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

CHAPTER 13
ENCIRCLEMENT
The Soviets developed their encirclement technique to deal with
opposing mechanized forces. If enemy soldiers abandoned their vehicles
to escape the encirclement, the result was still the same—the
mechanized force was defeated. The Mujahideen were not mechanized
and they discovered that the Soviet encirclement was usually porous
and that the Soviet/DRA force did not have enough dismounted
infantry to hold them in the pocket, particularly when it got dark.
However, the Soviets and DRA routinely conducted large-scale encirclements,
as part of cordon and search operations, and occasional
smaller tactical encirclements of marauding bands.