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

Chapter 15 Page 405
The overall Mujahideen air defense posture was weak. The introduction
of the Stinger shoulder-fired air defense missile toward the
end of the war helped, but the Soviets countered the new system with
a change in tactics. The tactical threat to Mujahideen were Su-25
close air support aircraft, helicopter gunships and helicopter lift
ships carrying air assault forces. The Mujahideen developed the air
defense ambush as an answer to the threat of these aircraft. There
are several variations of the ambush, but basically the Mujahideen
would position air defense weapons in optimum firing positions and
then bait the ambush to draw aircraft into the kill zone. The most
popular firing positions were caves dug into canyon walls where
heavy machine guns could fire horizontally across the narrow canyon.
The bait would lure the aircraft into the canyon where multiple
machine guns would open up on its flight path. Other aircraft would
be unable to engage these machine guns since they could not get an
approach shot at the caves. The Mujahideen also learned to identify
likely helicopter landing zones and mine them. They would position
machine guns and RPG-7 gunners around the landing zone. As the
helicopter landed, massed RPG and machine gun fire would tear
into the aircraft. The Mujahideen also liked to hit aircraft parked on
airfields and would stage shelling attacks for the purpose of killing
aircraft on the ground. A large percentage of total Mujahideen
aircraft kills was from mortar and multiple rocket launcher attacks
on airfields.
Antipersonnel mines were a major problem for the Mujahideen.
The Soviets employed millions of mines in Afghanistan. They
surrounded installations, garrisons, security posts and government
facilities with minefields. They mined the road banks along critical
stretches of road. They dispersed scatterable mines over trails,
mountain passes, cropland and grazing pasture. Most of the mines'
components were nonmetallic and hard to detect. These antipersonnel
mines were designed to maim, not kill. Thus, the mine would rip
off a Mujahideen's leg and the Mujahideen's comrades would then
have to transport the crippled combatant back to Pakistan. Should
he survive the slow, painful trip, he would probably never fight again,
but the trip back would involve six or eight Mujahideen who could
have been fighting. Mine detectors were in short supply and not too
effective against plastic mines. Mujahideen would breach minefields
with captured vehicles, flocks of sheep, by firing consecutive recoilless
rifles rounds to create a path, or by hurling large rocks across the
minefield to create a path. None of these methods were too effective.