Spectator's Journal / Fighting for Jalalabad

...I asked which side would gain the advantage over time...

...The outer posts—Samarkhiel, Bisoot, and Tourghar—were well-fortified mountain-top garrisons that controlled the entire plain with their artillery...

...After pausing for photographs at the hulk of a still-smoldering T-54 tank and some heavy artillery cannons and passing by the obstacle course, we turned the corner into the barracks area and the vehicle storage and maintenance yards...

...What can they destroy that will make a difference...

...At the outset of the battle, the approximately 15,000 Afghan government troops had been concentrated in four locations, the 11th Division garrison at the airport to the east, the First Corps headquarters to the northeast, the Ninth Division garrison to the west, and the First Border Guards Brigade to the north—all of which were reinforced by elements of the Special Guards dispatched from Kabul, the 31st Brigade, regional tribal brigades, state security military units, and police strike forces...

...But these kinds ofthings cannot turn the war around...

...We filed past a line of armored personnel carriers and heavy trucks that had been attacked and disabled when government forces tried to make a run for the safety of the nearby airport...

...fter nightfall, radio contact was established with the front...

...The road to Kabul has been cut...

...On the other hand, when Shevardnadze said the Afghan regime had been equipped with 'all types of modern weapons,' there were rumors that they might use chemical weapons on the battlefield...

...But they didn't know where you were then," he said...

...A month later, resistance forces had not only taken the base but also reached the front edge of the city's airport barely two kilometers away...

...The mujahedeen have established fixed positions...

...I answered that I had had that privilege on a trip to Kabul province in 1985...

...General Wardak, who stood over six feet tall and sported a jungle camouflage field jacket and a matching beret stylishly set to the right, had been at the top of his class in U.S...

...But at what targets...

...While the airport's heavy fortificationsMarin Strmecki is a fellow in international studies in the office of Zbigniew Brzezinski at the Center for Strategic and International Studies...

...Most mujahedeen pressed themselves against the walls...

...They believed that conquering Jalalabad, the country's second largest city, would inflict a potentially mortal blow to the confidence of the Kabul regime, as well as eliminate the principal obstacle to the shipment of arms and ammunition by truck along the main road from the Khyber Pass to Kabul...

...I inquired how long it would take to win...

...dense perimeter minefields, dug-in tanks, and underground bunkers—had stalled further progress, the mujahedeen were pleased that after fighting the Red Army for nine years they would finally have a chance to go one-on-one against the Kabul regime...

...He said that some still remained but that they were ineffective against high-altitude attacks by MiG 27s...

...In addition, he sent instructions calling up some idle mujahedeen forces from rear areas to put more weight on the airport front...

...When NIFA's fighters moved into battle, the partieson the other fronts failed to engage the enemy, thereby enabling government forces to concentrate their firepower...

...forces had prepared Jalalabad well for the expected mujahedeen onslaught...

...Wardak asked, "Is this the first time you have been bombed...

...Seconds later, when the bombs hit less than 200 yards to the 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1989 north, the explosions sounded exactly like a nearby thunderbolt, with the crack of lightning followed instantaneously by the boom of thunder...

...As evening set in, Communist artillery batteries continued the afternoon's shelling, which, with characteristic inaccuracy, had been wildly overshooting the resistance positions...

...I asked what kind of options remained for the other side...

...Meanwhile, the general dictated messages to be taken to his commanders...

...In less than a week,his three principal commanders in the area—Pahlawan, Shamali, and Nadarjan—had negotiated the surrender of the Samarkhiel garrison's 540 men, overrun a major base, and captured hundreds of tons of weapons and ammunition...

...He responded: "Their forces are outnumbered and surrounded...

...No casualties," Wardak reported...

...But helicopters can carry only limited amounts of supplies, and we have already shot one down...

...His men then relayed the report by radio to Peshawar and also passed on Wardak's order for six APC batteries and two mechanics who could jump-start some of the captured vehicles...

...The mujahedeen will settle down for the night because they do not want to hit each other...

...The city is suffering—they have no food...

