The 1978 Revolution and the Soviet Invasion
Daoud's fears about his possible overthrow led to his increasingly repressive internal policies. He used the police to try to forcibly squelch any opposition. In November 1977 anger over Daoud's excesses caused a temporary rupture between Daoud on one hand and his younger brother Naim and six cabinet ministers on the other. From late summer of 1977 to early spring of 1978, a series of prominent Afghans were murdered, including the chief pilot of Ariana Afghan Airlines (who was the leader of a recent strike) and the minister of planning. On. April 17, 1978, Mir Akbar Khyber, a Parchami theorist, was murdered. His was the most important death for Afghan politics. The identities of the perpetrators were never fully ascertained; but at the time; many believed Daoud's police to be the executioners.
Louis Dupree, who was present at the time of the PDPA takeover, vividly described the events of April 27 28, 1978. Upon Khyber's death, Khalqi army cells prepared for a massive uprising. On April 27 the Khalqi military leaders began the revolution by proclaiming to the cells in the armed forces that the time for revolution had arrived. Khalqi Major Watanjar (of the Fourth Armored. Unit at'Pol a Charkhi) readied his troops.
This included his leading a convoy of nine light tanks and 40 or 50 heavy T 62 tanks to Kabul. Daoud's defense minister, General Rasooli, remained loyal to the government and "ordered a special unit to protect the Presidential Palace." The unit was unable to comply with the defense minister's order because Khalqi officers killed the commander of the unit and prevented the unit from assuming its position.
Rasooli next contacted the air force. He could not rely on nearby Bagrami Air Base because he and Daoud suspected that the pilots' political sympathies lay with the PDFA. He therefore called upon Shindand Air Base, which sent two "fully armed" MiG 21s to Kabul. At this point the 1,800 men of the Presidential Guard came to support the palace. The uprising proceeded rapidly, and by midday Khalqi tanks approached the Ministry of National Defense compound just opposite the palace. The revolutionaries' occupation of the ministry compound prevented loyal officers from contacting provincial units that might have come to their aid. The airport was still in government hands; the 15th Armored Division, under the command of Colonel Muhammad Yousuf, was firmly entrenched. Watanjar sent tanks to wrest the airport from Yousuf's forces.
Shortly after the defense ministry fell, the Presidential Guard, with well aimed bazookas and an active defense, succeeded in driving PDPA tanks out of firing range of the palace. Daoud waited in vain for the antitank units and Eighth Mechanized Division; Khalqi officers were in the majority and prevented the units from reaching Daoud. The two MiG 21s dispatched from Shindand flew over Kabul, but ground to air contact was nonexistent, so the pilots had no idea who controlled what and where they should strike.
Daoud and Rasooli were correct in their assessment of the Bagrami base's loyalty. At approximately 3:00 P.M. on April 27, MiG 21s and Su 7s at Bagrami Air Base were armed; pursuant to the command of Colonel Abdul Qader (deputy commander of the air force and instrumental in the 1973 coup). It was Watanjar and Qader who were responsible for the coordinated ground and air attack on the palace. While Watanjar and Qader met to plan the attack, loyalist General Rasooli, Abdul Ali, and Abdul Aziz arranged for deployment of the 8th Infantry Division to Kabul. At about 3:30 P.M., Dupree reports, "the first two Su 7s attacked, launching rockets and firing 120mm cannon into the Presidential Palace . . . . Air strikes from Bagram began in earnest, MiG 21s or Su 7s remained constantly in the air, but no more than six were over Kabul at one time." Daoud's Presidential Guard was sorely pressed and unable to mount an effective antiaircraft defense. By 7:00 that evening the only pockets of loyalist resistance were the 7th Infantry Division stationed south of Kabul at Rishkor and the Presidential Guard at the palace. Dupree recalls that the Presidential Guard "continued to fight gallantly, holding out against constant pressure from the tanks while being hammered from the air." After dark, the unfortunate Presidential Guard took rocket fire from helicopters and was attacked by jets. Dupree noted that "a bright half moon made further sorties by jets possible."
Although Rasooli led the 7th Division out under cover of darkness, he unhappily chose to march in full battle gear and in tight military formation, providing a perfect target for Khalqi aircraft. By midnight the Seventh Division was no more. The force had been stopped before achieving its objective of reaching the palace and never even made it into downtown Kabul; many of the surviving soldiers chose to defect to the PDPA forces. The beleaguered Presidential Guard bore the unremitting air and ground assaults unrelieved by reinforcements, and by 4:30 A.M. on April 28 they surrendered. As for Rasooli, when the PDPA found him and some associates hiding in a chicken coop, the ensuing skirmish put an end to both him and his colleagues. By 5:00 A.M., Mohammadzai rule had ended. Mortality figures for the revolution differ; Taraki claimed that 72 people died, whereas others cite numbers ranging into the thousands. Most observers agree that Taraki's figure is too low. PDPA forces murdered senior members of Daoud's government during and immediately after the revolution, and these deaths were almost certainly omitted from Taraki's accounting. It is not known for certain who commanded the PDPA during the takeover. Bradsher believes that the commander was neither Taraki nor Amin.
The Armed Forces After the PDPA Takeover
Military analyst George Jacobs writes that before the revolution the armed forces included "some three armored divisions (570 medium tanks plus T 55s on order), eight infantry divisions (averaging 4,500 to 8,000 men each), two mountain infantry brigades, one artillery brigade, a guards regiment (for palace protection), three artillery regiments, two commando regiments, and a parachute battalion (largely grounded). All the formations were under the control of three corps level headquarters. All but three infantry divisions were facing Pakistan along a line from Bagram south to Qandahar." Although there had been heated verbal exchanges with Pakistan over the Pashtunistan issue, Pakistan had never threatened attack. It was unclear to some observers why the prerevolution Afghans needed so many Soviet weapons. Certainly fewer and lighter weapons could have provided sufficient firepower to quell internal rebellions. Anthropologists suspected that the hardware was obtained for cultural reasons as an expression of Afghan notions of manhood.
