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

Page 364 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War
the noise, of tanks approaching the village (Map 13-2 - Arghanday). At
first, we thought that the noise was from normal military traffic resupplying
the security outposts along the Kabul-Ghazni highway. Then
Shafeh's father climbed to the roof top and saw that the village was
surrounded by tanks and other vehicles. Soviet soldiers and DRA militia
men from Rashid Dostum's Militia group occupied the surrounding
hills. We were trapped. Shafeh took us to a hideout near the house.
It was a cave that they had dug to hide the Mujahideen during the
enemy's cordon and search operations. After a while, we heard movement
and noticed that the Soviet/DRA search party had posted a guard
at the entrance of the cave. The guard called out and asked if there
was some one inside. Then he asked for anyone inside to come out.
Next, he stooped over to check out the cave. At that point, Alam Gul
(who we nicknamed the Uzbek—because he looked like an Uzbek) shot
the soldier. The soldier's body fell into the cave. We pulled his body
aside and rushed out of the cave. As we came out, we encountered
soldiers in the streets. We fought our way to a natural ditch at the
edge of the village.
We jumped in the ditch and faced in both directions. We all had
AK-47s plus one RPG-7. We fought from this position until 1300 hours.
At that time, some Mujahideen units at Kot-e Ashro, about 10 kilometers
to the southwest, started shelling the area with BM-12 fire.
The rockets' explosions forced the enemy away from the south side of
the village. We took advantage of this and slipped out of the encirclement
through the southern gap and fled to Kot-e Ashro through the
mountains. One of my Mujahideen was wounded.
CHAPTER COMMENTARY
The porous nature of the Soviet and DRA encirclement allowed the
Mujahideen to exfiltrate. It helped to have other distracters such as
incoming artillery, sand storms and nightfall to escape. The
Mujahideen were skilled exfiltrators and often small groups of Soviets
or DRA guarding the cordon would allow the Mujahideen to escape
rather than risk a fire fight at uneven odds. The Soviets resorted to
scatterable mines, ground sensors, parachute flares and other technology
to prevent escapes, but Mujahideen groups would exfiltrate singly,
or in small groups, and regroup outside the encirclement.