Ali Ahmad Jalali

“ URBAN COMBAT Urban guerrillas are surrounded by potential informants and government spies. They must frequently move around unarmed and the government can usually react to their actions much faster than they can in the countryside. For this reason, urban guerrilla groups were usually small and fought back with short-duration actions. Many urban guerrillas lived in the countryside or suburbs and only entered the cities for combat.
VIGNETTE 1: KIDNAPING A SOVIET ADVISER by Commander Shahabuddin (Commander Shahabuddin is from Shewaki Village south of Kabul.) ”

“ I did not have any earprotectors for any of us, so I wanted the gunner to keep his mouthopen during the firing to equalize the pressure. In order to do this, Itold him to loudly chant "Allahu Akbar" [God is the greatest] threetimes before firing. My new gunner, who was a Shia, smiled and saidhe would do so but would add "Ya Ali" at the end of the litany.' 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. ”

“ Many of the urban guerrilla commanders maintainedtheir main operating base within the suburbs or outlying villageswhere it was easier to assemble and train a group of men withoutgovernment observation. ”

“ Soviet conscripts would sell fuel,ammunition, weapons, batteries and military equipment for hashish,food and Afghan money. They would use the money in the bazaars ofKabul to buy western stereos, music tapes, cigarettes and clothing.Some goods were available in the Soviet PX, but conscripts had littleaccess or cash so they tried to shop locally for items they wanted. Mohammad Humayun Shahin joined the Mujahideen as a high school student and served asa combatant and commander in the HIH urban guerrillas in the southwestern suburbs ofKabul in the Chardehi District. ”

“ They did not notice anything unusual. Hanif told us to remain quiet since another roving patrol was due from the west. We waited until they passed.There were three other sentries inside the compound that we had to neutralize. Hanif had held a tea break during the three previous nights. After the two roving patrols passed, the sentries would gather individually in the guard house to talk and drink Hanif's tea and eat his cakes. As the first sentry entered the guard house, we overpowered him, bound and gagged him and took him to the outside security group who took him away. ”

“ In October 1983, I assembled 120 Mujahideen for theraid at our base at Yakhdara. We had 16 RPG-7s, three mortars,three 82mm recoilless rifles and numerous small arms. I divided theforce into three 20-man teams to attack the Bagrami textile compa-ny, the police station, and our main objective, the city bus trans-portation authority. Sixty men constituted the security elementwhich would secure our route of advance and withdrawal. A primaryconsideration of the urban guerrilla is always covering his route ofretreat. We moved our force from our base and spread out into thesurrounding villages. ”

“ Neither type of bombing attack is surgical and both types kill innocent bystanders. The only real difference is in the size of the bomb and the means of delivery. The Mujahideen lacked an airforce but retained a limited bombing option. The Soviets had an airforce and conducted large-scale bombing attacks throughout the war.
VIGNETTE 3: INCIDENT AT QALA-E JABAR by Mohammad Humayun Shahin During Ramadan (June) of 1981, five Mujahideen were assigned to meet with a Soviet soldier in Qala-e Jabar to buy some Kalashnikov magazines from him. ”

“ Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan. War
VIGNETTE 5 - REMOTE-CONTROL ATTACK ON A CONVOY IN THE SUBURBS by Mohammad Humayun Shahin There were some 40 guerrillas in my force. We lived inside Kabuland in the suburbs. Most of the men were ethnic Pashtun, but therewere seven Dari speakers from outside Kabul as well. The Pashtuspeakers often mingled with the Kochi nomads who would pitch theirtents and graze their herds on the outskirts of Kabul. The Dari speak-ers posed as dairy product buyers when the DRA checked the area. In October 1982, I was a combatant, not a commander. ”

“ Further, sleepers don't always sleep throughout the night and guard houses get a lot of visitors. The raiders needed a covering force inside the compound. Maybe there was no other way to neutralize the other sentries, but this was high risk to the raiding party. The collaborator should have known about the sentry inside the telephone exchange, but apparently made no plan to silence him before the force entered the building. A raiding force needs to get in and out in a hurry Since the commander had abrogated his command for the critical phase, when things went bad, everyone acted on his own. ”

“ 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 andlubricate our weapons and then wrap them in cotton cloth and thenput them into sealed plastic bags. We would hide the plastic bags insewer pipes and other out-of-the-way, hidden spotg. We prepared forthe mission, took out our weapons and waited for dark. We left Qala-e Chitgar in the late evening. The village is some four kilometers westof the target building. ”

“ We charged reasonable prices. The Soviets and local people got used to seeing us there and buying from us. We kept this up for several days. At night, we would work on the pushcart. We put in a false bottom in the cart so that we could put our bombs in the bottom of the cart and they would be undetected even if the cart were inspected. We attacked on the 2nd of October 1983. We loaded five bombs into the bottom of the cart. We inserted time pencil fuses in the bombs and set them for 0743. ”

“ Thatstill failed to stop the urban guerrilla. The DRA had more success incontrolling Kabul—but still were unable to stop the rocket attacks andguerrilla actions. On the other hand, surviving urban guerrillas areharder to find to interview. The urban guerrilla must be anonymousand ruthless to survive. The Soviets and DRA devoted a great deal ofeffort to finding and eliminating the urban guerrilla. ”

“ Chapter 14, Vignette 14 Page 397 COMMENTARY: The Mujahideen penetration of the DRA was essentialfor successful raids like this. Entering a sleeping compound is alwaysa high-risk proposition since someone is always awake, or wakes up,besides the sentries. A secure approach and withdrawal route is essen-tial to urban guerrillas. Having local guerrillas secure the routeallowed the force to bring enough people to carry the weapons withoutworrying about being ambushed on the way out.
CHAPTER COMMENTARY Urban combat is difficult for the urban guerrilla and the regularforce. ”

“ VIGNETTE 11 - NIGHT RAID ON A CITY OUTPOST by Ghulam Farouq I was a high school student in Kandahar. I used my student iden-tification to move freely around the city to support the Mujahideen. Iwould try to make contacts with DRA soldiers in the governmentoutposts during the day and then the Mujahideen would use thesoldiers' information to attack them at night. One day in January1984, I made contact with a soldier who showed a willingness to coop-erate with the Mujahideen in capturing his outpost. This was theSaray-e Saat-ha security outpost in Kandahar. ”

“ The best training was conducted in trainingcamps in Pakistan or in mountain bases. Unless urban guerrillas weresent out for training, they had very little live-fire training other thanactual combat. Usually, urban guerrillas would detail a large securityparty to hold the withdrawal route. In this case, the five-man teamrelied on local contacts to watch the area rather than posting routesecurity.
Vignette 14 - Raid on 15 Division Garrison by Commander Akhtarjhan The DRA 15th Infantry Division was garrisoned in Kandahar city.We had contacts within the division. ”

“ He led us on a convoy attack against the Kot-e Sangi--Darulaman road near Qala-e Alimardan (Map Alimardan) . Itwas a combined action involving HIH forces under Commander Didar,Commander Firoz and Commander Qarar, as well as fighters from theMohseni faction. The combined force numbered 76 men. We expecteda convoy from Darulaman to Kabul the next day. We all moved to thearea at night and surrounded the area. Our mining teams emplacedseven remote-controlled (shartaki) mines Then they camouflagedthem. ”