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

VIGNETTE 13
ATTACK ON KHAD HEADQUARTERS
by Mohammad Humayun Shahin
On the evening of 13 August 1986, I led a five-man attack on the
KHAD headquarters in Kabul. The building of the First Directorate of
the KHAD was located near Darulaman at Alia uddin in the south of
Kabul. The directorate worked round the clock and was located in a
well-protected part of town (Map 14-4 - KHAD). Therefore, we had to
use a small group and hit the target and leave. We took an RPG-7
grenade launcher and four AK-47s. Our plan was to sneak up on the
building at night, fire a rocket at the building and leave. In the group
were my brother, Nurullah, Mamur Abdul, Shah Mohammad and
Mohammad Zaher.
I had an underground headquarters in Qala-e Chitgar Village,
which is located some 2.5 kilometers from the western edge of Kabul.
We kept our weapons there. After each mission, we would clean and
lubricate our weapons and then wrap them in cotton cloth and then
put them into sealed plastic bags. We would hide the plastic bags in
sewer pipes and other out-of-the-way, hidden spots. We prepared for
the mission, took out our weapons and waited for dark. We left Qalae
Chitgar in the late evening. The village is some four kilometers west
of the target building. When we reached a concealed area outside the
KHAD building, I put my security and RPG gunner in position. My
regular RPG gunner was absent and so I had to assign another
Mujahideen to fire the RPG. Since we were urban guerrillas, we
did not have much opportunity for target practice and the gunner
had never fired the RPG before. I served as his assistant gunner. I
carried his rockets and helped him load the weapon. From the lights
in the windows, I judged that the second floor was the most crowded
and told him to aim for a second floor window. I did not have any ear
protectors for any of us, so I wanted the gunner to keep his mouth
open during the firing to equalize the pressure. In order to do this, I
told him to loudly chant "Allahu Akbar" [God is the greatest] three
times before firing. My new gunner, who was a Shia, smiled and said
he would do so but would add "Ya Ali" at the end of the litany. 4
Mohammad Humayun Shahin contributed to other vignettes in this chapter.
4
"Ya Ali" is a saying commonly chanted by Shia when asking for heavenly help.