Introduction
KHAD was the secret police of the Afghan government. KHAD was responsible for detecting and eradicating domestic political opposition, subverting the Mujahideen, penetrating opposition groups abroad and providing military intelligence to the armed forces through its military wing. The KHAD was patterned after the Soviet KGB and GRU and apparently reported to the KGB.
Attack on KHAD Headquarters
On the evening of 13 August 1986, I led a five-man attack on the KHAD headquarters in Kabul. The building of the First Directorate of the KHAD was located near Darulaman at Alla udin in the south of Kabul. The directorate worked around the clock and was located in a well-protected part of town. Therefore, we had to use a small group and hit the target and leave. We took an RPG-7 grenade launcher and four AK-47s. Our plan was to sneak up on the building at night, fire a rocket launcher at the building and leave. In the group were my brother, Nurullah, Mamur Abdul, Shah Mohammad and Mohammad Zaher.
I had an underground headquarters in Qala-e Chitgar Village. This village is located some 2.5 kilometers from the western edge of Kabul. We kept our weapons there. After each mission, we would clean and lubricate our weapons and then wrap them in cotton cloth and then put them into sealed plastic bags. We would hide the plastic bags in sewer pipes and other out-of-the-way, hidden spots. We prepared for the mission, took out our weapons and waited for dark. We left Qala-e Chitgar in the late evening. The village is some four kilometers west of the target building. When we reached a concealed area outside the KHAD building, I put my security and RPG gunner in position. My regular RPG gunner was absent so I had to assign another Mujahideen to fire the RPG. Since we were urban guerrillas, we did not have much opportunity for target practice and the gunner had never fired the RPG before. I served as his assistant gunner. I carried his rockets and helped him load the weapon. From the lights in the windows, I judged that the second floor was the most crowded and told him to aim for a second floor window. I did not have any ear protectors for any of us, so I wanted the gunner to keep his mouth open during the firing to equalize the pressure. In order to do this, I told him to loudly chant “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest) three time before firing. My new gunner, who was a Shia, smiled and said he would do so but would add “Ya Ali” at the end of the litany (Ya Ali is a saying commonly chanted by Shia when asking for heavenly help).
My gunner aimed, chanted and fired the RPG. The rocket flew, but instead of hitting the second floor, it hit the fourth floor. A major commotion ensued, but no one fired at us. We immediately left the area and withdrew to our base. Later on, we were told that more than 20 people had been killed or wounded by our attack.
Author’s Commentary
There are better sites for weapons instruction and training than in the middle of a mission. In this case, the target was large enough that it was difficult to miss. Still, the gunner was of by two stories. Training to standard was a constant problem for Mujahideen commanders. The best training was conducted in training camps in Pakistan or in mountain bases. Unless urban guerrillas were sent out for training, they had very little live-fire training other than actual combat. Usually, urban guerrillas would detail a large security party to hold the withdrawal route. In this case, the five-man team relied on local contacts to watch the area rather than posting route security.
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