Raid on Kandahar communications center

Infantry Magazine, Jan-Feb, 2004

Editor's Note: This vignette was adapted from The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War, which was written by Ali Ahmad Jalali and Lester Grau. The vignette was submitted by Ghulam Farouq, who was an urban guerilla in Kandahar. He belonged to the Islamic Movement of Ayatollah Shaikh Asef Muhseni, a minority Shia Muslim faction. This action is significant because it is in the pattern followed by Afghan and Iraqi insurgents" even today. This vignette talks to the weaknesses of planning for this raid: lack era rehearsal, poor reconnaissance, and the result of being taken under fire at a critical juncture all contributed to the mission's failure. Examination of raids and ambushes against Coalition forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan today likewise reveal weaknesses of our adversary. He is vulnerable and can be defeated in detail if we take the time to learn how he operates.

VIGNETTE

I continued to use my high school student identification to get around Kandahar. I would deliver messages for the Mujahideen and try to contact DRA soldiers who might give me valuable information or agree to cooperate with the resistance. In August 1984, I again found a DRA soldier who wanted to cooperate. His name was Hanif and he worked in the Kandahar Telephone Exchange Center. He and his friend in the DRA agreed to help us, so I took Hanif to our base south of the city in Chardewal to talk to my commander, Ali Yawar. Ali Yawar said that the exchange was too strong to take in a raid, but Hanif said that he and his friends would help.

Several nights later, Ali Yawar assembled 120 Mujahideen for the raid. We used the northern approach from Kalacha-e Mirza Mohammad Khan to Chawnay suburb. From Chawnay, we went to Topkhana--the Shia section of the city. Then we moved down Bala Street. Ali Yawar posted about 100 Mujahideen as security along our route. Finally, we arrived at a point directly across from the outpost which guarded the telephone exchange. We gave our flashlight signal and Hanif answered it. Ali Yawar posted additional security and then we crossed the street one at a time. Twelve of us went inside the walled compound. It had a guard house and other buildings. Hanif took us all into the guard house. We sat there while roving DRA security patrol passed outside. As usual, the security patrol came from the east and passed by the compound. 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 this fashion, we got rid of the three sentries.

We spent some 35 minutes in the guard room dodging the patrols and getting rid of the sentries. We exited the guard room carrying our jerry cans of gasoline. We planned to burn down the telephone exchange and surrounding compound. As we entered the main telephone exchange building, the guard who was sleeping inside woke up. As we were climbing the stairs to the second floor, he took his Kalishnikov and began shooting. He killed Mohammad Nabi from Chardewahl and Sherandam. He wounded Ghulam Reza. Things became very chaotic at that point. We were firing in all directions and other people were firing back. No one knew what was going on. We grabbed nine Kalashnikovs and our dead and wounded and left. In our haste, we did not set anything on fire. We retraced our steps and reached Kalacha-e Mirza Mohammad Khan about 0230 in the morning. The next day, we learned that we killed four DRA soldiers plus some of their relatives who were staying there with them.

DISCUSSION

While we can obviously not depend upon chance and our adversary's deficiencies to assure of us of victory, we do need to recognize that he is neither invincible nor incapable of making mistakes. Despite his advantages of language, appearance, familiarity with the environment, and his status as an "insider" as it were, the very factors that normally work in favor of the insurgent can cause him to become complacent and in fact lead to his downfall.

The failure of this raid on an important target can be traced at least in part to complacency which resulted in the failure to formulate a detailed, rehearsed plan. Much of the planning was left to a collaborator, many of whom are unreliable at best, and this led to a loss of control once the operation was underway. The 120-man Mujahideen raiding party should have been able to sweep over the objective, but did not. No provision had been made for a covering force to either reinforce the attackers on order, or to create a diversion to permit the main element to either execute the mission or break contact.