How did a band of ragtag tribesmen manage to defeat the Soviet Union in its own backyard? The Afghan War

BY RICHARD MACKENZIE

ATCHING Muslim rebels con- What kind of conflict was the Ahmad Shah Mas- ceive, plot, and execute a clas- Afghan war, really? How, in fact, soud—the "Lion of W Panjshir"—learned sic guerrilla strike against Soviet- did a ragtag band of Muslim tribes- his guerrilla warfare backed outposts in the remote Ker- man stymie one of the two military skills from the mas- an Valley, you get a close-up look at superpowers—in its own backyard, ters. Emphasizing how the war is being won—and at that? How was the conflict fought speed, stealth, and lost—in Afghanistan. day-by-day on the ground? maneuver—and with a pipeline to the en- In the meticulously planned as- For a look at the eccentricities, emy's closest se- sault, small units of highly moti- tactics, goals, strengths, and weak- crets—his mujahe- vated Muslim irregulars, fortified nesses of the combatants, one need deen fighters scored with reasonably good weapons and look no further than the planning a big success at the Battle of the Keran extraordinary intelligence data, sur- and execution of the October 29, Valley and kept on prise and utterly rout the heavily 1987, battle for Keran. winning. The skill of equipped but slow-footed and de- such local leaders as moralized soldiers of the Afghan Planning the Offensive Massoud is the big Army garrison. The Afghan mujahedeen had reason that Soviet troops are marching The Keran Valley operation, been planning this offensive for out of their Afghan •which I witnessed during a bone- months. The objective was to cap- quagmire. wearying, three-month journey ture seven Soviet-supported Af- through the Hindu Kush mountains ghan Army bases in northeastern with Afghan rebels last fall and Afghanistan. Taking the bases winter, was only one battle. Yet it, in would dramatically reduce travel a nutshell, sums up the war's basic time for supplies from Pakistan. realities. What's more, it would further boost Those realities are yielding major morale for the rebels in their eight- consequences. Following Geneva year war against Soviet occupation talks in April, Moscow and its client forces. in Kabul agreed to a nine-month The rebels' long logistics tail be- timetable for a complete Russian gan in Garam Kishmar, or "Warm troop withdrawal. The Soviet re- Waters," a village at the tip of the treat, the first since 1942, now ap- northwest frontier province of Paki- pears in full swing. stan. There, the Muslim forces re-

140 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 1988 I ceived Chinese guns and rockets. They are purchased and distributed by Pakistan with $600 million a year in US aid. Then, the equipment had to be trekked overland into Afghani- stan. The extreme dedication of the rebels is evident in such arduous endeavors. In a blizzard, a team of mujahedeen was forced to stop on a mountain path when one of its horses dropped dead under the am- munition load it was carrying. One of the men took up the weight that killed the animal, threw it on his back, and wordlessly continued the climb. Such a sight is not uncom- mon—not on the guerrilla side. On the side of the Soviet and Afghan armies, by contrast, morale

throughout the war has remained R low. Initially, the problem stemmed TA primarily from the fact that many of LACK S the original Soviet soldiers were raw /B

reserves whose units often received Suau ny ho t An t Though never equipped with a preponderance of modern weaponry, the Afghan rebels have begun to acquire more arms in recent years. Among such arms are mortars, rocket launchers, antimine field weapons, communications gear, and—most critical of all—Stinger antiaircraft missiles from the US.

