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

Page 300 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War
pay you a toll of 50,000 Afghanis ($250) per vehicle passing through
the area.' I turned the deal down with the words 'As long as Soviets
are here, we make no deals.' The enemy infantry was the weakest
part of their armies—DRA and Soviet. Their sequence of attack was
very predictable. They would start with an artillery and air preparation,
then they would lay a smoke screen and then their infantry
would attack. Their tanks would support the infantry, but as soon as
they sustained casualties, they would stop. Their tanks were very
wary of antitank weapons. The mere presence of RPGs and recoilless
rifles in an area would keep the tanks at bay. We would wait until
tanks came within 20 or 30 meters of our antitank weapons before
opening fire. I would not allow my people to try long-range shots.
They would hold steady in their positions with patience and courage.
The tanks could not see us at long range so they couldn't hit us. We
could see them and hit them at close range. Most of the time we were
fighting an enemy strong in fire power and very weak in the assault.
During the two days of fighting, the enemy seldom came within
Kalashnikov range. The only innovation that the enemy showed
during this attack was that they launched it during the Festival of
Sacrifice, when they expected that the Mujahideen would be at home
instead of the base. Second, they returned sooner to the area than
usual. This broke their pattern. I did not really fight a guerrilla
war—I knew the enemy's position and he knew mine. A guerrilla is
evasive and attacks from an unexpected direction and time. Here,
the enemy kept attacking me at the same place and in the same fashion.
Is this guerrilla war?"
"Our ambulance was two sticks and a piece of cloth. Theirs was a
helicopter. The secret of our success was that it was a popular cause.
Everybody knew that we were hurting the occupiers. This was not a
war but an uprising. Therefore, it was not a guerrilla war. We never
bothered about the food supply. The locals supplied us with whatever
they had. I had two pickup trucks—the enemy had two hundred vehicles.
I used the pickups for ammunition and food resupply. We moved
them secretly along the river in the wooded area to supply the fighting
positions in the evening. Their rations would sustain them until the
next night. We basically had a mutton and nan 6
diet that the local
populace furnished us free. A normal full day's ration was a portion of
cooked mutton wrapped in nan. Water supply was simple since our
fighting positions were near the river and my men all had canteens."
6 Nan is flat Afghan unleavened bread. It is oval-shaped and about the thickness and size
of a small or medium pizza.