The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen ... - Tribal Analysis Center

Chapter 10, Vignette 5 Page 265
Nazar Mohammad. The Soviets tortured them, but they did not
break. They continually claimed that crazy Mawlawi Shukur forced
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them to fight. Eventually, they were released. Shapur and Fairoz
were wounded. Villagers took them to safe houses and kept moving
them to hide them from the Soviets, who searched the area for
six days. We could not retrieve our Mujahideen dead due to enemy
pressure. Many of their remains were torn apart by foxes and jackals.
After a week or so, we buried what remains we could find. The
Soviets paid a 20,000 Afghanis reward for recovering their dead from
the river. When I saw the condition of my dead, I banned Afghans
from helping the Soviets recover their dead. "Let the crows of this
country have their fair share."
COMMENTARY: The Kama Mujahideen usually tried to avoid the
Soviet cordon and search of their district by fleeing into the mountains,
but the Soviets habitually used heliborne forces to block their
escape routes. This meant that the Kama Mujahideen fought the
Soviets within the green zone. However, the Kama green zone had a
road network within it and the Soviets could bring their combat vehicles
into the green zone where their firepower gave the Soviets a
tremendous advantage. The Soviets used the same mountain LZs
over and over again, but the Mujahideen made no attempt to mine
the LZs or post antiaircraft weapons overlooking these sites on a
permanent basis. In this action, the Mujahideen were surprised and
unable to escape into the mountains and forced to fight an uneven
battle. If they had contested the known LZs, the outcome should
have been less costly for the Mujahideen.
Crossing shallow desert rivers looks fairly safe, but can be treacherous.
On the 31st of March 1879, the British Army lost 47 men,
effectively a squadron of the 10th Hussars, crossing the Kabul River
some 35 kilometers to the west of this Soviet crossing attempt. The
Kabul River looks shallow and slow-moving, but it has fast, strong
undercurrents that can quickly overpower the unwary soldier.
9 Colonel H. B. Hanna, The Second Afghan War, 1878-79-80, Its Causes, Its Conduct,
and Its Consequences, Volume II, Westminister: Archibald Constable and Co., Ltd., 1904,
282-287.