third-rate equipment. By the sum- contributed to widespread Soviet mer of 1980, Soviet military leaders desertions. A few of these deserters realized their errors, however, and have actually gone over to the mu- began substituting conscripts for jahedeen. the reserves. "It is hard to imagine a war in Even then, Red Army forces who which Russia's conscript army entered the fray had only the would be less well suited than it is in poorest tactics and most pathetic a counterinsurgency in moun- training. tainous Afghanistan," says Mark What's more, the high command Urban, a British scholar of the war. felt obliged to send home Muslim Future analysis may yet produce soldiers from Soviet Asia for fear a complete answer as to why the that they would sympathize with Soviet Union chose to ignore histo- their rebel coreligionists—as many ry and invade Afghanistan, a land of them in fact did. known throughout history as a Primitive medical care and hy- graveyard of imperial ambition. giene practices took their toll on Whatever their motives, however, morale. With little water available, they clearly believed it would be a the average Soviet soldier is said to relatively easy task to subdue a bathe about once every other country immediately to their south, month. Infectious hepatitis had spi- about the size of Texas. raled out of control. And the hy- Moscow seriously miscalculated. giene situation was worse among in- Certainly, Soviet leaders underesti- digenous Afghan troops. mated the tenacity of the Afghan The ordeal of Afghanistan has led resistance. But it also overesti- to alcohol and drug abuse, not to mated the value of armor and The Soviet Union seriously mention acts of brutality by Soviet massed firepower. underestimated the tenacity of the soldiers that have been inflicted on Afghan resistance. Moreover, Soviet fellow troops as well as on civilian Soviet Invasion commanders had to cope with Soviet troops who began to sympathize with Afghans. Bullying of newcomers by The Soviets came in with great their religious brethren in the "old soldiers"—those who have force, hoping to score a knockout resistance. been in country a year or more— punch. First came a logistical 142 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 1988 0 Anthony Suau/BLACK STAR buildup of Soviet troops north of the Amu Darya, the "Oxus River," which separates the two countries. A reinforced Air Assault Division at the Soviet Union's 105th Guard Headquarters was primed to seize key military and political targets in Kabul. The operation itself went smooth- ly. On December 6, 1979, a regiment of the task force was flown to Bagram, a principal Afghan fighter base north of Kabul. From there, troops fanned out to the Salang Pass, the road route from the Soviet Union to Kabul. For four days be- ginning December 22, the Soviets flew some 350 transport sorties into Kabul and Bagram, carrying men and supplies in Antonov and Il- yushin airlifters. Shortly before midnight on December 24, the Sovi- ets began airlifting more troops into Shindand, a key air base in the far west of the country, and others went to Kandahar in the south. Finally, on December 27, the de- cisive phase was launched. Para- Afghan resistance leaders have been able to rely on a widespread network of troopers moved into downtown Ka- informants among Afghan government forces and the populace at large. Such inside bul, and KGB commandos stormed information has been crucial to the rebels in planning their raids from high in the the Darulaman Palace south of Ka- rugged mountain country that dominates much of the nation. bul. There, they executed Hafizul- lah Amin, leader of the inept Afghan dreds of them—most of whom round tumbles on impact, causing regime, and replaced him with should have known better than to dreadful wounds. The mujahedeen handpicked Babrak Karmal. try to control the country centrally. refer to AK-74 projectiles as "poi- All was accomplished in days, But that's what they did." It was, in son bullets." with only one and a half air assault fact, a guiding military principle. divisions and four motor rifle divi- In the first six months, the Sovi- Exploiting Airpower sions totaling