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.
Raid on the Kandahar Communications Center
I continued to use my high school identification to around Kandahar. I would deliver messages for the Mujahideen and try to contact Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) who might be able to give me valuable information or agree to cooperate with the resistance. An 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 to 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 the Chawnay suburb. From Chawnay, we went to Topkhanna - the Shia section of the city. Then we moved down Bala Street. 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 guardhouse and other buildings. Hanif took us all into the guardhouse. We sat there while roving the 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 guardhouse to talk and drink Hanif’s tea and eat his cakes. As the first sentry entered the guardhouse, 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 three sentries.
We spent some 35 minutes in the guardroom dodging the patrols and getting rid of the sentries. We exited the guardroom carrying our jerry cans of gasoline. We planned to burn down the telephone exchange and the 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 Kalashnikov and began shooting. He killed Mohammad Nabi from Chardewal 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 about0230 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.
Author’s Commentary
The Mujahideen had a good movement plan through the city, but no plan for action once they were inside the compound. Consequently, there was no rehearsal before the raid. The commander left the critical inside plan to the collaborator - which is not always a good idea. In effect, the commander surrendered his command to an outsider at the critical phase of the raid. The raiding force spent 35 minutes all together in the guardhouse. This is very risky. The concentrated raiding force was very vulnerable in case the collaborator had not really turned. Further, sleepers do not always sleep throughout the night and the guardhouses get a lot of visitors. The raiders needed a covering force inside the compound. Maybe there was no other way to neutralize the other sentries, but this was a high risk to the raiding party. The collaborator should have known about the sentry inside the telephone exchange, but apparently made no plan to silence him before the force entered the building. A raiding force needs to get in and out in a hurry. Since the commander had abrogated his command for the critical phase, when things went bad, everyone acted on his own. The Mujahideen evacuation of dead and wounded and their capture of enemy weapons is commendable, but no one took 30 seconds to spill some gasoline and light a match. The main objective was to torch the exchange – and that did not happen.
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