The effect of so many sophisticated weapons in Afghanistan was to bring down Daoud more easily. The PDPA regime sought to develop the armed forces even further. High on the list of PDPA military priorities was the preservation of the armed .forces' unity. The fledgling government purchased more hardware from the Soviet Union and invited what Jacobs terms "Soviet company level units" to visit.
According to Bradsher, 350 Soviet military advisers participated in the PDPA military coup. Soviet personnel appear to have accompanied the PDPA controlled armored units that were responsible for the successful takeover of the military section of Kabul International Airport. Soviet advisers came, in a managerial and supportive capacity, to the aid of the air force at Bagrami Air Base.
The Soviet Union sent the person in charge of its army's Main Political Administration, General Aleksey Alekseyevich Yepishev, to Afghanistan in April 1979, to evaluate how his country could best support the increasingly weak Afghan government. Although it was clear to Yepishev that the Afghans could not effectively counter a large scale popular uprising, the PDPA government had not been idle in its attempts to strengthen the military. According to the account published by Jacobs, "efforts were being made to raise two added infantry divisions (to ten); to raise the strength of the tank units (200plus T 55s and 40 to 45 T 62s were being delivered during this period); and to begin modernising the air force (adding later model MiG 21s, delivery of 12 Mi 24 Hind As and a few Hind Ds and possibly augmenting the 12 Czech L 39s delivered in late 1977)." Yepishev's visit produced an increased presence of Soviet advisers in Afghanistan (about 1,000 in preinvasion Afghanistan) and an increase in the number of Afghan military personnel sent for training to the Soviet Union.
The redoubtable Nuristanis, last to be forcibly converted to Islam and first to rebel against the PDPA, presented the government with its largest problem in late 1978 and early 1979. In late 1978 local Nuristani tribes controlled Konarha province. According to some reports, the resistance fighters were Hezb e Islami members. The government deployed the 11th Infantry Division (of Jalalabad). Nuristani rebels claimed that 1,500 of these troops defected, but the government denied the allegation. The guerrillas' tactics were traditional and their weapons outmoded. They had some captured Kalashnikov assault rifles, but they relied primarily on locally produced rifles and rifles dating from World War I. With these armaments they ambushed and sniped at government forces.
Even with massive Soviet aid, the government's war against the rebels did not prosper. For example, at the end of October a significant operation directed against resistance fighters in Paktia Province was only successful in the very short term. Soviet advisers planned the attack, commanded the Afghan forces, and provided air: support. About 40,000 refugees fled to Pakistan during the 10 day offensive. The Afghan military employed recently obtained T 62 tanks, APCs, Mi 4 Hind helicopter gunships, and MiG 21s. Afghan tribal warfare had always included the principle of retreat in the face of a superior force; accordingly, the guerrillas withdrew. No sooner was the operation over and the tanks back in Kabul than the resistance returned to take up their old positions.
Still the guerrilla war continued, and still Afghan troops defected. Cases of large scale defections abounded. For example, Indian political scientist Vijay Kumar Bhasin describes a massive defection that occurred in mid November 1979 in Garden (in Faktia) involving 30 tanks and 300 government soldiers. Guerrillas may also have captured the Zabol military cantonment and seized large numbers of weapons, including antiaircraft guns. Reportedly 1,000 government soldiers surrendered in this action.
The defections hit closer to home. A severe battle occurred at Rishkor, just a few kilometers southwest of the capital. The garrison revolted: Bhasin describes the battle from accounts by eyewitnesses: "There were several hundred casualties in hours of heavy fighting in the Rishkor. Division. During the battle which lasted from 14 October to the afternoon of 15 October, the government brought in its tanks, mortars; modern Soviet Mi 24 assault helicopters and bombers."
Although there is general agreement over the immediate causes of the invasion, the assessment of Moscow's long term goals and strategies is more controversial. One school of thought explains the invasion primarily (sometimes solely) in terms of a short term preoccupation with rescuing a friendly and dependent socialist regime from external attack and internal disintegration. Troops were deployed to manage an emergency and then depart, similar perhaps to United States military intervention in Lebanon in 1958 or in the Dominican Republic in 1965. The quick fix did not work. In December 19$5 Soviet troops had been in the country six years; Moscow was caught in the Afghan "'quagmire:"
A "strategic" school of thought, often drawing on the determinism of early twentieth century geopolitics, depicts the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan as the inevitable march of a "heartland" power to the sea. In 1904 the British geographer Halford Mackinder published a highly influential article, "The Geographical Pivot of History," arguing that Central Asia (the "pivot" later known, as the "heartland"), being immune to nave power, was an impregnable base from which a state (Russia; could assert world domination: Other theorists (particularly A T. Mahan, a proponent of naval power) argued that Russia needed access to warm water ports because its vast land area precluded easy communication between European Russia and Siberia: The Russo Japanese War of 1904 05 seemed to vindicate this view. The Trans Siberian Railway could not fern supplies in sufficient volume to support the tsar's land armies in Manchuria. The Russian Baltic Fleet sailed eight months after being denied access to the Suez Canal by the British, to reach East Asian waters. Low on supplies and with mutinous crews, it sailed unto the Strait of Tsushima in May 1905 and was decimated by a Japanese fleet. A supply and refueling base was needed in the Indian Ocean. Observers predicted that Russia would seek to carve a corridor, through western Afghanistan or Iran, to the Arabian Sea: In an age of strategic bombers an intercontinental ballistic missiles, the dynamic of geopolitic seems obsolete. For marry analysts, however, the occupation
Afghanistan was a decisive step in Soviet Russia's march to the Indian Ocean. Moscow's strategy of cultivating friendly relations with Indian Ocean states, such as India, Madagascar, ax South Yemen, and the buildup of a Soviet naval presence in the area during the 1960s arid 1970s seemed to justify such conclusion. Once in firm possession of Afghanistan the reasoning goes the Soviets could extend their influence and control southward to Pakistan, an unstable and ethnically divided state on the Indian Ocean's rim. One respected analyst has suggested that by the early twenty first century the Soviets either would have retreated back across the Amu Darya or, will be the dominant military and political force in South Asia and the Middle East.