between 15,000 and ets pursued tactics that observers The biggest and most successful 20,000 men. Reinforcing troops deemed better suited to a land war innovation was the introduction, brought the total to 100,000 by Janu- in the European theater. It was a within a year, of helicopters to the ary 5, 1980. centrally controlled, high-intensity, war in massive numbers. In June The relatively small size of the mechanized operation totally un- 1980, for example, it is estimated invading force suggests the Kremlin suited to the harsh terrain, climate, that there were only forty-five to pursued only limited objectives—to and lack of infrastructure in Afghan- sixty Soviet helicopters in Afghani- take key cities and the roads that istan—not to mention the elusive stan. A short time later, Western ob- linked them. foe. servers began reporting Soviet use Moscow could not have known it, They even brought along an SA-4 of as many as eighteen attack heli- but this was the high-water mark of antiaircraft missile brigade, the im- copters in attacks on single villages. Soviet occupation. Nearly nine portance of which was not exactly Their best weapon became the years of trouble were to follow. paramount in a war against guer- Hind helicopter gunship, a kind of Divided on ethnic, linguistic, and rillas carrying on their fight without flying tank, which was used to rain tribal lines, Afghanistan has always a single plane. indiscriminate terror on the Afghan been a decentralized country—with Throughout the war, notes Ur- people and to soften up rebel posi- a vengeance. For that reason, con- ban, Soviet infantry firepower was tions in advance of a ground assault. trol of Kabul and major cities does "massively increased" in Afghani- It did, at least, until US-supplied not mean control of the nation. stan, particularly with respect to the Stinger antiair missiles came into Quite the contrary. individual infantryman. Soviet widespread use. The Soviets seemed to willfully troops now carry the AGS-17 auto- All the effects of this massive fire- ignore this reality. The US ambas- matic grenade launcher and the power were on display in the dozens sador to Afghanistan from 1966 to RPO flamethrower—a weapon that of burned-out villages in the tac- 1973, Robert G. Neumann, watched provides the foot soldier with a por- tical-assembly areas that the an enormous buildup of Soviet ad- table napalm weapon. Also in use is Afghan rebels used in preparing for visors in Kabul. "They had hun- the new AK-74 automatic rifle. Its Keran.

AIR FORCE Magazine / September 1988 145 A short walk up the Anjuman Riv- Afghan men began arriving, walk- Shah Massoud. He was one of Mas- er from the barren, rocky spot of its ing silently through the darkness. soud's Stinger operators, trained in confluence with the Kokcha River Some had trekked for more than a Pakistan in the use of the surface-to- in the desolate northeast of Afghani- week through the rugged, over- air missile. He explained that he was stan, perched atop a hill more than whelming mountains of the Hindu the first in the corps to use a Stinger 9,000 feet above sea level, sat the Kush range. On the second floor of to down a Soviet plane, a MiG-21. ruin of what was once a town called a ruined house, Mohammad Karim The increasing firepower of the Escarza. Most of the stone and Jalili, a handsome, soft-spoken, guerrillas themselves was only too packed-mud houses lay in rubble. twenty-two-year-old man with dark apparent at numerous stops on the Bomb craters marked the spots eyes, sat wrapped in an Afghan journey to Keran. The small squad where other buildings once stood. blanket, explaining his role in the of men with whom I traveled moved Most of the residents were long war. down the Anjuman River to where it gone. Dozens were killed in a series The young fighter epitomized the meets the Kokcha. After another of Soviet air raids on the area. Sev- eclectic ingredients that have gone five hours—and two stops for eral hundred more fled to neighbor- into the war. Born in Kama, near the prayers—they reached another ing Pakistan, joining more than city ofJalalabad, the son of a district bombed-out village that, in the 