In chapter two I explained the reasons why such sabotage was not always popular with the Mujahideen. With the oil pipeline this reluctance was reinforced by the Soviets providing free fuel to villagers in some areas by installing taps on the pipe, which they were allowed to use. Not surprisingly, operations intended to destroy this facility could be unpopular, and no Commander wanted to antagonize his own supporters. Even if he was to operate in another area he could not do so without the authority of the local Commander, which was frequently withheld. Despite this, the oil pipeline was subjected to numerous successful attacks. The explosion would start a fire which could last anything from 1-30 minutes. Unfortunately the controls at the nearest pumping station automatically shut off the supply, thus limiting the damage and fire.
With the gas pipeline we trained the Mujahideen in a different technique. The pipe, unlike the oil one, was buried throughout its length, some three feet underground. It even went under, rather than over, the Amu River. Nevertheless, it was easy to locate, as there was a small track on the surface that marked its route. The pipe was exposed by the use of a large manual auger (drill) which made a neat hole down to the pipe. In went the magnetic charge, up went the pipe. Again there would be a fire, but it was usually of short duration as the loss of pressure automatically sealed off the damaged section. In early 1985 I initiated a series of attacks which destroyed the pipe at a number of places. Reportedly, all the industrial units using gas were closed for two weeks. We also used rocket attacks on some natural gas facilities, which on one occasion, set two wells on fire. They burnt fiercely for days and could never be used again.
The scope and scale of what we were trying to achieve is, I hope, emerging. It was a question of deciding on the guerrilla strategy for the war, obtaining the means, the money and arms, and training countless thousands of Mujahideen in the tactics and techniques of a guerrilla battlefield. The task was gargantuan and made that much more onerous by the subject of the following chapter—feuding.
Feuding and Fighting
“Besides a common religion, Islam, only foreign invaders—from
Alexander the Great to the British in the 19th century, and the
Soviets in the 20th—have united the Afghans.”
MY first full year in office, 1984, saw a dramatic escalation of the conflict on both sides. The Soviets launched their corps-sized Panjsher 7 offensive, joint Soviet/Afghan divisional operations were carried out in the Herat area, Paktia, and the Kunar Valley close to the Pakistan border. The growing effectiveness and use of Afghan troops was noticeable, as was the increasing reliance by the Soviets on heliborne manoeuvres. Their use of Spetsnaz special forces became more widespread, and their tactics bolder. Nevertheless, despite the press comments to the contrary, I believe the year ended in favour of the Mujahideen.
Although half of the Panjsher Valley was lost, elsewhere the Mujahideen were stronger, better organized, trained and equipped than in previous years. Those who suggested otherwise failed to grasp the overall military situation, due to a dearth of reliable information. The media coverage of the war was patchy. Unlike the Americans in Vietnam, the Soviets and Afghans did not release their losses to the press. Similarly, the Pakistan government refused to give official coverage of the campaign, steadfastly claiming that Pakistan was not involved. Only the handful of adventurous journalists who sometimes accompanied the Mujahideen in battle could provide authentic information, and even they, as I have pointed out in the Introduction, got it wrong at times. My sources, which included intercepted enemy radio transmissions, indicated Soviet losses in 1984 of between 4,000-5,000 killed or wounded, with their Afghan allies suffering some 20,000 casualties, including defections. Despite our lack of an adequate anti-aircraft weapon, the Soviets and Afghans lost more than 200 helicopters or aircraft (mostly on the ground), together with some 2,000 vehicles of all types, including tanks and APCs.
I felt that we now had the basis of an overall strategy for the prosecution of the war. We had a political Seven-Party Alliance in place. I was working with a Military Committee. The quantity of supplies being handled by the pipeline was increasing, training was expanding rapidly, and we had achieved some noticeable successes in the field. I was sure that we had more than matched the increased aggressiveness of our enemies. It was not the fighting that worried me so much as the feuding. I had now grasped the extent of this seemingly intractable problem and resolved to devote my efforts towards curbing its destructive aspects. At its worst feuding was civil war between the Mujahideen. During the eleven years of the Jehad hundreds of Mujahideen have died at the hands of their comrades-in-arms in different Parties, or under rival Commanders. I believe that getting feuding under some sort of control, although we never came near to eradicating it, by 1986-87 was a major factor in the Mujahideen being on the brink of a military victory when the Soviets withdrew in 1988-89. Now, sadly, internal feuding seems once again to be taking precedence over fighting the enemy. A recent example of the extremes to which feuding can divide and destroy the Mujahideen as an effective force, which involved two subordinate Commanders from different fundamentalist Parties, will illustrate my point.
On a cold, grey morning, with a little mist concealing most of the nearby mountains, a crowd of around 1,000 people had gathered to watch an execution. It was 24 December, 1989; the place was a small park in the town of Taloqan, provincial capital of Takhar, in northern Afghanistan. Four men were about to be hanged. Each had been a Mujahid; each had been found guilty by an Islamic court of murdering fellow Mujahideen belonging to a different Party from their own; each had been specifically sentenced to be hung rather than shot, the usual sentence for a soldier. Their leader was Sayad Jamal, a senior Commander of Hekmatyar’s Party. With him walked his brother and two other prominent officers. They went to their deaths quietly. At the final moment they had nothing to say, although it was for them a particularly disgraceful way to die. The relatives of their victims had received special invitations to watch.
The executions were but another phase in a long-standing vendetta between rival Commanders. In mid-1989 Ahmad Shah Massoud, the so-called ‘Lion of Punjsher’, had been the victim of a bloody ambush by Jamal’s followers which had killed thirty-six of his men, including seven of his best leaders and friends. The previous year both groups had attacked and cleared Taloqan, but had then divided the town into opposing camps. By the middle of 1989 a truce had been arranged and sealed by the reading aloud to each other by the Commanders of passages from the Holy Koran. The truce was only temporary Whether or not Jamal was under direct orders from Hekmatyar to do what he did has never been established. Jamal led his men to Tangi Fakhar, where he positioned them at a gorge through which he knew many of Massoud’s men would shortly travel. The ambush was highly successful. Thirty-six men died in a storm of automatic fire. They were the lucky ones. The others, who were captured, were gruesomely tortured before being killed.
Massoud spared no effort in seeking revenge. This was badal on a grand scale. Thousands of his Mujahideen combed the countryside rounding up suspects, but it took the offer of a reward of one million afghanis to produce Jamal and his brother. A tip-off led to a trap door in the floor of a house in Taloqan. In the basement below were the two ringleaders.