The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War - Ali Ahmad Jalali

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this provided the leaders of these factions withpolitical power which they used to dominate the politics of post-communist Afghanistan. The Pakistani authorities favored the most-fundamentalist groups and rewarded them accordingly. This aiddistribution gave the Afghan religious leaders unprecedented power inthe conduct of the war. It also undermined the traditional authority ofthe tribal and village leaders.

      The Mujahideen were unpaid volunteers with family responsibili-ties. This meant that they were part-time warriors and that spoils ofwar played a major role in military actions. Mujahideen sold mostlycaptured weapons and equipment in the bazaars to support theirfamilies As the war progressed, mobile Mujahideen groups emerged.The mobile Mujahideen groups were larger and consisted of young (under 25), unmarried, better-trained warriors. Sometimes the mobile Mujahideen were paid. The mobile Mujahideen ranged over a muchlarger area of operations than the local Mujahideen and were moreresponsive to the plans and desires of the factions.

      Terrain, as any infantryman knows, is the ultimate shaper of thebattlefield. Afghanistan's terrain is varied and challenging. It isdominated by towering mountains and forbidding desert. Yet it alsohas lush forests of larch, aspen and juniper. It has tangled "greenzones"—irrigated areas thick with trees, vines, crops, irrigation ditch-es and tangled vegetation. It has flat plains full of wheat and swampyterraces which grow delicious long-grained rice. It is not ideal terrain for a mechanized force dependent on fire power, secure lines of commu-nication and high-technology. It is terrain where the mountainwarrior, using ambush sites inherited from his ancestors, can inflict "death from a thousand cuts". The terrain dictates different tactics,force structure and equipment from those of conventional war.

      This book is not a complete history of the Soviet-Afghan War.Rather, it is a series of combat vignettes as recalled by the Mujahideenparticipants. It is not a book about right or wrong. Rather, it is a bookabout survival against the overwhelming firepower and technologicalmight of a superpower. This is the story of combat from the guerrilla'sperspective. It is the story of brave people who fought without hope ofwinning because it was the right thing to do.

      1 ↑ Claude Malhauret, Afghan Alternative Seminar, Monterey, California, November 1993.

       Table of Contents

      Author Les Grau, regularly travels back and forth to Russia. Hereceived a book from the History of Military Art department at theFrunze Combined Arms Academy in Moscow. The book was intendedfor students' classroom use only and, as such, shows both the goodand the bad. With Frunze Academy permission, Les translated thisbook and added commentary before it was published by NDU Pressas The. Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics inAfghanistan. Author Ali Jalali, helped in the editing process. "TheBear" showed the tactics of the Soviets, but the Mujahideen tacticswere absent. Charlie Cuthbertson and Dick Voltz of the USMC inQuantico agreed that both sides needed to be presented and sent Aliand Les to Pakistan and Afghanistan to interview Mujahideen com-manders for a companion volume.

      Author Ali Jalali has the perfect credentials to do this book. Aliwas a Colonel in the Afghan Army and taught at the Afghan Military Academy and Army Staff College. His foreign education included the Infantry Officer's Advanced Course at Fort Benning, Georgia; theBritish Army Staff College at Camberley; and the Soviet FrunzeAcademy. Many of Ali's officer students were key resistance figures.Ali was also a member of the resistance and an accredited journalistduring the conflict. Now Ali works as a journalist and has coveredAfghanistan and Central Asia over the last 15 years. Ali is respectedby all the factions and has exceptional entre to the Mujahideen.

      All and Les arrived in Pakistan in September 1996 and were preparing to go into Afghanistan when the Taliban advance on Kabulclosed the borders to American citizens. Ali interviewed some 40Mujahideen during a month in Peshawar, Quetta, and Islamabad,Pakistan. Our colleague, Major Nasrullah Safi, conducted interviewsfor another two months inside Afghanistan for this book. The inter-views are the basis of this book. In those interviews where we haveseveral sources for the same vignette or where we have lots ofsupporting written reports and material, we have written the vignettein the third person. In those cases where the person interviewed is theprimary source, we have written the vignette in the first person. Thevignettes are arranged chronologically by type of action. Occasionally,when the actions occur at the same place over time, we lump thoseactions together instead of chronologically. We have tried to make thebook as accurate as possible, but realize that time and retelling mayhave altered some of the facts. We have limited the span of the bookfrom the Soviet invasion until their withdrawal. The war startedbefore the Soviet invasion and continued long after their departure. We plan to write about these battles in a future book. We used edition 2-DMA series U611 1:100,000 maps from the U.S.Defense Mapping Agency for the final preparation of the material.For those who wish to consult the map sheets, map sheet numbersare given with each vignette. We have numbered each vignette within the chapter and started each chapter with a country map showing the rough location of each vignette. The interviews were long andexhaustive, so many details are available. Many of the interviewswere conducted at different times and places, with different peoplewho had been part of the same battle or operation. This allowed usto check and compare details and sequences of events. Map eleva-tions are given in meters. Contour intervals are not consistent andmerely show elevation. Place and name spelling is based on Ali Jalali's best transliteration efforts. Consistency in spelling is difficult when two alphabets are involved—some spellings are different than in other books on Afghanistan. Although the Mujahideen always say 'Russian' instead of 'Soviet', we have used 'Soviet' throughout unless it is a direct quote.

      We use Russian map graphics on the maps. The Afghan Army used the Soviet graphics system and most Mujahideen were familiar with them. Russian graphics are more "user friendly" ( flexible and illustrative) than Western graphics. The Russians can show thesequential development of an action by adding times or identifyinglines to their graphics. These lines are explained in the legend. A table of Russian map graphics is located in the back of the book. Mujahideen forces are shown in blue and Soviet/DRA forces are shown in red.

      The ambush is a favorite tactic of the guerrilla since it allows him to mass forces covertly, attack the enemy, seize needed supplies and retreat before the enemy can effectively react. The ambush has long been part of the Afghan warrior tradition and has been a key feature of historic Afghan warfare—whether fighting other tribes, the British or the government. The Mujahideen ambush served to attack the Soviet/DRA lines of communication, provided needed supplies, and forced the bulk of Soviet/DRA maneuver forces to perform security missions. Logistics were key to the conduct of the Soviet/Afghan War and Mujahideen ambushes threatened the resupply of Soviet and DRA forces and limited the number of Soviet troops that could be deployed into the country. The Mujahideen ambush was their most effective counter to Soviet/DRA military activity and threatened the ability of the Soviets and DRA to prosecute the war.

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