It was generally believed in the US at the time that the Soviet forces moved into Afghanistan in 1979 with the ultimate motive of capturing oil of the Persian Gulf. The economic realities of the second half of the 20th century [ie, oil] had added a new dimension to Russia's age old quest for a warm water port in the gulf. More than half of the oil involved in international trade comes from the region. In the words of former Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, "the consequences of a cutoff of Persian Gulf oil, for us in the west, are too catastrophic to ignore". A Soviet naval base in Iranian Chah Bahar or Pakistani Gwadar would carry a message of its own to the entire Indian Ocean littoral. It would give the Soviets the means to lean particularly hard of those states that supply strategicminerals to the West and Japan. This could give Moscow the potential for coercing Western Europe and Japan into trading oil for advanced technology. Keeping in view the large differential in their relative dependence on Gulf oil, such a policy could beused to drive a wedge between the United States and her closest allies. By this reckoning the politico-economic stakes in the Gulf were nothing less than global in nature.
It is impossible at the time to know, for certain whether the occupation was forced by circumstances or was part of a long-range plan. The weight of the evidence suggests the former. The strategic advantages to maintaining a military presence several kilometers closer to the Persian Gulf ale dubious. Enhanced Soviet military capabilities (long range aircraft and a fleet in the Indian Ocean) make installations south of the Amu Darya less essential. Nevertheless, the invasion brings certain dividends. A generation of Soviet officers is gaining experience in guerrilla warfare and "ticket punches" for rapid promotion. New weapon systems are being tested in actual combat. The country is rich in minerals, especially natural gas, and these can be exploited more easily than they could when Afghanistan was an independent country. But these advantages do not outweigh the costs, especially the enmity of Western and third World nations.
One perspective draws on both the emergency and the strategic schools of thought. It suggests that although the Soviets, for both ideological and strategic reasons, were determined to expand their, sphere of influence and control, they are acutely aware of their limitations. Thus, the decision .to intervene was taken reluctantly and only after careful consideration. A useful analogy can, be made with the history of the British Empire in the mid and late nineteenth century. British expansionism on the fringes of the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere was defensive in the sense that policymakers were less concerned with building new empires than with protecting existing interests. Expeditions into Afghanistan in 1837 42 and 1878 79, for example, were undertaken not for conquest but to protect British territory in India. A closer analogy to the Soviet case is possibly the British annexation of Upper Burma in 1885. The weakness of .the Burmese state under King Thibaw promoted anarchy that threatened British commercial interests. There was, moreover a perceived threat of French intervention in Upper Burma, an area the British regarded as exclusively in their sphere of influence. When King Thibaw and his ministers proved unable or unwilling to restore order, protect privileges given the British by treaty, and expel the French, troops were ordered in.
Few Western observers in the mid 1980s believed that there would be an early end to the Soviet occupation. It appeared that the Soviets planned to stay in Afghanistan for at least 10 to 15 years for the same reason they invaded: to preserve a friendly regime that could not survive without substantial armed assistance. The military costs to Moscow were relatively modest. The number of Soviet troops in the country estimated by different sources as between 105,000 and 150,000 but most often given as about 118,000 was sufficient to maintain the status quo but not enough to decisively crush the resistance. (It was substantially less, for example than the 500,000 United States troops stationed in South South Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s.) This limited commitment would give the Soviets time to achieve several important goals: creation of strong party and state organizations, education of a new generation of Afghans loyal to the Soviet Union and the development of close cultural, social, and economic ties between Afghanistan and the Soviet socialist republic north of the Amu Darya. The long range perspective was most evident in Moscow's policy of sending Afghan children, particularly war orphans, to the Soviet Union for education. In 1984 a new program was initiated that involved the sending of thousands of children between the ages of seven and 10 to Soviet schools for a 10 year period. A contingent of 870 children was sent in November 1984.
Soviet Troop Strength
The Soviet armed forces that invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 consisted of about 40,000 officers and men and their equipment. The fierce resistance by Afghan guerrilla forces mujahidiin, literally meaning warriors engaged in a holy war. forced the Soviets to increase the size and sophistication of their military units, and in late 1985 a United States government official estimated that Soviet units in Afghanistan comprised about 118,000 men, of which about 10,000 were reported to be in the Soviet secret police and other special units.