3,000,000 other refugees from court judge in Badakshan Province, darkness, at first seemed deserted. across their country. This day, a educated in commerce at a college Inside a mosque, some forty other few old women and children left in in Pakistan, he was now a member young guerrillas pushed closer to- Escarza were hauling water in of the mujahedeen fighting in a gether to make way for the new- buckets up the long hill from the primitive war of liberation. comers. Every rebel sported a So- river. There never has been elec- Karim was part of the Central viet Kalashnikov assault rifle. tricity, running water, or conve- Corps of the most renowned and ef- Stacked in an adjoining stable were niences in this forsaken place. fective resistance commander in the a dozen or so recoilless rifles and But as night fell, dozens of young war, thirty-five-year-old Ahmad fifty or so Chinese-made rockets. Across Afghanistan, the story is much the same. The US has report- CHINA edly stepped up supplies of ba- zookas, heavy mortars, grenade launchers, and recoilless rifles to the mujahedeen. Especially wel- come is the arrival of new anti- USSR minefield rockets used to clear Kokcha River obstacles placed by the Soviet Army. Some authorities report that the mujahedeen even possess short- Northwest Frontier River Province range surface-to-surface rockets 4` ‘ with which to hold Soviet strong- Kunar River holds at risk. . 4 Khyber Pass Growing Professionalism Bagram • • Secretly, silently, over the ensu- • Peshawar ing days, 530 mujahedeen gathered Kabul Jalalabad in half a dozen villages throughout the area, preparing for an assault on the seven bases of Keran. That the guerrillas could put to- Herat gether such an operation, getting • AFGHANISTAN tactical orders across hundreds of miles to dozens of their troop sites Shindand while maintaining security, was evi- • dence of what is plainly the growing • professionalism of the fighters and Kandahar greater local military coordination. Part of this is due to the emer- PAKISTAN gence of young, well-educated lead- ers who have taken over from many of the older, more suspicious tribal chieftains who have tended to fight IRAN in clan organizations and defend specific pieces of territory—even against fellow rebels. In the northeast quadrant of Af- ghanistan, this impressive network 146 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 1988 from Kabultothenortheast.Ason forts inthestrategicPanjshirRiver then twenty-seven,begantoemerge of fightersisthehandiwork fective inbattle. friends whytheIsraelisweresoef- methods ofMao,Guevara,andHo fighters, havinglongstudiedthe demeanor butnotwithoutasenseof means victory,asa of anAfghanArmygeneral,Mas- valley, whichrunsfor100miles as thecommanderofresistanceef- "the LionofPanjshir." Ahmad ShahMassoud—knownas forts againsttheSoviet-backed fore the1979Sovietinvasion,he the opposingforces,explainingto daily briefingsonthemovementsof pinned amaponthewalltogive out. Classmatesrecallhowhe the Arab-IsraeliSix-DayWarbroke Chi Minh. humor, Massoudhaslearnedthe soud adoptedhisthirdname,which ground inKabul. tance basesinPakistan,wherehe ing backandforthbetweenresis- Communist regimeinKabul,mov- had beeninvolvedinresistanceef- experience isextensive.Longbe- skills andtacticsofthebestguerrilla developed anintelligence-gathering are collegegraduates.Hehasalso tual fighters.Inanationofalmost in someimpressiveyoungintellec- ing, andtheanti-Communistunder- was givensomebasicmilitarytrain- fective hit-and-runambushesalong ly years,hesays,hisattackswere war hasmaturedgreatly.Intheear- manders, Massoud'sapproachto of Kabul. operation thatreachesintotheheart total illiteracy,manyofhistroops tactics becamemoresophisticated, and theSovietborder. the SalangHighwaybetweenKabul with notable lack ofsuccess. the lushPanjshir Valley—though at drivinghimfromhishome turfin nine majorSovietinvasions aimed prestige ofMassoudengendered Indeed, theperceivedpower and he becameafargreaterconcern to sporadic, consistingmainlyofinef- Soviet militarymeninAfghanistan. AIR FORCE Magazine / A brilliantleader,quiteseriousin When thewarbegan,Massoud, Though heisyoung,Massoud's He wasonlyfifteenin1967when