Introduction
Toryalai Hemat was a regimental commander of a Mujahideen Mobile Regiment belonging to the Etehad-e Islami (IUA) faction of Sayyaf.
Yet Another Ambush at the Mamur Hotel
My mobile regiment fought in many provinces in Afghanistan during the war. One of our battles was in Mohammad Agha District of Logar Province. The Jihad began here attacking columns between Gardez and Kabul. This action occurred on 8 July 1986. It was a joint action with the HIH Mujahideen commanded by Doctor Wali Khayat and was reported in the media. It was a small ambush involving 13 Mujahideen armed with two RPG-7s, one PK machine gun and 10 AK-47s. Seven of the Mujahideen were my men and six were HIH. We set the ambush in Kotubkhel near the Mamur Hotel, which sits beside the main highway. I split the force into two groups. I put a six-man group on the east side of the road along the Logar River bank. At this point the river is some 40 meters from the road and some two meters lower than the surrounding ground. This site is by the hotel. I put my seven-man group on the west side of the road on high ground. This site is a little farther to the south, about 150 meters from the hotel. The high ground is known as Gumbazo Mazogani by the locals. There was an RPG-7 at both sites. We had instructed the group that if the column came from Kabul the furthest group (the western group on the high ground) would fire first to get the column into the kill zone. That would be the river site’s signal to fire. We prepared our high ground positions in a ditch, which was not visible from the road. It was some 300 meters from the road. We camouflaged our positions well.
Our base was three kilometers southeast of Mohammad Agha south of the village of Qala-e Shahi near Ahmadzi Kala. We moved from Ahmadzi Kala at midnight. It took us one hour to reach the ambush site. I was with the western group. We took our positions in the ditch. At that time, there was fighting in Paktia Province, Jajai District and the enemy was moving reinforcements to the area. In the morning, a reinforcing column came. We opened fire when it reached us and the eastern ambush opened up as well. We destroyed or damaged two armored vehicles, three jeeps and eight trucks. Some trucks turned back towards Kabul and others were abandoned. There were some intact abandoned trucks outside the kill zone. Dead and wounded lay on the ground. Only damaged vehicles were left in the kill zone. We had no casualties. In one of the jeeps, we found some movie projectors. We also captured 11 AKs, two pistols and one heavy machine gun (mounted on an armored vehicle). We took what we could and split the spoils. HIH got all the projectors. We left and went to Wazir Kala some four kilometers away. Helicopter gun-ships came and fired at our old positions. Four Soviet helicopters came and carried away their dead and wounded. We stayed in Wazir Kala for two or three hours. The helicopters were bombing and strafing the positions all the time. In the late afternoon, when everything settled down, we returned to the area to search and see what was left. We removed the heavy machine gun and projectors at this time. We stopped a passing bus and asked the passengers for matches. At first they refused, not wanting to be accomplices, so we searched their pockets and got some matches and set fire to the damaged vehicles. Two days later, the Soviets sent a force to search our old positions. Of the 13 men in the ambush, only Baryali, Asef of the HIH, and I survived the war.
Author’s Commentary
Both the Soviets and Mujahideen set patterns. The Mujahideen used the Mamur ambush site over and over again, yet apparently, the Soviets and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) forces seldom dismounted troops to search the area to spoil the ambush or to set a counter-ambush. This last example is from 1986, yet there seems to be no learning curve on the part of the Soviets. Air support was tardy, artillery fire was unavailable, and there was no reserve to move against the ambush. Aggressive patrolling, specially trained counter-ambush forces and priority counter-ambush intelligence were lacking. The standard Soviet/DRA counter-ambush techniques included an aerial patrol in front of the column, an engineer sweep in front of the column looking for mines, armored vehicles in front of the column, occasionally armored vehicles throughout the column and a robust rear guard. Once hit, the armored vehicles in the column would return fire while the soft-skin vehicles tried to drive out of the kill zone. Seldom would the ambushed force dismount forces to clear the ambush site and pursue the ambush party.
The Mujahideen did vary ambush positions in the same ambush site. Their primary concern was to hit the column where it was the weakest - usually in the middle or rear - unless the purpose was to bottle up the column. In most ambushes, a small number of highly-mobile Mujahideen were able to move and attack with little logistic support, but were unable to conduct a sustained fight. The RPG-7 was probably the most effective weapon of the Mujahideen. When used at close quarters, and with the element of surprise, it was devastating.
In this region, Mujahideen ambushes occupied a very wide front. This was a function of the open terrain and the spacing between convoy vehicles. Convoy standard operating procedures were to maintain 100 meters or more between vehicles. In order to have enough vehicles in the kill zone (to make the ambush worthwhile), the Mujahideen had to constitute a kill zone much larger than that employed by most Western armies.
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