Anti-Soviet Militia
During the war aginst the Soviets the resistance could not be called an army but was instead a population in arms. Thus, it is impossible to characterize the resistance in conventional military terms. Reflecting the fragmentation of Afghan society, it was deeply divided along tribal, ethnic, regional, religious, and ideological lines. It remained, however, a formidable movement, capable of denying the regime control of as much as 80 percent of the countryside, assassinating state and party officials, and attacking regime and Soviet targets even in the heart of the capital.
Fighting men ranged from preadolescent boys to grizzled veterans of the Third Anglo Afghan War of 1919. The total number of mujahidiin was difficult to estimate. The Military Balance, 1985-1986 published a figure of 90,000, backed by about 110,000 "reserves." Other Western estimates were in the 200,000 to 250,000 range, and figures given by Afghan sources went as high as 744,000. The actual number might be equal to about 10 percent of the rural population, the latter totaling about 7 to 9 million in the mid-1980s.
In the mid-1980s there were around separate 90 areas located throughout the country commanded by mujahidiin leaders. In the years since the first uprisings against the PDPA regime in late 1978, two trends had become apparent. One was the emergence of a new generation of resistance leaders who had gained prominence because of their fighting prowess rather than because of their status in the traditional social structure. These men won followers and local popular support, often overshadowing traditional secular and temporal elites in the regions where they operated. Probably the most striking representative of this new generation was Ahmad Shah Mahsud; a Tajik who commanded forces in the Panjsher Valley and had successfully thwarted repeated Soviet and Afghan army offensives.
A second trend was a steady improvement in the fighting abilities of the mujahidiin and the coordination of different resistance groups. Afghan culture ,particularly that of the Pashtuns, affirmed the value of a life under arms. But traditional fighting styles were highly individualistic and undisciplined. Afghan men were not "born guerrillas" but had to learn, often at great cost, the lessons of fighting a modern, well equipped opponent. Greater coordination between groups was largely the achievement of the new generation of mujahidiin commanders. These men apparently were less firmly, wedded to the old social and ethnic distinctions than their elders and thus were able to overlook old animosities and weld new, alliances. Growth in intergroup cooperation was essential if the resistance was to counteract Soviet and PDPA attempts to apply a classic divide and conquer strategy.
