Introduction
Ghulam Farouq was an urban guerrilla in Kandahar. He belonged to the Islamic Movement HI (Harakat-I Islami) of Ayatollah Shaikh Asef Muhseni, which is a minority Muslim faction. His nickname is Gulalai.
Night Raid on a City Outpost
I was a high school student in Kandahar. I used my student identification to move freely around the city to support the Mujahideen. I would try to make contacts with Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) soldiers in the government outposts during the day and then the Mujahideen would use the soldier’s information to attack them at night. One day in January 1984, I made contact with a soldier who showed a willingness to cooperate with the Mujahideen in capturing his outpost. This was the Saray-e Saat-ha security outpost in Kandahar. The post was located on the second floor of a building in the Bazaar-e Shah section of the city. This is across from the road junction of Alizai Street and Bazaar-e Shah. The outpost was located there since the Mujahideen used Alizai Street to enter the city and the outpost controlled this path.
I took the soldier with me on my bicycle to Chardewal - some six kilometers south of the city. There we met with my commander, Ali Yawar. We all discussed our plan and then I brought the soldier back to the city on my bicycle. That night, our group of 30 Mujahideen assembled. We entered the city on the south side near the Shekarpur gate (Rangrez-ha Street). From there, we moved along Sherali Khan Street near Bazaar-e Heart and from there to Wali Mohammad Street. As we moved along this path, we posted security so we could withdraw safely. We had agreed with my contact that we would arrive at 2200 hours. We arrived on time and, as we approached the outpost, we signaled with a flashlight. Our contact answered our signal. There were 22 Mujahideen now securing the route and gate. The remaining eight of us entered the gate and climbed to the second floor. Everyone appeared to be asleep. There was one soldier who had just completed his turn at sentry duty and we assumed he was asleep. He wasn’t. He grabbed his Kalashnikov and fired at us killing one. The dead Mujahideen’s brother returned fire, killing the soldier and two of his sleeping comrades. We captured four other DRA soldiers plus nine Kalashnikovs and a pistol. My contact deserted to us.
The firing alerted DRA forces and it would be hard to leave the city carrying a body, so we started to take the body to a safe house where we could leave it for the night. As we were moving down the street, one of our four captives escaped. A Mujahideen tried to fire at him, but discovered he was out of ammunition. We knew that the escaped DRA soldier would report our whereabouts to the authorities and, since he escaped near the safe house, we could not now risk leaving the body there. So we left the body hidden near a bakery. We covered the blood trail with dirt and then withdrew along the same route we entered on. We exited the city at 0200 hours.
Since the government knew that we had left our dead behind, they blocked all entrances into the city. We tried to return for our dead the next night but could not get in. On the third night, we tried a different route from the north of town through the Chawnay suburbs. We traveled from Kalacha-e Mirza to Chawnay. We got into the city and we went to the bakery. The government had not found the body, so we retrieved it and took it outside of town for a decent burial. The person who was killed was Hafizullah - a graduate of Kabul University.
Author’s Commentary
Movement through a city is high risk unless the route is secured. In this case, over two-thirds of the available force secured the route. This got the force out safely. On the other hand, prisoner security was not too good. Prisoners should be bound, gagged and roped together in small groups for firm control. If possible, they should be blindfolded so that they remain disoriented and unable to give much immediate information should they escape. Finally, a raiding force should be kept small, but the correlation of Mujahideen to DRA was almost one to one. Surprise gave the Mujahideen an advantage, but the non-sleeping soldier offset that advantage.
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