One reason for the Soviet buildup was the ineffectiveness of Afghan military and paramilitary units. When the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in a coup d'état in April 1978, the army consisted of about 80,000 officers and men and the air force of about 10,000. Both services were almost completely. dependent on the Soviet Union for equipment and spare parts. A very large number of commissioned and noncommissioned officers had been trained in the Soviet Union, and Soviet military advisers were posted throughout the services. Nevertheless, by the time of the Soviet invasion the services had been seriously weakened by widespread desertions and by infighting among adherents of the two major factions of the PDPA Parcham and Khalq. Although data on the armed forces were necessarily incomplete and speculative, informed observers in late 1985 estimated the strength of the army at no more than 40,000. Most army personnel were conscripts, and many of them had been forced into service by roving press gangs. The air force reportedly had about 7,000 men in uniform, who were watched over by an estimated 5,000 Cuban and Czechoslovak advisers. Soviet military officers were responsible for important and routine military decisions, not only in the Ministry of National Defense but also in all units and detachments.
Reorganization and Consolidation of the Soviet Forces
One month after the invasion there were as many as 40,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan, and during the first year the occupation forces were reorganized. Some 10,000 of the troops such as the support forces of the 40th Army, its artillery and SA 4 brigades, several FROG battalions, and a tank regiment were useless in a guerrilla war and were sent back to the Soviet Union in mid 1980. These heavy units were replaced by infantry units, more helicopter gunships, and other light forces more appropriate for guerrilla warfare. United States estimates were that there were about 85,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan by late 1980 and about 100,000 by the end of 1981. The Soviets could not reduce troop strength any more than this without risking control of key points in Afghanistan because they could not rely on the Afghan army.
In the early days of the occupation the Soviets limited combat to the minimum needed to maintain their hold on the major cities and towns of Afghanistan. During this period the Afghan army itself, approximately 25,000 in number, was a major obstacle to Soviet aims, and the Soviets felt compelled to use heavy weapons against the army whose government they were presumably supporting. It was only at significant cost in casualties that the Soviet occupation forces subdued major mutinies by the Afghan 8th Infantry Division fn January 1980 and by the 14th Armored Division in July 1980.
Major guerrilla activities also harassed the Soviets only a few months after the occupation began, and the Soviets sent task forces as large as a division against the guerrillas in the Panjsher Valley in February 1980, Jalalabad in March 1980, and Herat in September 1980. There were also heavy bombardment and artillery attacks in 1981 against the latter two cities and Qandahar. Guerrilla strength in the Panjsher area was especially threatening, for it menaced the major Soviet supply line from Kabul to Mazar a Sharif through the Salang Tunnel, and this area was the scene of several Soviet assaults. Early Soviet battle tactics in Panjsher and elsewhere were notably unsuccessful. A Soviet reinforced motorized rifle battalion in Paktia, for example, left the main road and appears to have been virtually destroyed when its inexperienced troops panicked and hid behind their vehicles until they ran out of ammunition and were killed. This and other incidents convinced the Soviets that small unit tactics, as well as individual marksmanship standards, had to be improved immediately.
After the first few months the Soviets began to move toward decentralized support, such as ensuring that reinforced units had their own artillery, engineer, and helicopter support. New tactical units were also created, such as an air assault brigade, and new rifle battalions possessing integrated helicopter mechanized capability.
A major Soviet problem in the early days of the occupation resulted from the use of motorized rifle divisions from the Turkestan Military District. These units were low readiness formations and had only been brought up to combat strength by the addition of recalled reservists. These Central Asian soldiers not only fraternized with soldiers of the Afghan army but also with guerrilla forces, especially Tajiks with whom they had ethnolinguistic ties. Concerned about this problem, Soviet leaders eventually replaced most Central Asian soldiers with troops from other areas of the Soviet Union.
According to Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), most conscripts served six month tours in Afghanistan. Many of the other ranks were given no special training before their tour of duty, and some servicemen were sent to Afghanistan only a few weeks after being called up. NCOs were sent to a training division for six months before being posted to Afghanistan. A large number of the NCOs in the occupation forces, plus some enlisted men, were trained in Ashkhabad in Turkestan Military District, where there were large battle training areas.
The most significant units of the Soviet force in 1980-81 were the elite Guards Airborne regiments, elements of the 103d, 104th, and 105th divisions. These units established initial control around Bagrami Air Base at the time of the invasion, and in the next two years they were also stationed at the air bases at Kabul, Herat, and Shindand. These elite units, each with its own armor, were entrusted with the principal tasks of protecting the leaders of the new Afghan regime and controlling key urban centers and adjacent areas. To improve coordination between the army and the Air Assault Brigades, the Soviets began to construct permanent communication facilities to replace mobile field communications used in the early months of the occupation. This emphasis on centralization was inappropriate to the guerrilla war Soviet forces were fighting in Afghanistan, in which decentralized command would have been more effective. According to military analysts, decisions that would be made by a senior officer in conventional operations had to be made by junior officers, or even NCOs, in a guerrilla conflict. According to David C. Isby, the NCO/junior officer group was the weakest command level in the Soviet occupation forces. There were few NCOs with extensive service experience, and junior officers were frequently not competent to undertake the tasks they faced. Commanders began to comment in Soviet military journals on the need to improve the capacity of junior officers, warrant officers, and NCOs to make independent decisions.
Attempts were made during the first year of the Soviet occupation to rebuild the depleted Afghan army, first by such inducements as pay raises and reenlistment bonuses and then by such measures as more stringent conscription laws and impressment. None of these efforts was successful, not only because the regime itself was unpopular but also because the warfare in which potential recruits would be engaged was repugnant to most Afghans, i.e., a brutal guerrilla war against other Afghans. Intensified efforts in 1980 81, such as lowering the draft age and recalling discharged soldiers, were generally fruitless. According to the United States Department of State, press gangs were sent into Kabul to capture youths as young as 15 years of age, although that was under the legal draft age: At the end of 1980 Afghan military strength was estimated at 20,000 to 30,000.