Massoud's personalityhasdrawn Like otheryoungMuslimcom- As timepassedandMassoud's nom deguerre. September 1988 © Phi lippe Fiend!'In/BLACK STAR The PanishirOffensives hand overdozensofmiles. resistance. Rebelsoftenlugartilleryby Afghanistan isimperativefortheAfghan The SovietArmyisapparentlyre- as "Panjshir1,"waslaunchedinlate known totheAfghanwaranalysts Mobility intheforbiddingterrainof Jishta, asmall villageinthenorthof bombing fromBagramandbases ley, Sovietfighter-bombersbegan ground troopshadsealedofftheval- north inapinceraction.Oncethe troops pushedupthevalley.More were thebiggest.Ineachcase,some to wintacticalvictoriesatwillwhile itary fateinAfghanistan:theability kind ofmicrocosmtheSovietmil- iron grip. the valley,recalls theblackdayin oblivion. used, blastingmanyvillages into across theSovietborder. Soviet Soviet troopscamedownfromthe Panjshirs 5,6(1982),and7(1984) strategic gainsremainelusive. signed totherealityofMassoud's year-old Panjshiriwhogrew upin Su-25s, Su-17s,andMiG-21s were 1985. Therehasbeennonesince. 1980. Panjshir9wasunleashedin 15,000 SovietandAfghanArmy The firstSovietoffensive,later The Panjshiroperationsprovidea Of thenineSovietoffensives, Rakhman Beg,atwenty-seven- particularly brutal.Inthat1982ac- fighters toregroupand,probably, great criticismfromothermujahe- temporary trucebetweenhisforces habitants. Healsoworkedouta rary evacuationofthePanjshirin- valleys weresosuccessfulthatMas- tion, Sovietattacksintotributary two uncles. by shrapnel.Hesavedthechild,but chest toprotecther.Hewashitin around, cradlingthelittlegirltohis bomb strucknearby,andhespun erations turnoutpoorly,notjust ets pulledback. tegic masterstrokethatallowedhis deen groups.Itprovedtobeastra- versial movethatbroughtMassoud and theenemy.Thiswasacontro- soud reluctantlyorderedatempo- by themujahedeen,whoescaped conceal themselves,exposing of theterrain,failingtodiginor all fromthe103dAirAssaultDivi- ment inMay1982,theraids lost ninebrothers,hisfather,and the face,shoulders,back,andlegs in hisarmsandstartedtorun.A He grabbedhisfour-year-oldsister experienced recruits.They rarely bers ofnervous,frightened,andin- ways conductedusinglargenum- is thatthesesweepsarealmostal- where inAfghanistan? against Massoud,butnearlyevery- Why theSovietFailures? their Panjshiroperations,theSovi- result. Aftertryingtwomoreof led troops,andthistimewithlittle again performedby15,000Soviet- rectly totheSoviets'Panjshir7, His successinthisendeavorleddi- against thecriticalSalangHighway. unscathed intothehills. themselves toconstantambushes sion. Theyshowedlittleexperience sault troopslandedinhelicopters, stopped, andaregimentofairas- best friends." of Massoud's guerrillas,"areour Afghan forces. roads, theydonotpursue fleeing cles. Becausetheyseldom leave the dismount fromtheirfighting vehi- soud wasback,againontheattack survive tocontinuethewar. 1984 whentheSovietplanescame. After aweekofsuchbombard- In Panjshir5,thedestructionwas One principalreason,saymany, Why dothesegiganticSovietop- In anycase,byApril1984,Mas- "The mountains,"observed one 149 performance overtime.Analysts ghanistan, akindofantiguerrillaor tions oftheRedArmyimprovedin ment. idea howtohandletheirownequip- torized rifleinfantryforces,have operations—including dangerous ducted imaginative,evendaring, tions. bat skillspeculiartoAfghancondi- the unitsgotspecialtrainingincom- brute forceandmass.Membersof was onspeedandstealthratherthan forces wereincluded.Theemphasis long-range patrolandintelligence borne orairassaultsoldiers,but troops, theforcewasfilledwithair- quasicounterinsurgency force. note thattheSovietsdevelopeda emy. What'smore,mosthaveno and unheard-ofnighttimeambushes mated 20,000to25,000crack substructure oftheRedArmyinAf- scant knowledgeoftheirAfghanen- border basesin Pakistan. rifle, havefiltered intothecountryfrom modern weapons, suchasthisrecoilless museum pieces inWesternarmies,more the Afghanrebelswouldbeconsidered Though manyoftheweaponsused by 150 It istrue,sayexperts,thatpor- These Sovietunits,mostlymo- In theirheyday,theunitscon- With unitsoncetotalinganesti-

