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

Page 344 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War
probably moved into their wooded position the previous night. The
Soviets suffocated the Kochi who had been our passenger and had
killed another Kochi earlier in the same fashion. The river was fordable,
so after the helicopters left, we forded the river to look at the
ambush sight. Villagers found the bodies of the two murdered Kochi.
We crossed back to the west side, got in our truck and began driving
on the road to Kotolak since it was now night.
About two kilometers south of Kotolak the Soviets had set another
ambush in some hills straddling the road. We were moving in enemy
territory and I considered the route dangerous so we stopped short of
the hills and I had seven of my men dismount and walk the road to the
other side of the hills checking for ambushers. If they saw nothing,
then we would move the truck forward. This left eight Mujahideen
with the truck—three in the cab and five in the pickup bed. My seven
walkers walked past the hills, checked for ambush and gave us an allclear
sign—a signal rocket.
The ambush party let my walkers pass through unmolested. When
we saw the rocket, we moved out confidently. Suddenly, I thought that
someone had set us on fire. We were in an ambush kill zone and bullets
were flying all around us. Two men in the truck bed and the man
next to me in the cab were killed. The driver was wounded in the
shoulder. One tire was hit. The driver slammed the truck into reverse
gear and tried to drive out of the kill zone. He drove the truck behind
a sheltering hillock and stopped it. I had three KIA and two WIA. We
changed the tire and left the area in the dark. My walkers continued
to Kotolak. Later on, the walkers returned individually to my base
camp. As we were reversing the truck out of the kill zone, the body of
one of my dead Mujahideen fell out of the truck bed. The next day
when we returned to recover his body, we discovered that it was booby
trapped. We had to tie a rope to our dead comrade and drag him for a
distance, before it was safe to carry him home for burial.
COMMENTARY: At the first ambush site, the Soviets failed to put out
flank observers and consequently were surprised by the Mujahideen in
their stationary truck. This failure compromised their ambush.
At the second ambush site, the Mujahideen walkers walked around
the hills, not along the military crest where the ambushers should be.
The ambushers wisely let the patrol pass to concentrate on the vehicle.
However, the Soviets failed to employ directional, command-detonated
mines or an RPG to effectively stop the truck in the kill zone. Further,
the ambush commander did not know the size of the Mujahideen force