When President Najib took power in 1986, there was a change of approach. First, Najib's government was designed as a massive project in political accommodation. Second, the government realized that Soviet military presence in Afghanistan was on the wane, and ethnic and tribal loyalties were exploited to establish local militias to fill the gap. The so-called Uzbek militia of General Dostum and the Ismaili militia of Sayyed Mansoor developed into major military units.
Soviet Occupation, 1982-85
A major principle of Soviet military doctrine is the use of heavy air offensives to stun and disorganize resistance operations. In Afghanistan this has mainly taken the form of helicopter assault, although there, as elsewhere, the Soviet Army depends on the helicopters of the Soviet Air Force. Normally these Frontal Aviation units have been attached either to a front level army command or, as independent mixed=helicopter squadrons, to selected motorized and tank divisions. The extent to which Soviet Frontal Aviation forces in Afghanistan were operationally integrated with the Afghan air force was unknown. The overall force disposition appeared to be under Soviet command.
Helicopters
Estimates of the number of Soviet helicopters in Afghanistan has ranged from 500 to 650, and, of these, it is estimated that up to 250 have been the Mi 24 Hind gunship. The Hind, with up to 192 unguided rockets under its stub wings and machine guns or cannon in. the nose turret; has room for eight to 12 soldiers and their equipment. The Hind has been used not only for search and destroy missions but also for close air support, assaults (sometimes along with fixed wing aircraft) on villages, and armed reconnaissance missions against guerrillas.
Hind helicopters have been deployed in Afghanistan since before the 1979 invasion; but Soviet tactics in using them have changed since then. Up to as late as 1985 several Hind helicopters would be used in a circular pattern to engage guerrillas directly, attacking in a dive from 1,000 meters with 57mm rockets and with cluster and high explosive 250 kilogram bombs. In 1985 Soviet use of Hinds began to change somewhat, and a wider variety of tactics began to be employed: using helicopters (either Hinds or Mi 8 Hips) as scouts; running in from 7,000 to 8,000 meters away, rising to 100 meters and drawing fire, and having other aircraft waiting behind a ridge to attack whomever opened fire; and using helicopters in mass formations.
The Hip is armed with 57mm rocket pods or (in the Hip E version) with a single barrel 12.7rnm gun. The drawbacks of the Hip, however, are the exposed fuel system, the relatively short rotor life (1,500 hours), and the time required for an engine change.
Two other Soviet helicopters used in, combat in Afghanistan have been the Mi 4 Hound and the Mi 6 Hook. The Hound has been used in what appears to be a forward air-control role for ground based artillery attacks. It has also been deployed in conjunction with the Hind, usually to commence an operation and then to circle while the Hinds attack, dropping heat decoys to ward off hits by hand held SA 7 heat-seeking missiles. The big Mi 6 Hook, which can hold up to 70 soldiers and their combat equipment and which has a range of 370 kilometers, has been attached principally to the 181st Independent Helicopter Regiment in Jalalabad and to the 280th Independent Helicopter Regiment in Qandahar and Shindand.
Fighter Bombers
Soviet fighter bombers have been deployed primarily for air to ground assault in Afghanistan. They have been used in terror bombing, scorched earth bombing, and carpet bombing. Fighter bombers have been deployed against guerrillas axed against settlements and cities; for example, half of thw city of Herat was reportedly destroyed in a 1983 assault.
Early in the war the Soviets relied primarily on the MiG21 Fishbed, with generally poor results. The MiG 21 is armed with one twin barrel 23mm gun (with 200 rounds of ammunition in a belly ,pack), four 57mm rocket packs, two 500 kilogram bombs, and two 250 kilogram bombs or four 240mm air-to surface rockets. The MiG-21 proved ineffective in combat in Afghanistan for several reasons: rockets were often fired from as far as 2,000 meters, which rendered them inaccurate; many bombs failed to explode on impact; the aircraft was best suited for air to ground combat situations; in a guerrilla war the early warning provided by fighter bomber attack tended to negate the effects of the strike;' and the mountainous terrain where guerrilla resistance has been concentrated has made air-to ground fire from fixed wing aircraft less effective, and the high altitudes, mountain peaks, and narrow valleys have made movement difficult for most fixed wing aircraft.
Because of the poor performance of the MiG 21 Fishbed, the Soviets introduced the other fixed wing aircraft, the Su 25 Frogfoot and the Tu 16 Badger. The Frogfoot is a close support aircraft designed for the same uses as the American made A 10. Carrying up to 4,500 kilograms of ordnance and used primarily to hit point targets in difficult terrain, the Frogfoot operated in loose pairs in combat in Afghanistan: At least one squadron of Frogfoot aircraft operated from Bagrami Air Base. The other fixed wing aircraft introduced by the Soviets was the Tu 16 Badger, a medium range bomber that can carry up to 8,950 kilograms of ordnance and fly more than 12,000 meters above sea level. Before April 1984 Badger units were deployed on the Soviet border. The Badgers were first used in the bombing campaign against the city of Herat, and in April 1984 they were used for high altitude carpet bombing of guerrilla bases in the Panjsher Valley, during which a reported 36 Badgers were used and 30 to 40 strikes made per day.
Although there appeared to be little threat to Soviet bombers because their guerrilla adversaries had no weapons that could reach fighter bomber altitude, the Soviets appeared to remain worried about antiaircraft fire, as manifested in their bombing tactics. Nelson, observing five Soviet air attacks; noticed that bombs were dropped from too high an altitude and rockets fired from too far away, with visibly inaccurate results. Thus the Soviets appear to be increasingly dependent upon helicopter forces as a vital part of their overall strategy in Afghanistan.