ol Anthony Suau/BLACK STAR on. could leavethem preytotheweap- most low-levelengagements that ness andhavebeencareful toavoid et pilotsclearlyfearitseffective- Soviet aircombatoperations. Sovi- Stinging theBear bombers wererarelyseenbylate til 1985theSovietsusedskies pact oftheweaponbecameappar- the faceofwar.Hesaysim- party, agreesthatStingerschanged fense forcesinthevillagesofhis Stinger hashadamajorimpact on over Afghanistanwithimpunity, ent withinoneyear.Whereasupun- in theJamiat-e-IslamiAfghanistan Massoud Khalili,apoliticalofficer plying Stingerstotheresistance. when theUnitedStatesbegansup- that theturningpointcamein1985 viet airoperations,it'snowclear God iswilling. osophical. "Inshallah,"hesaid.If quicktime. Theyoungmanwasphil- and beonthesceneofbattlein dispatched fromKabulorin- that SovietMiGaircraftwouldbe Massoud fighter,wasthepossibility tected. region. Allwererelativelywellpro- mobile units,andstationaryde- They arehisCentralCorps,other thousand menintothreegroups. units. Hehaddividedhisseveral forts, Massoudbetrayedlittlecon- forces fortheattackonKeran their fighterswithinayear. bunkers, losesfewtroops.The function onlyinshort-termopera- Soviet helicoptersandlow-flying cern aboutattackfromtheSoviet took extremelyhighcasualties,with counterguerrilla forces,however, viet garrisonarmy,rarelyleavingits reason: highcasualtyrates.TheSo- cantly inrecentyears.Onepossible operations havetailedoffsignifi- tions. Eventheisolatedcommando away. in thecountryside.Soviethelicop- side theSovietUnion,scramble, some unitslosinguptotwo-thirdsof els, ascommandoswouldblaze into gatheringsofunsuspectingreb- ters, onoccasion,haveswooped 1987. Theyremainabsent. Bombing raids ontheKunarRiv- It isclearthattheubiquity ofthe When itcomestocombatingSo- Their biggestconcern,saidone As helaboredtopreparehis Yet theeliteforcestendedto AIR FORCE Magazine /September1988 to fireinto.He knewhowmany and whenbut alsowhichwindows not onlywhich buildingstoattack tail. again andeverysignificant de- he pacedbackandforth,repeating position aroundthemodelwhere he would leadhismen.Fortwo hours cers together,placingeachinthe place, Massoudcalledhiskeyoffi- day beforetheattackwastotake caches andtroopconcentrations. to speed,pointingweapons most twohours,hehelpedMas- old Afghanarmycaptain.Foral- man, AbdulRias,athirty-two-year- Massoud's officersmetwiththe working insideforhimtwo at KeranhadbeenaMassoudspy, ond incommandoftheArmybase nomenal, inpartbecausethesec- the enemy'sfromcigarettepackets. put incardboardreplicasofevery the riverthatrandownmiddle, ridge andcraggytip.Theycreated ing mountains,puttinginevery built upthehillsandsurround- battlefield. the entireKeranValleytogivea ficers andcartographerspainstak- ing onthebattle,hisintelligenceof- Jangal forthebattleofKeran.In gorges, impervioustoartilleryfire. soud's intelligenceofficercomeup years. Somedaysbefore,fourof made replicasoftheirweaponsand house, hut,andbarrack.Theyalso vivid, three-dimensionalviewofthe ingly builtagiantsandlotreplicaof days beforehegavehismajorbrief- he preparedinalittlevillagecalled bility untendedduringthetimethat holds highintheAfghanmountain moved toheavilyfortifiedstrong- able results.Mujahedeensimply lery thanonairpower,withpredict- a severelydemoralizingfactorfor of directSovietairsupporthasbeen bombing inaccurateandineffective. range. ItalsomadetheSoviet titudes ofatleast20,000feet.This er valley,whichIwitnessedlatelast size ofafootballfieldendzone,they Soviets begantorelymoreonartil- Soviet andAfghanArmytroops. put theraidingjetsfaroutofStinger year, wereallconductedfromal- Massoud wasabletotellhis men The resultswerestartling. His advanceintelligencewasphe- Starting withagridalmostthe Even so,Massoudleftnopossi- With itsairarmconstrained,the Many believethatthedwindling weapons the enemy possessed. He knew where each of the 300 Army soldiers and the hated Khad secret police agents slept. Also, Massoud knew the exact locations of mines on the valley surrounding the target. "The first company is in the gar- rison," says Massoud. "It has three officers and thirty-seven soldiers." He lists the number of rounds of ammunition. There are 340 Ka- lashnikovs. He also knows that they have 200 bags of flour and one barrel of oil. "Understand?" Massoud asked. "Any questions?" In retrospect, the outcome of the battle at that point was foreor- dained. Throughout the night, reb- els gathered their weapons, hauling some onto their backs and strapping ie others onto the few horses and don- kenz Mac keys they had on hand, heading for d positions. har Ric

