RAID ON A SOVIET STRONGHOLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605700004-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: January 14, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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WASHINGTON POST
ARTICLE APP ED 14 January 1986
ON PAGE
Raid on- a Soviet Stronghold
Afghan Villagers Harass Well-Armed Superpower
Third of five articles
By James Rupert
special to The Washington Post
GHAZNI, Afghanistan-"Watch!" whispered
Mohammed Amin, pointing back at a Soviet
Army post that we had crept by only moments
before.
AFGHANISTAN
THE NEW BATTLEFIELDS
Amin's unit of Afghan guerrillas had just led
me, slipping and stumbling, on a serpentine
path through- muddy streets; irrigation ditches
and empty fields on the outskirts of this provin-
cial capital. A cold wind was blowing away the
clouds and rain that had blackened the night
while we filtered cautiously through a double
ring of guard positions defending the town.
We had passed less than 100 yards from one
post and had clearly heard Soviet soldiers
shouting orders to halt. Now, as the growing
moonlight gave shape to the darkened neigh-
borhoods of Ghazni that spread downhill from
us, we heard the first few rifle shots as other
guerrillas attacked the post Amin had indicated.
Then the night exploded.
The deep staccato of Soviet heavy machine
guns and the concussive whump of mortar
rounds drowned out the guerrillas' Kalashnikov
rifles. Streams of glowing tracer bullets etched
across the silhouettes of abandoned homes; and
flares burst into harsh white light overhead.
"If we shoot one bullet at them," Amin said
later, "they shoot 10 back at us, plus mortars
and if the helicopters can fly, they shoot rockets, too. If,
we attack one post, they shoot from four or five posts
... but they aim very badly."
The spectacle of Soviet firepower had punctuated a
reconnaissance mission by Amin and about a dozen local
mujaheddin (holy warriors, or resistance fighters) from
the Mahal-i-Milli, the National Islamic Front of Afghan-
istan, one of the smaller of Afghanistan's main resis-
tance groups. They were choosing sites from which two
nights later they would attack Ghazni's airport and the
Soviet and Afghan Army garrison in the town's center.
I had asked to accompany the mujaheddin into Ghazni
to try to understand something of what seemed an odd-
ity: that outgunned and ill-trained men-mostly illiter-
ate farmers. and shepherds-have battled the powerful
Soviet Army to a six-year standoff in Afghanistan.
Since their invasion, the Soviets have held Afghan-
istan's cities and provincial centers, with the. support of
the smaller and unreliable Democratic Republic of Af-
ghanistan Army. The mujaheddin control the coun-
tryside and mountains, and each side remains unable to
dislodge the other.
Ghazni, 78 miles southwest of Kabul, the capital, is
an important center along. the Soviets' main supply
route to Afghanistan's south and west. The mujaheddin,
who frequently exaggerate, the size of enemy forces,
said about 12,000 Soviets and not more than 4,000 Af-
ghan Army troops are based there, with support from
artillery and the garrison's helicopter base.
The mujaheddin, many.of them former residents of
Ghazni, live at guerrilla bases in nearby mountains and
receive food and information from villages. During the
last year, the Soviets have tightened defenses around
Ghazni, as they have around all the towns and cities
they hold.
Before, "we conducted our operations from within
the town, and went in both day and night," said Jalat.
Khan, 35, a former shopkeeper who now commands a
guerrilla unit of the Harakat Islamic Revolutionary
Movement, another of the seven main Afghan parties.
"But this year, they tripled the number. of guard posts
around the city, so now we fight only at night."
Jalat Khan said that according to duty rosters smug-.
gled out to him by sympathetic Afghan officers, two-
thirds of the. soldiers in each post are Soviet and one-
third Afghan. "Even if the [Afghan soldiers] do not fight
well, the Soviets need them because they know the lo-
cal people," he said.
Agha Mohammed, 40, a former colonel in the Afghan
Army, passed information to the mujaheddin until his
activities were suspected and he was imprisoned in
1980. Released after a year in Pol-i-Charki Prison, near
Kabul, he immediately joined Mahaz-i-Milli resistance
force. "Many officers who are still helping us want to
come out to fight," he said. "Working from inside is very
dangerous, but we ask them to stay as long as they
can."
As with most resistance attacks on a Soviet strong-
hold, the assault I witnessed could not have altered the
Soviets' fundamental control of the town. Only in a few
cases during the war have mujaheddin threatened to
capture a major town outright, an event that has led the
Soviets to use large offensives to regain control.
The mujaheddin attack to inflict casualties and cap-
ture weapons. Weeks after the attack that I watched,
the mujaheddin, after receiving reports from their in-
formers inside Ghazni, claimed to have killed 36 Soviet
and Afghan Army soldiers and injured 29 and to have
damaged government offices, the airport and the
town's main military garrison.