Air Bases
As of mid 1985 seven air bases had been built or significantly improved by the Soviets: Herat, Shindand, Farah, Qandahar, Kabul International Airport, Bagrami, and Jalalabad. Airfields at Mazar a Sharif, Konduz, Ghazni, and Pol a Charkhi also were improved somewhat. All were turned into all weather, jet air bases (although: Jalalabad continued to be principally for helicopters). The two most important air bases, where the sensitive technical support and maintenance capabilities were located, were at Bagrami and Shindand the former serving as the supreme local headquarters for the entire Soviet military operation in Afghanistan. Most military aircraft were not permanently based at any one field, for maintenance and support were concentrated at these two fields. No Afghans were permitted on the Shindand Air Base.
Chemical Warfare
The Soviet Union is believed to have an 80,000 man chemical and biological warfare establishment with specialist chemical defense units attached to divisions, battalions, and companies. Although the Soviets have described the main role of these forces as defensive, there have been many and varied reports of chemical weapon attacks by Soviet troops against guerrilla forces in Afghanistan. The United States Department of State reported that chemical bombs supplied by the Soviet Union were used against guerrillas in November 1978, even before the Soviet invasion. The State Department received reports of 47 different chemical attacks between mid 1979 and mid 1981, resulting in a death toll of more than 3,000. Thirty six of these reports were from Afghan army deserters, guerrillas, journalists, and physicians. Another serious report came from an Afghan army defector who gave the Far Eastern Economic Review details of Soviet supplied chemical and biological agents being used by Afghan army units. Although the veracity of the report was supported by its extensive detail, a number of questions remained.
Other reports by foreign journalists abound, and they suggest that the Soviets have used chemical weapons from helicopter units to drive guerrillas from caves or other dwellings in order to attack them with conventional weapons. In general, the numerous reports of chemical and biological agents being used against Afghan guerrillas, from a wide variety of sources, suggest that Soviet use of such materials may be extensive but remains highly selective. There have been reports by Afghan resistance leaders of decreased use of such agents, and, although a State Department report of February 21, 1984, charged the Soviets with more uses of chemical weapons, it did state that, contrary to previous years, the Soviet use of chemical weapons in 1983 "could not be confirmed as valid."
New Soviet Weapons
Several new weapons, which had not been seen outside the Soviet Union, were introduced in combat in Afghanistan since the 1979 invasion. Most of these new weapons have been for ground forces.
One weapon that appeared to have been specifically designed for use in Afghanistan is the "butterfly" mine with a "wing" that makes it look like a butterfly or a sycamore seed and allows it to spin slowly to the ground when dropped from the air. Made of green or brown plastic and powerful enough to blow off a foot or a hand, these mines seem to have been designed to blend in with the terrain and to maim rather than kill, although the inaccessibility of medical facilities means that many victims of these mines die of infection or loss of blood."
Butterfly" mines have been used effectively against the guerrillas. Spread by Mi 8 Hip helicopters or large caliber artillery, they enable the Soviets to sow a minefield very quickly. According to Jane Ps Defence Weekly, a Hip usually carries two mine dispersal units and can lay 144 mines. When released, the mines are scattered by airflow or on impact. The use of these "butterfly" mines is banned by the Geneva Convention, which specifically forbids combatants to use mines that cannot be detected by normal means and that have an unlimited lifespan. In 1981 John Fullerton witnessed an incident in which a guerrilla lost a hand and much of his face when washing his hands in a ditch in an area that had not been the object of mine laying operations for nine months. Fullerton says that there was "little doubt that mines could last a decade and were a threat to children and livestock especially."
Four other weapons noted for the first time outside the Soviet Union included a new automatic, 81mm mortar, the AGS 17 automatic grenade launcher, the AK 74 high velocity rifle, and the new RPG 16 antitank weapon. The new mortar is capable not only of rapid and continuous fire but also has a high trajectory, which, although not normally advantageous, has proved useful in mountainous Afghanistan in support of infantry operations. The AGS 17 automatic grenade launcher can either be mounted on a vehicle or used from a helicopter. Fired by two persons, it launches 30mm grenades from a drum that contains 30 rounds. In conjunction with the grenade launcher the Soviets have also used "flechette" rounds, which are small, razor sharp, steel slivers contained in 152mm artillery shells. The AK 74 high velocity rifle, a 5.45mm caliber weapon equipped with an image intensifying sight, resembles the standard AK 47 rifle. This new rifle fires a hollow core bullet that is very damaging to the human target. The RPG 16 antitank weapon replaces the RPG 7 and represents an improvement both in range and in accuracy.
The Soviets have also used an improved APC in Afghanistan. The BMP 2, a variant of the BMP 1, is essentially an improved version of the standard BRT 60 APC, with which most Soviet and Afghan motorized units have been equipped. Armed with an automatic 30mm cannon, the new APCs have an improved hatch for safer evacuation and are considered to have better mobility.
Despite the use of improved weaponry in Afghanistan, the Soviets continued to have logistical problems in 1985. Very long supply lines and the impossibility of depending solely on aircraft for resupply of the outlying areas have necessitated continuous repairs on the roads, bridges, and bypasses that are the targets of guerilla attack.
The Resistance
Like the elephant in the Indian fable of the blind men, the Afghan resistance has been characterized in different ways by different observers. If the analogy of the blind men holds, each grasps a part of the truth but lacks a comprehensive perspective.
For example, Gerard Chaliand, an expert on guerrilla movements worldwide, describes the resistance as a traditionalist uprising, a violent repudiation of the PDPA's ambitious modernization schemes. He notes that "unlike virtually all guerrilla movements of Asia, Africa, or Latin America, the Afghan resistance has nothing new to show the visiting observer: no new elected village committee, for example; no program for the integration of women into the struggle; no new clinics or schools; no newly created stores that sell or exchange essential goods; no small workshops contributing to economic self-sufficiency of the sort one finds in guerrilla camps elsewhere throughout the world. The Afghan rebels have undertaken no political experiments or social improvements."