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A Clear Victory to Pho

The battle was scheduled to begin — shortly after 6:00 a.m., but half an Rebel leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, gesturing at right, briefs his troops minutes hour before that, an enemy soldier before the battle at Keran. In a scant forty minutes, his rebels overran the Afghan army base, capturing more than 300 government soldiers and inflicting twenty-nine walked out of his barracks and casualties. Massoud's careful preparations held his losses to fourteen mujahedeen headed toward an open area used as killed and eleven injured. Other government bases up the valley were later taken a lavatory. When he unexpectedly without firing a shot. came upon a squad of mujahedeen who had slipped into a garden at the pected, were prepared to fight to the eleven others injured. But the Sovi- edge of the perimeter, he sounded last man. Above all, they feared et-backed forces got the worst of an alarm, and the battle com- what would happen to them if they things by far. For their part, govern- menced. were captured alive. They are so ment troops lost twenty-nine killed, Above, on a mountainside, Mas- hated by Afghans at large for their with more than 300 taken captive. soud's heavy-weapons men were atrocities and torture that they knew The attack was supposed to be still struggling as they tried to haul what kind of end they could expect only the first of a series of assaults guns into the prearranged spots. to meet. "They fight to the last bul- on Soviet-supported forces in the Even so, reluctant to sacrifice the let," says one guerrilla, "and keep area. But other bases operated by tactical initiative, Massoud gave the that for themselves." Afghan militia further up the valley order to attack—though he realized Help in the form of Soviet air- were less of a challenge. To take that fewer than half the heavy weap- power never came. Toward the close them, Massoud sent an elderly local ons were where they should be. of the fighting, two MiGs roared resident with a letter, offering to "God is great!" he cried into a high overhead, obscured in part by treat them well if they surrendered. two-way radio, and the valley ex- thick clouds. The guerrillas glanced About half did. The remainder fled. ploded with bullets, rockets, and up nervously and waited. The Today, Soviet fortunes have tracer shells. sounds continued for a some sec- come full circle in the war in Af- The Army base fell in forty min- onds before they passed on by, their ghanistan. They began by establish- utes. As mujahedeen raced across pilots apparently oblivious to the ing a static defense around key the valley floor, following paths they defeat being administered below. bases and important roads. When had been told were clear of mines, Mohammad Karim Jalili, the Sting- that didn't work, they began to ven- only a few of the Afghan conscripts er operator, simply shrugged, disap- ture out, as in the attacks on the inside the main base put up any sort pointed at the missed opportunity. Panjshir. But by 1987, they were of a fight. Bedraggled, shocked, Despite some shortcomings, the figuratively back in their bunkers without spirit, and with no fight in operation represented a clear victo- again, looking for a way out. them, most threw down their weap- ry for the partisans. A total of four- The Battle of Keran helps to ex- ons. In the midst of what battle teen mujahedeen were killed and plain why. • there was, the commander of the base fled. Richard Mackenzie, a native of Australia, has been a senior writer for Insight Gunfire continued around the magazine since 1985. Mr. Mackenzie spent three and one-half months in area held by the Khad men. These Afghanistan in late 1987. He returned to the Afghan camps on the Pakistan armed intelligence forces, as ex- border this spring.

AIR FORCE Magazine / September 1988 153