Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War - Bennett Park Raiders

VIGNETTE 5
THE DEFENSE AGAINST THE SOVIET OPERATION "MAGISTRAL"
by General Gulzarak Zadran, Lieutenant Omar,
Mawlawi Nezamuddin Haqani, and Mawlawi Abdul-Rahman
"We were a very desperate people without much equipment
or armaments, but we had the power of our faith,
love for our homeland, love of freedom and reliance on
the Almighty. We were fighting against very heavy
odds."
General Gulzarak Zadran
Sources in the DRA warned us that a combined Soviet/DRA
force would launch an offensive to open the road between Gardez
and Khowst. We Mujahideen closed the road in March 1979 and
the government had supplied their garrison at Khowst by air ever
since. The DRA had tried to open the road on many occasions and
had two entire regiments annihilated in the process. The road had
become a thing of myth—the Mujahideen-held road that no power
could open. We watched the enemy mass his forces and supplies in
Gardez in November 1987. This was clearly going to be a major 40th
Army operation involving forces from several Soviet motorized rifle
divisions, the Soviet airborne division, DRA units, Spetsnaz, massed
artillery, surface-to-surface missiles, and Soviet air power. At the
time, General Zadran analyzed the impending operation to determine
its operational significance. He determined two possible goals
for the operation: this unprecedented massing of such a major force
either meant that the Soviets wanted to escalate the war by threatening
Pakistan directly from Paktia; or the Soviets wanted to shatter
General Guzarak Zadran was an officer in the Afghan Army and attended the Afghan Army
Higher OfficersTraining Institute where the author, Ali Jalali, was his instructor. He joined
the resistance and fought in Paktia Province. He fought in Zhawar 1 and 2 and at the
Satakandow pass. He belonged to IUA. After the fall of the DRA, he became the Deputy
Minister of Defense in the interim government. Currently he lives near Peshawar. [Map
sheets 2883, 2884, 2983].
Lieutenant Omar (Zabit Omar) graduated from the Kabul Military Academy in the 1970s.
After the communist coup and the Soviet invasion, Lieutenant Omar joined the Mujahideen
of the fundamentalist Islamic Party (HIK) founded by Mawlawi Mohammed Yunis Khalis.
He was a close aide to Jalaluddin Haqani and fought with him throughout the war. Haqani
ran the Mujahideen effort in the crucial Paktia Province. Lieutenant Omar also served as