Leftist writers such as Fred Halliday also see the resistance in essentially negative terms. In his 1980 essay, "War and Revolution in Afghanistan," Halliday explains the revolt in terms of the underdeveloped state of the Afghan countryside. Because of the strength of tribal loyalties, the lack of class-consciousness, Afghanistan's violent political ethos, and the reactionary nature of militant Islam, the PDPA's reforms in 1978 79 roused widespread popular opposition: Afghan peasants were not ready for revolution because they still had strong economic and emotional ties to members of the local elite.
On the other end of the political spectrum, sympathetic commentators describe the resistance in terms of either Afghan nationalism or a struggle between the forces of "freedom" and "totalitarianism." Like the leftists, their perspectives and judgments are often compromised by adherence to Western concepts. Those close to the scene realize that Western ideas such as nationalism or freedom are meaningless to all but a rather small minority of resistance fighters.
Finally, there is the Islamic perspective. In a 1984 article, "Islam in the Afghan Resistance," French scholar Olivier Roy argues that "the Afghan resistance sees its struggle more in terms of a'holy war' (jihad) than as a war of national liberation. In a country in which reference to the `nation' is a very recent phenomenon, where the State is perceived as exterior to society, and where allegiance belongs to the local community, Islam remains the sole point of reference for all Afghans." Edward Girardet, a journalist who spent time with the resistance in Afghanistan, notes that "Russia's most formidable foe is not a military one, but Islam . . . Difficult for the Western (and Russian) mind to understand, faith is the greatest strength of the Afghan, whose whole approach to life is closely bound to his constant struggle for survival."
Although the Islamic concept of jihad is a theme common to all the major resistance groups, it would be simplistic to assume that they share a single Islamic ideology. Rather, there are several Islamic constituencies with widely diverse perspectives on religion, society, and the state. In a country where 99 percent of the population is Muslim, Islam ostensibly provides a basis for unity and legitimacy. Yet the variations within the Muslim community are so pronounced that different groups, professing Islamic goals, have little in common except the vocabulary of the Quran, hostility to the foreign invader and, sometimes, appreciation of the material benefits of united action.
Perhaps more basic to the resistance than even Islam is Afghanistan's cultural, ethnic, and social diversity. The Afghan state has existed since the rise of Ahmad Shah Durrani in the mid eighteenth century. It has had, however, minimal impact on the daily life or self conceptions of most Afghans. As Roy indicates, the state has been largely unsuccessful in fostering a coherent sense of Afghan nationhood (although some sense of this was found among Pashtun close to the royal family). Old social divisions, then, remain extremely important: those between the various ethnic groups, between Durrani and Ghilzai, between speakers of Pashtu and speakers of Dari, between Sunni and Shia, between Sufi communities and other Muslims, and between farmers, nomads, and urbanites, to mention some of the most important. The local elites that emerged from this social complexity enjoyed, with a few exceptions, unchallenged authority. The downfall of Amanullah in 1929 shows that they could sabotage the state's efforts to exercise power on the local level or promote radical social change. The mujahidiin resistance beginning in 1978 was probably as much an expression of local political interests as it was a religious struggle. Revolt, moreover, was nothing new. In Afghan politics, violence is not extremism but part of a centuries old status quo.
Thus, the resistance in the mid 1980s reflected the diversity and complexity of Afghan society. Western analysts counted as many as 90 localities where armed groups operated. With the exception of a few famous commanders, such as the intrepid Ahmad Shah Mahsud in the Panjsher Valley, these groups and their leaders were less well known to outsiders than the seven emigr6 parties based in Peshawar, Pakistan, which are identified in the Western press as leading the mujahidiin. The Peshawar groups played a vital role in publicizing the Afghan struggle worldwide and in funneling arms and funds from outside donors (such as the Arab states of the Gulf) to the fighting groups inside the country. They also represented the broad currents of Islamic ideology and politics. But they did not directly control or command the unquestioning loyalty of the mujahidiin. Observers such as Louis Dupree have commented that the guerrillas were growing increasingly dissatisfied with the émigré parties' inefficiency, corruption, and quarrelsomeness.
The complexity of the resistance was accentuated by Afghanistan's rugged topography and the economic effects of the war. Soviet attacks and mujahidiin sabotage of highways and bridges isolated communities, making them economically more self reliant than they had been before 1979. At the same time, the smuggling of foodstuffs and other goods from Pakistan and Iran flourished. Because the majority of the population, including the guerrillas, consisted of subsistence farmers and nomads, their survival did not depend on an integrated economic system of the kind found in developed countries. Thus, the Soviets found it relatively difficult to impose an economic stranglehold on the country and starve the scores of self sufficient liberated areas into submission.
Both the mujahidiin and Western observers generally classified the different resistance groups the guerrilla units within the country and the emigr6 parties based in Pakistan into "Islamic fundamentalist" and "traditionalist" categories. These are sometimes misleading labels, but they reflect significant social and political cleavages. A third category consisted of Shia groups. Some, but not all, had close ties with revolutionary Iran in the mid 1980s. There were also small groups of Maoist leftists involved in the resistance, although their role in the mid 1980s appeared to have been minimal.
