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

VIGNETTE 1
CAUGHT IN A SOVIET AMBUSH
by Mawlawi Mohayddin Baloch
In 1983, we had one GMC pickup truck to support my force. We
called GMC pickups ahu (deer), since they were fleet and nimble. It
was the month of Ramadan and we were going from our base in Qalae
Naw to Kotalak to get some gasoline. Soviet soldiers were the main
source of our gasoline. We would buy it from them. Our rendezvous
point for gasoline was north of Kotolak. We left early in the afternoon
and drove along the river avoiding the main roads (Map 12-1 -
Kotolak). There was a Kochi 1
in our truck who had visited our base
and we were giving him a ride back to his village camp. As we got
about 10 kilometers south of Kotolak, we saw the Kochi's camp near
the river. We stopped, both to let our. passenger off and to wait for
dark, since we were now within 50 kilometers of the Soviet base at
Delaram and should not travel any further in the day light. We
watched as the Kochi entered the woods some 500-600 meters away
on his way to his camp. We saw some people attack him and drag him
to the side. We didn't know what was going on and thought that it
was a fight between Kochis. "What's going on?" we yelled. They did
not answer so we fired some shots into the air. The people who
grabbed the Kochi realized that they had been seen and started firing
at us. We exchanged fire for about a half hour until helicopters landed
behind the wooded area. The other group boarded the helicopters
and left. It was late afternoon.
We had prematurely and inadvertently triggered a Soviet
ambush. We were on the western bank of the Khash Rud river and
the ambush force was on the eastern bank. Soviet ambushes were
always better planned and prepared than those of the DRA. The
Soviets would drop their ambush party by helicopter at night and the
party would walk into position so that their ambush could not be
detected. This ambush party was probably from Delaram 2
and had
Mawlawi Mohayddin Baloch is from Nimroz province. His base was at Lowkhai, the Khash
Rud district capitol on the Khash Rud river. He was initially with Malawi Mohammad Nabi
Mohammadi of the Harakat-e Inqelab-i Islami (HAR). Later, on he switched to HIK (Khalis).
[Map sheet 1680].
1
Kochi are nomadic tribesmen of Afghanistan. They live primarily by herding and trading
sheep, goats and camels.
2
More probably, these were Spetsnaz from Lashkar Gah.