The Attack
Late one afternoon, we descended the ravine from
the Mahaz-i-Milli guerrilla base to an abandoned village
at the edge of Ghazni's plain. About 45 mujaheddin
gathered to hear their commanders explain their plan:
three different groups would attack at once, firing mis-
siles, mortars and recoilless rifles at targets in the
town's center and at the airport. , -
I was told to accompany Sanaye, a short,,thin com-
mander in his 30s, whose dozen mujaheddin included an
English speaker.
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As always during my month inside Afghanistan, I
wore the same traditional Afghan clothes as did the mu-
jaheddin: a long shirt hanging loose outside baggy trou-
sers, a wool cap and a blanket. It had seemed an intel-
ligent concession to wear my good American running
shoes.
We crammed ourselves into a pair of Russian-made
trucks, which had been driven out from the city, and
spotters climbed on top to watch for the Soviets' much-
feared helicopters. As we rode across the rolling plain
toward Ghazni, the mujaheddin-most in their teens
and early twenties, sang and clapped, like a high school
band on its way to a football game.
On a dirt road near Ghazni, the setting sun cast a yel-
low light on the guerrillas as they climbed out of the
trucks and prostrated themselves on' their blankets in
prayer. As the daylight faded, we crept toward the first
guard post.
It was here, two nights earlier, that I had asked my
translator, Mohammed Amin,. what it was that the So-
viet soldiers had been shouting. "They are calling, 'Halt
or we will shoot you!' " Amin had replied.
Sensing my shock, he had added quickly, "Don't wor-
ry .... They cannot see us. They always shout this at
night whenever they hear some noise."
I was not always calmed by such reassurances from
my host. Although the mujaheddin fear and respect the
powerful and sophisticated Soviet weapons, they have a
low opinion of Soviet soldiers. That and their cQnfi-
dence in their own superior knowledge ofthe terrain_of-.
ten gave them a relaxed air that I, in my own nervous
state, sometimes found alarming.
The mujaheddin were fascinated by my habit of whis-
pering notes into a small tape recorder as we walked
through the town. Often during moments of heavy fir-
ing, they would motion excitedly for me to turn it on to
record the noise.
One young resistance fighter, perhaps 15 years old,
particularly irritated me by periodically looking at me
and gleefully shouting "GHERRAAAM!" in imitation of
guerrilla shells hitting their targets. .
At one point, in a section distant from guard posts,
about a dozen of us walked together through an open
area. I wondered aloud to one guerrilla whether we
were safe in such a large group. What if the Soviets
should be patrolling?
"There are no patrols," he answered confidently.
"The Soviets are afraid to come out of their posts at
night." If such assurances never quieted my fears, I did
not, happily, see them proven wrong.
A Ruined Market Town
As towns go, Ghazni was always poor. Now it is a
ruin.
A market town, Ghazni drew its life from its position
on one of Afghanistan's few paved roads. Even now, its
shattered neighborhoods betray its roots in the dry and
difficult farm land that surrounds it.
Ghazni's dirt streets and mud-and-straw houses give
it.the air of an overgrown rural village rather than an
urban center. But as in other towns and cities of Af-
ghanistan where the mujaheddin and Soviets have
fought with progressively heavier weapons, most of
Ghazni's people have fled their shell-torn and bomb-cra-
tered homes, seeking safety in the villages of relatives
or in Pakistan.
Still, amid the rubble of neighboring buildings and
nightly firefights, people have stayed. At one point as
we hurried away, from a burst of nearby gunfire, we
rounded a corner and almost fell over a toddler-wear-
ing only a shirt, playing in front of his house while his
brother watched, unconcerned, from the doorway.
During most of. our time in Ghazni, though, we walked
through what seemed an urban moonscape: empty )ghells
of buildings, streets littered with an occasional skgleton
of an armored vehicle, and oddly,. an old Buick ElActra,
mounted on blocks, its windows shattered.
As we neared our first destination,. the site from which
Sanaye would launch his four Chinese missiles, ? we
crossed a small field. To reduce the chances of. getting
lost, I usually tried to stay near the middle of our file of
six, but now I had carelessly let myself fall to the rear.
When red tracer bullets flashed silently across our
path,` we dropped to the dirt. The sound of the machine
gun that had fired them came seconds later, a reminder
that bullets travel faster than sound, shattering my illog-
ical,. but comforting, assumption that I could rely on a
quick reaction to the sound of gunfire to help keep me
safe.
The tracers stopped. I crawled forward on belly and
elbows to ask my escorting mujaheddin what we should
do. When I had gone about 15 yards, I realized that
there was no one to ask.
My panic at the idea of being lost was perhaps the
only thing that would have convinced me to stand up
into the now more dreadful world of silent bullets. I
sprinted across the field into a narrow street, .where,
heart thumping, I found my escorts preparing to dash
back to search for me.
Minutes later, we joined the rest of Sanaye's group,
which, carrying the heavy four-foot-long, missiles, had
taken a different route. In a still-inhabited pocket of the
town, we stopped at a mosque where two days earlier
we had calmly eaten dinner amid the thunder of gunfire
and mortars outside.