Islamic Fundamentalists
Islamic fundamentalists were ideologically and organizationally the most coherent groups in the resistance, and they most resembled modern revolutionary parties in other parts of the world. Influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan al Muslimun) in Egypt and to a lesser extent by modern Muslim thinkers on the Indian subcontinent, the movement originated on the campus of Kabul University in the late 1950s. Principal figures were professors of the Faculty of Theology, such as Burhannudin Rabbani (in late 1985 the leader of a major emigre fundamentalist party, the Jamiat i Islami). Many of these scholars had studied at the venerable A1 Azhar University in Cairo, a center of Islamic political thought. In the early years, the Jamiat i Islami, the predecessor of the resistance group established by these professors, was concerned primarily with encouraging cultural activities among students. Because of their critical views of the monarchy, however, many Jamiat iIslami members were arrested, and their activities were conducted in a semiclandestine manner.
During the 1965 72 period, when Kabul University was wracked with political turmoil, students formed the Sazman e Jawanan a Musalman (Organization of Muslim Youth). More militant than their teachers, they held demonstrations against Zionism, United States involvement in Vietnam, and most controversially against the creation of Pashtunistan. Given the importance of this issue to the government, they suffered severe repression. Muslim students also had violent confrontations with leftist students: The organization gained recruits not only at the university but also at teachers' training colleges and the polytechnic and engineering schools in Kabul. Among the most important were engineering student Gulbuddin Hikmatyar (leader in late 1985 of the Hezb a Islarni, or Islamic Party, the largest fundamentalist émigré party) and polytechnic student Mahsud, the Panjsher Valley commander. Islamic fundamentalist students came from diverse regions of Afghanistan; but significantly, the movement gained only a few adherents from Pashtun tribal areas.
In his 1984 article Roy argues that the fundamentalists were distinct both from Afghanistan's traditional religious authorities (the ulama, or scholars, and the pirs, or Sufi holy men) and from conservative Muslims (sometimes also known as "fundamentalists"), who advocated restoration of sharia (Islamic law) as the basis of the state but opposed the creation of a modern state. Unlike these groups, they were not inimical to Western ideas. Roy notes that "Islamism [his term for fundamentalism" attempts to think of Islam in terms of a political ideology which is fit to compete with the great ideologies of the West (liberalism, Marxism,, nationalism): It borrows the conceptual framework of western political philosophy (the sense of history, the State, the search for a definition. of politics) and endeavours to fill it with the traditional concepts of Muslim thought." Their political activism and self awareness as modern intellectuals rather than traditional scholars gave them a perspective that was deeply at odds with Afghan tradition. In many ways, they were as remote from the society in which they lived as the more radical members of the PDPA. This was particularly true of Hikmatyar; who sought to build a highly disciplined, Leninist style "vanguard" party.
As revolutionaries, the fundamentalists were committed to establishing a just society based on Islamic principles. On this issue they were at odds with the often corrupt religious authorities who were concerned with tradition and hairsplitting interpretations of sharia. These divergent viewpoints engendered much suspicion and hostility.
Fundamentalists were opposed to Daoud's regime after he came to power in July 1973 because of his collaboration with Parcham, his initially friendly relations with the Soviet Union, and his Pashtun nationalism. Their opposition to the Pashtunistan issue gained them the active support of Pakistan. The Pakistani armed forces trained Afghan units in the early 1970s, and around 5,000 guerrillas were based at camps near the border at Peshawar. In July 1975 they launched an,insurrection. Although the Jamiat i Islami, like the PDPA, had established cells in the armed forces, army sympathizers did nothing to aid the revolt. Insurgents attacked government installations in the Panjsher Valley,. Badakhshan., and other parts of the country. The uprising was brutally crushed; and the survivors fled hack across the border to Peshawar. There, the foundations were laid for the later mujahidiin movement.
The history of the Jamiat i Islami parallels, in a striking fashion, that of the PDPA. As in the leftist party, there were radical and moderate wings. Hikmatyar, the youthful "Leninist," bitterly opposed the more moderate and accomodating united front strategy of Rabbani. In 1970 or 1977 the two leaders went separate ways. Hikmatyar formed the Hezb e Islami, while Rabbani retained control over the original Jamiati Islami. In 1979 a second split occurred. Yunis Khales, one of the few traditional ulama to become involved in the fundamentalist movement, broke with Hikmatyar and formed his own Hezb a Islami. This group was more moderate than Hikmatyar's and in the mid 1980s enjoyed good relations with Rabbani's party.
Four major Islamic fundamentalist émigré parties were prominent in the mid 1980s: Hikmatyar's Hezb a Islami; Rabbani's Jamiat i Islami; Khales' Hezb a Islami; and Abdul Rasool Sayyaf s Ittehad e Islami (Islamic Alliance) (see Resistance Forces, ch. 5). Hikmatyar's party had widespread support in the Pashtun areas of the north and east, especially Konduz, Baghlan, Konarha, and Nangarhar provinces. Though Hikmatyar led the best organized, best led, and numerically strongest party (it had between 20,000 and 30,000 adherents in the mid 1980s), he was often accused of greater zealousness in attacking resistance rivals than the Soviet or Afghan armed forces. The 1979 rumors of a plot between him and HaFzullah Amin also tainted him with the stigma of a collaborator. Chaliand calls him "the most intelligent, ambitious and ruthless resistance leader in Peshawar."
Rabbani's Jamiat i Islami derived most of its popular support from the Dari and Turkic speaking national minorities in the northern part of the country. One of his most supportive guerrilla commanders was Mahsud, who, like Rabbani himself, was a Tajik. Khales' Hezb a Islami maintained its power base in the southeastern part of the country, particularly Paktia Province. Sayyaf's group was well armed and well equipped, but it was regarded as having little support outside his native area, Paghman, near Kabul.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
