and continued until the late afternoon (Map 2 - Mamur 2). Soviet casualties are unknown but we think that they were heavy. The Mujahideen captured four AK-74s. Mujahideen casualties were seven KIA including Sameh Jan. Most of the dead Mujahideen had run out of ammunition. The Soviets captured the weapons of the dead Mujahideen including some AK-47s, a Goryunov machine gun, an RPG-7 and a few AK-74s captured from the Soviets in the past. As the Soviets got involved in fighting, they stopped searching. As daylight waned, the Soviets disengaged, took their dead and withdrew back to Kabul. They did find and evacuate the body of their officer who Doctor Khayat killed the day before. It was still lying where he was killed.
VIGNETTE 2: YET ANOTHER AMBUSH AT THE MAMUR HOTEL
by Toryalai Hemet
(Toryalai Hemat was a regimental commander of a Mujahideen Mobile Regiment belonging to the Etehad-e Islami (IUA) faction of Sayyaf. He fought in many provinces in Afghanistan during the war. [Map sheet 2885, vic grid 1086].)
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 occured 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 machinegun 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 further to the south, about 150 meters by 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 is some 200 meters from the road. We camouflaged our positions well (Map 3 - Mamur 3).
Our base was three kilometers southeast of Mohamad Agha southof the village of Qala-e Shahi near Ahmadzi Kala. We moved fromAhmadzi Kala at midnight. It took us one hour to reach the ambushsite. I was with the western group. We took our positions in the ditch.At that time, there was fighting in Paktia Province, Jajai District andthe enemy was moving reinforcements to the area. In the morning, areinforcing column came. We opened fire when it reached us and the eastern ambush site opened up as well. We destroyed or damaged two armored vehicles, three jeeps and eight trucks. Some trucks turned back to 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 (which was 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 gunships came and fired at our old positions. Four Soviet helicopters came and took away their dead and wounded. We stayed in Wazir Kala for two or three hours. The helicopters were bombing and strafing the positions all of this 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 machinegun 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 HIH and I survived the war.
COMMENTARY
Both the Soviets and Mujahideen set patterns. The Mujahideen use the Mamur Hotel ambush site over and over again, yet apparently the Soviets or DRA seldom dismounted troops to search the area to spoil the ambush or to try to set a counterambush. This last example is from 1986, yet there seems to be no learning curve on the part of the Soviets. Air support is tardy, artillery fire is unavailable and there is no reserve to move against the ambush. Aggressive patrolling, specially-trained counter-ambush forces and priority counter-ambush intelligence are lacking. The standard Soviet/DRA counter-ambush techniques include an aerial patrol in front of the column, an engineer sweep in front of the column looking for mines, armored vehicles in the front of the column, occasional 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 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 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 con-voy vehicles. Convoy SOP was 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 killzone much bigger than that employed by most Western armies.
VIGNETTE 3: AMBUSH SOUTH OF THE TANGI WAGHJAN GORGE
by Haji Sayed Mohammad Hanif
(Haji Sayed Mohammad Hanif is from Logar Province. [Map sheet 2885, vic grid 0674].)
In May 1981, we joined other Mujahideen for an ambush in Kolangar District, Logar Province (Map 4 - Kolangar). We were 11 Mujahideen with an RPG-7, seven Kalashnikovs and two Enfields. We moved into the area the night before, spent the night in a village and set up our ambush site the next morning north of Kolangar District Headquarters. We were told that a column was coming from Kabul to Gardez, and so we had time to set up during the daylight before the column arrived, since the convoys always left Kabul in the morning well after dawn. Kabul is about 50 kilometers north of the ambush site. We set our ambush just south of the Tangi Waghjan Gorge. There, the river continues to run parallel to the road and restricts maneuver while providing better firing positions for the ambush force. We had a collapsed electric pylon that we stretched across the road as a road block. We put in an RPG firing position for Mulla Latif,[1] our RPG gunner, and put two other Mujahideen on the edge of the river in positions. Then we set up the rest of our positions and went to some nearby houses for breakfast. At that time we were so popular with the population that we didn't have to worry about supplies and the people were always feeding us in their homes or sending us prepared food. Mulla Latif left his RPG at the ambush position since the people were moving about freely and would keep an eye on things.
As we were leisurely enjoying our breakfast, some people came into the house and said that the convoy was coming from the north. This was at about 1000 hours. While we were running to our positions, the lead tank in the column came to our road block. The tank driver stopped his tank,