Now, in the mosque's sanctuary, lit by a kerosene
lantern, the guerrillas quickly screwed detonators into
the missiles' noses and attached wires for the battery
that would ignite their fuel. As they carried the armed
missiles down an adjacent- street, I climbed a roof to
watch their flight.
The missiles, with a reputed range of four to six
miles, are a recent addition to the guerrillas' aisenal-
and apparently one of the products of increased U.S.
spending on covert arms supplies to the mujaheddin.
They are especially convenient in guerrilla warfare:
they can be launched from the ground, their trajectory
adjusted by stacking stones under their small wooden
launching blocks.
With an odd ripping sound; the missiles leaped in
pairs from the street. Two incendiary missiles hit in the
darkened center of the airport, setting fires, while the
two "explosive rockets flew over their target entirely,
each exploding with a muffled roar and a dull red glow
in the hills beyond.
Gontnuei
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As guns from- nearby -guard posts began firihg. into
the neighborhood, we hurried away. toward.Sanaye's
next target. After a few minutes' walk, I could hear the
rumble of generators powering the tights of the Soviet
stronghold, now nearby. . I
Our pace slowed. We crept more stealthily now,
through a maze of streets- and buildings, to flatten our-
selves against a long wall, of packed mud. ?anaye
climbed over and, after a few minutes, beckoned us to
follow him.
As I threw a leg over the top and slid down the other
side, it was clear that we were now in a darkened cor-
ner of the lighted Soviet-Afghan government com-
pound..'A few moments later,. in a shattered mosque
nearby, I whispered my-question with a -calm I-did not
feel: "Where are we?"
"KW" a young guerrilla answered, pointing at one
of several buildings in the brightly lit and deserted
street in front of us.
Khad a Persian-language acronym for State. Infor-
mation Services,. is the Afghan secret police agency, op-
erated `under the direct control of the KGB. As the Af-
ghan Army, ridden by desertion and full of muipheddin
informers, proved to be unreliable, the Soviet fnilitary
has built up Khad as, its most dangerous weapon; against
the. resistance.
Attack.. on the Secret Police
If the 'displays of Soviet firepower in Ghazni su
est
d
gg
e
their technological advantage in this war, it was Sanaye's
attack'on the provincial office of Khad that seemed to*
symbolize the mujaheddin's determined courage, which
has prevented the easy Soviet victory predicted, by many
following their December 1979 invasion.
Pulling two Chinese-made land mines out of a sack,
Sanaye smiled at me and asked, "You are not cold, are
you?"
"The temperature has not occupied my mind. ":I an-
swered.
Lacking the Soviets' ability to strike from a safe, long.
range with artillery or aircraft, Sanaye carried the
mines out of the mosque's gate. It seemed like hours
later when two explosions roared, apparently from the
From somewhere farther inside the compound, we
could hear excited shouting in Persian. Mentally I
begged .the group to leave, certain. that we would soon
be discovered.
When Sanaye slipped back through the gate, I_grate-
fully shouldered my pack to go, and almost cried out in
anguish when he stopped to fire two rounds from a re-
coilless rifle at the Khad bureau. In immediate response
to the bright flash, machine gun. fire rattled back in our
direction.
We sprinted--with the others for the wall of the. coin-
pound and heaved ourselves over. After a few minutes
of bewildering twists and turns, we slowed to a -walk in
a street some distance from the garrison.
Wondering how it was that the Soviets had not seen
us escape, I paid no attention to the soft whistle of the
first falling mortar round. The explosion knocked me
down and left my ears ringing.
We ran again, and needing no second lessons, I threw
myself to the dirt like- the others .with the, warning
sound of each new-shell. We followed a small teen=aged
guerrilla who had. lived in Ghazni until a few years ago
and who seemed to know every street._
Leaving the mortar attacks behind, we gradually
slowed our pace, back toward the edge of. the city.
Hours later, at about j a.m., we reached the trucks that
would take us back across the plains.
Ashir, 23, a guerrilla from-Kabul; was pleased! among
the three groups of mujaheddin, no one had beeiu killed.
"God was with us," he said.
Next: The destruction of the Afghan countryside- -
Continued
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READYING.--THE
GHAZNI. ATTACK
Resistance fighters'from the
Mahaz-i=MlIIi (National
Islamic.Front, of
Afghanistan), who attacked
the airport and. the Soviet
and Afghan., Army garrison at
Ghazni,, did not" expect to
alter the'fact of enemy
control of the town but
hoped -to Inflict casualties.
and capture weapons.
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 fghan resistance fighters move along a trail, from their mountain bases to a Soviet and Afghan Army garrison in Ghazni that they attacked tvbo days later.
Guerrilla commander Mustafe:WardAk;*r'ight, and.
another fighter clean an 82-mm recoilless rifle.
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