeter defense and we fought the Soviets for seven days in late June and early July 1983. We lost 472. Mujahideen KIA. Civilian deaths were much higher. I was in charge of the hospital at that time and it was overflowing. During the fighting, Soviet tanks arrived from the east and were just 300 meters south of my hospital. They began shelling the hospital and I had to evacuate the wounded. We managed to move the hospital outside of the cordoned area to the north at night. We carried the wounded on stretchers for about 500 meters where we were met by other Mujahideen from the Baghran front. The Baghran front sent trucks and moved our wounded to safety on the trucks. After I evacuated the wounded, I returned to Musa Qaleh at about 2200 hours. The front council met and we decided to break out -of the encirclement. That night, the weather cooperated with the breakout. There was a heavy gusty wind which blew sand around. The noise of the wind and the dust concealed us as we moved between the enemy tanks. There were many Mujahideen in that cordon. There were Mujahideen from two districts and other areas as well. About 2,000 Mujahideen escaped into the night. The dust and wind also helped the civilians exfiltrate and covered their escape. When we got out, the wind died down. Later on, people said that this was the hand of God that got them out. The Mujahideen went to the surrounding mountains. I went to Kohe Musa Qaleh, the small mountain just north of Musa Qaleh.
After this heavy defeat, we decided to keep a presence in Musa Qaleh but to establish a mountain base where we would keep our heavy weapons, ammunition stocks and supplies. We set up our mountain base in Ghulmesh Ghar (mountain) about 30 kilometers northeast of Kajaki dam. The base was in a narrow canyon leading into the mountain. The canyon opened up into a bowl in the mountain. The canyon was about 10 kilometers deep. We protected this base with ZGU-1s and DShKs. We named the base Islamabad (built by Muslims).
The following year, in October 1984, the Soviets attacked Islamabad. They sent a major column from Girishk and again laid siege to Musa Qaleh, while another moved further north and attacked Islamabad. There were few Mujahideen in the mountain base since the majority were in Musa Qaleh. The Soviets landed air assault troops on the high ground and attacked with the ground column to capture the base after three day’s fighting. They destroyed the base and left it unusable due to all the mines that they left behind.
We then moved our base and stores to Khanjak Mazar south of Kalata-e-Baghni. We distributed our ammunition to different bases and districts so that the capture of our central base would not cripple us completely.
COMMENTARY: The area around Musa Qaleh is open, flat tank country and the Soviets were able to move freely around the perimeter of the green zone. The Mujahideen field fortifications within the green zone enabled them to hold on for seven days, but at a very high price. The Mujahideen wanted to control Musa Qaleh for its political value as a district capital. The political considerations overrode the military and the front still kept the bulk of its force there once they had built a strong mountain base.
VIGNETTE 3 — ESCAPE FROM THE ARGHANDAY ENCIRCLEMENT by Commander Haji Mohammad Seddiq{157}
In July 1986, I took a detachment of 13 Mujahideen to abduct a DRA officer from his house in the western Kot-e Sangi section of Kabul. For several days, we gathered information about the officer—his time of arrival and departure from his house and the road he took to and from his residence. We gathered the information with the help of a contact at the Kot-e Sangi gas station. We discovered that the officer did not stay at his residence overnight, but spent a few hours in the evening at home and then returned to his unit. We decided to abduct him during those hours he was at his house.
We spent the night in the nearby Deh-Bori section of Kabul. The next day, at dusk, we met with our gas station contact who reported that the officer was at his residence. I took three men who were dressed in army uniform with me. I had on traditional clothing. We went to the officer’s home which was located between Qala-e Shada security outpost and the Kot-e Sangi Police station. When we reached the house, the uniformed Mujahideen knocked on the door. The officer’s daughter answered the door. One of the Mujahideen told her that there was an urgent message for the officer from his unit. A few minutes later, the officer came to the door. As he stepped out, I stepped around from behind the corner and told him to follow us and make no attempt to escape because we would shoot him on the spot. The officer and I knew each other and he recognized me. He was nervous .but made no attempt to escape. We escorted him through the streets to Qala-e Shada and from there to the Mujahideen base at Arghanday. At Arghanday, we turned the officer over to a Paghman commander named Zahed. The officer supposedly had killed several Mujahideen from Zahed’s group.
We spent the night at the residence/base of Shafeh, a local commander. Early the next morning, at about 0400 hours, we woke up to the noise, of tanks approaching the village (Map 13-2 Arghanday). At first, we thought that the noise was from normal military traffic resupplying the security outposts along the Kabul-Ghazni highway. Then Shafeh’s father climbed to the roof top and saw that the village was surrounded by tanks and other vehicles. Soviet soldiers and DRA militia men from Rashid Dostum’s Militia group occupied the surrounding hills. We were trapped. Shafeh took us to a hideout near the house. It was a cave that they had dug to hide the Mujahideen during the enemy’s cordon and search operations. After a while, we heard movement and noticed that the Soviet/DRA search party had posted a guard at the entrance of the cave. The guard called out and asked if there was someone inside. Then he asked for anyone inside to come out. Next, he stooped over to check out the cave. At that point, Adam Gul (who we nicknamed the Uzbek—because he looked like an Uzbek) shot the soldier. The soldier’s body fell into the cave. We pulled his body aside and rushed out of the cave. As we came out, we encountered soldiers in the streets. We fought our way to a natural ditch at the edge of the village.
We jumped in the ditch and faced in both directions. We all had AK-47s plus one RPG-7. We fought from this position until 1300 hours. At that time, some Mujahideen units at Kot-e Ashro, about 10 kilometers to the southwest, started shelling the area with BM-12 fire. The rockets’ explosions forced the enemy away from the south side of the village. We took advantage of this and slipped out of the encirclement through the southern gap and fled to Kot-e Ashro through the mountains. One of my Mujahideen was wounded.
CHAPTER COMMENTARY
The porous nature of the Soviet and DRA encirclement allowed the Mujahideen to exfiltrate. It helped to have other distracters such as incoming artillery, sand storms and nightfall to escape. The Mujahideen were skilled exfiltrators and often small groups of Soviets or DRA guarding the cordon would allow the Mujahideen to escape rather than risk a fire fight at uneven odds. The Soviets resorted to scatterable mines, ground sensors, parachute flares and other technology to prevent escapes, but Mujahideen groups would exfiltrate singly, or in small groups, and regroup outside the encirclement.