Читать книгу The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War - Ali Ahmad Jalali - Страница 21

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by Toryalai Hemat

(Toryalai Hemat was a regiment commander of a mobile force allied with the IUA-Islamic Union of Afghanistan of Sayyaf. He fought in many provinces in Afghanistan.)

In the summer of 1986, the Soviets and DRA were moving lots of reinforcements and supplies to Paktia Province. We set an ambush on Highway 157 south of Mohammad Agha District headquarters on the 12th of July. This was four days after an ambush at the Mamur Hotel. I sited the ambush along a two-kilometer stretch between Qala-e Shekhak and Dehe Naw. Qala-e Shekhak is six kilometers south of Mohammad Agha and Dehe Naw is three kilometers further south from Qala-e Shekhak. There was a DRA outpost at Qala-e Shekhak, so we started our ambush a kilometer south of the outpost. The outpost was surrounded by mines and the DRA seldom left the outpost. I felt that the DRA might shoot at us, but would not attack from the outpost (Map 8 - Two Convoys).

I had 35 Mujahideen in my group. I divided them into four groups - a northern containment group, an ambush group, a southern security group and a support group. The northern containment group was to fire on the DFU outpost to prevent them from interfering with our ambush. The ambush group would attack the convoy from close up. The southern security group would occupy a position at Dehe Naw to protect our southern flank and prevent the arrival of reinforcements from the south. These three groups were armed with AK-47s, PK machine guns and RPGs. The support group had one 82mm mortar and a Goryunov machine gun.^[3] I positioned the support group on the east bank of the Logar River behind the ambush group. All the groups were on the east side of the road. We moved from Ahmadzi Qala before dawn and occupied our ambush positions.

We did not have any advance information on the movement of columns, but there were enough columns moving to Paktia. At this time, there was usually a daily column, so it was a free hunt. There were many petrol tankers in these convoys. They were easy to set on fire, and just firing at them would do the job. Once you set them on fire, it would demoralize the entire column as everyone could see the smoke. We always wanted to hit DRA columns since they wouldn't fight, whereas Soviet columns would. Usually when a column would come, the enemy would establish security forces at suspected ambush sites and occupy them until the column passed or until they were certain that nothing was going to happen. Many times we wouldn't risk taking on the entire column. We would attack the tail since the enemy would not turn back to help the petroleum tankers at the rear. The column would often reach Gardez, but they would have lost a piece of it along the way. Attacking the column in the rear was less risk to us, although sometimes there would be some APCs at the rear of the column.

The enemy reaction when caught in the kill zone was usually ineffective. They normally stopped, dismounted and took cover. They fought back only when assistance arrived. We learned to hit the column and leave. We did not want to fight reinforcements or helicopters because we did not have enough combat power and it was very hard to move our wounded from the area under fire. Later in the morning, a Soviet security force of armored vehicles moved close to us and occupied a position. Then the column came from the north. The security force rejoined the column before the entire column passed. This left the fuel tankers in the rear of the column for us! We hit them by surprise, and it was effective. We damaged or destroyed one jeep and nine tankers. Mohammad Hashem took mt an armored security vehicle with his RPG. We later learned that two Russians fled from the south-bound column when we ambushed it. They were captured by Mujahideen from HIH. As we were getting ready to leave the ambush site, a Soviet armored column came from the south. My southern security group had already pulled back, so we were caught totally by surprise. They began pouring fire into our ranks. Four helicopters also flew over firing at us.

Mohammad Hashem hit one helicopter with his RPG, but the fight was unequal. All of my group, except for Ehsan and myself were wounded - most of them were wounded while we were withdrawing. Most were lightly wounded, but two of them are still paralyzed. What happened is that as we ambushed the tail of the southbound column, a north-bound column was traveling on the same section of road. The heavily-armored head of the north-bound column arrived at the kill zone as we were withdrawing. Helicopters were flying air cover for the arriving column as well. Since my southern security group had withdrawn, we did not know of their arrival until they were firing at us.