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

Page 402 The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War
the mid-1980s, the entire leadership of the Intelligence Directorate of
the Ministry of Defense, including the head of the directorate
(General Khalil—who was later executed by the regime), was arrested
for its secret collaboration with the Mujahideen. Most of the
serving Afghan officers refused communist party membership. Many
of those who were forced to join the party were not loyal to the
regime. Many of them secretly carried membership cards in one of
the Mujahideen factions. Such lack of cooperation foiled all efforts by
the Soviet Union to create a viable, indigenous military power in
Afghanistan. Consequently the Soviet Union was forced to use mostly
its own soldiers to carry the fight to the Mujahideen.
Afghan military officers who openly joined the Mujahideen faced
many obstacles in integrating fully into the resistance hierarchy,
based in Pakistan. Some faction leaders saw these former military
officers as a challenge to their leadership and their factional
interests and tried to sideline the professionals. Factions with a
fundamentalist Islamic orientation were generally more opposed to
accepting those military officers who had trained in and served under
the old regimes. Therefore, many well-trained military officers who
could bring effective leadership and organization to the ranks of the
resistance forces, were sidelined by the factional politics of the jihad.
Nevertheless, the former officers proved to be the most effective
tactical and operational leaders that the Mujahideen had during the
long years of war with the Soviet forces.
Logistics
Initially, the Mujahideen lived in the villages they defended and
the villagers provided their food and shelter. Ammunition, weapons
and other material came from the local bazaar or from Iran or
Pakistan. The Soviets decided to break this link between the populace
and the guerrilla by driving the populace out of the countryside.
Soviet air and artillery attacked villages, standing crops, orchards,
animal herds, granaries, water mills and irrigation systems.
Eventually the populace was driven out of many rural areas and the
Mujahideen could no longer readily subsist in these areas. With the
agricultural system destroyed, the Mujahideen had to transport
their own food and forage. The Mujahideen factions responded to this
crisis by establishing fixed supply bases within Afghanistan. The
larger supply bases were located in the mountains near the Pakistan
border. Smaller supply bases were caches hidden outside the towns
and villages. The Soviets then concentrated on finding and destroy-