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

VIGNETTE 11
KANDAHAR AMBUSHES
by Commander Mulla Malang
Despite their best efforts, the Soviets were never able to gain full
control of the major Pashtun city of Kandahar. The battle for
Kandahar was unusual in that all guerrilla factions cooperated and
regularly rotated forces in and out of the battle to maintain pressure
on the Soviet and DRA garrisons. The suburbs of Kandahar were one
of the major scenes of Mujahideen road blocks and ambushes during
the war. Hardly a day would pass without a Mujahideen attack on
enemy columns along the main highway connecting the city with
Ghazni in the northeast and Girishk in the west.
The enemy columns were most vulnerable on a stretch of the road
between the western suburbs of the city and Hauz-e Madad, located
about 40 kilometers west of Kandahar. In this area, the Mujahideen
were able to hide in the orchards and villages to ambush enemy
columns. As the road leaves Sanjari on the Arghandab River, the green
zone runs parallel to the highway in the south and an arid plain, that
gradually rises toward the mountains, flanks the road to the north.
(See Map 10a - Deh-Khwaja 1 in Vignette 9.)
The Herat Column
In one of their early large-scale ambushes, the Mujahideen groups
affiliated with different parties planned a series of ambushes along
the main highway from Girishk to Kandahar (Map 12 - Kandahar).
In September 1984, a Soviet/DRA supply column moved from
Torghundi on the Soviet Turkmenistan border through the Shindand
air base in western Afghanistan to the Soviet garrison in Kandahar.
The column consisted of several hundred trucks escorted by tanks
and APCs. Most of the trucks were loaded with gasoline which they
MuIla Malang, now 38, is a Pashtun from the northwestern province of Badghisat. He was
a student (taleb) at a religious school (madrassa) in Kandahar when the communists came
to power in a bloody coup in Kabul in 1978. MuIla Malang joined a resistance cell in the
southern suburbs of Kandahar (Malajat) and started fighting the communist regime. He
was arrested in the fall of 1979 for spreading anti-government leaflets and later released
in general amnesty after the Soviet invasion in January 1980. Mulla Malang immediately
fled to Pakistan and joined Mawlawi Mohammad Nabi Muhamrnadi's Harakat faction. He
returned to Kandahar for combat. Mulla Malang later joined HIK and became a major commander
of the faction in the province with bases in Arghestan, Malajat, Pashmol and
Khakrez. [Map sheet 2180].