...I stepped behind the building, and a moment later a shower of hot metal fragments clattered against the tin roof...

...Logistics aregood for our side," he explained, gesturing in the direction of the open road we had driven from the Khyber Pass...

...military training courses he attended as an Afghan army officer from 1969 through 1972...

...The more errant shots exploded in the distance with hollow, barely audible thuds...

...A sense of great expectation pervaded the resistance ranks, leavened by a measure of anxiety about their inexperience in conventional warfare...

...Our Toyota 4x4 pickups, each with a dozen Afghan mujahedeen piled into the back, entered the compound, which had been overrun the day before...

...For them, the battle for Jalalabad was the first round in the battle for Kabul...

...In Dari, Wardak shouted, "Sit down...

...They sounded just like high-performance jets running a low-altitude sortie...

...We will win," he asserted, "both in Jalalabad and Kabul...

...As he paused to survey his improvised office, which was surrounded by a bed of marigolds and a vegetable garden and separated from hay fields by a stand of poplar trees, Wardak remarked, "This is a beautiful spot, isn't it...

...He ordered mujahedeen near the 11th Division garrison to cross the Kabul River in the night and to create a fire base to put additional pressure on the First Corps headquarters in the morning...

...That reduces your profile—makes you less of a target...

...D efore the withdrawal, Moscow's 1...

...The city, situated in a plain bisected by the Kabul River, had three rings of security posts...

...They were here only a day ago, and the position is on their maps...

...Moreover, only fifteen mujahedeen had been killed and fifty injured, while enemy losses were estimated at 300 killed and eighty wounded...

...Several dozen of the better efforts at least briefly interrupted conversation...

...The fighting will get quiet soon...

...After touring the captured garrison, Wardak set up a command post at the 11th Division's former headquarters, which Soviet advisers had handed over to the Afghan army shortly before their final withdrawal in mid-February...

...Call it the wreckage of the Brezhnev Doctrine...

...Poster-size pictures of Afghan Communist party politburo members glowered at us as we passed 200 vehicles—APCs, tanks, self-propelled artillery, and tanker trucks—abandoned in their parking places...

...They have sent some helicopters, maybe to evacuate the VIPs or maybe to send in reinforcements...

...There are just too many variables...

...Meanwhile, the nearby mujahedeen positions responded with continual bursts of fire from heavy machine guns and AK-47s, punctuated every few seconds by launches of mortar and rocket rounds...

...W ardak's optimism was understandable...

...For the other side, this is a problem...

...The enemy has few options," he continued...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1989 31 But unlike other resistance military leaders, who claimed that Jalalabad would fall within days, Wardak argued that the battle would take more time...

...They might fire their SCUD missiles at Pakistan...

...When I glanced around the corner, the plumes of smoke had already risen a few hundred feet into the sky...

...With seven days elapsed in the battle for Jalalabad, I was accompanying General Abdul Rahim Wardak, military leader of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA), one of the seven Peshawar-based resistance organizations, as he arrived to take personal charge of the eastern front...

...But it is only a matter of time...

...Wardak indicated, however, that the southern and western fronts had been expected to join the battle that day and the northern front would probably do so tomorrow...

...only one barrage sent us scrambling for cover...

...After pausing to issue instructions to an assistant, he continued: "It is better to get down low when they bomb...

...As I stood at the southeast corner of the headquarters building, the shrill scream of bombs dropped from high altitude pierced the air...

...SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL FIGHTING FOR JALALABAD Jalalabad, Afghanistan A pall of dust and smoke kicked up by the day's artillery and rocket rounds—both incoming and outgoing—hung over the former garrison of the Afghan Army's 11th Division on the eastern end of Jalalabad...

...Under cover of mortar fire, their infantry units were to attempt to outflank the defenders to the right...

...On the ten-byten-foot patio at the south end of the building, Wardak sat in a metal chair facing three desks: two were for his 'See "Operation Avalanche and Soviet Capitulation," The American Spectator, April 1988...

...He said that mujahedeen fighters, proficient at guerrilla combat, needed to learn the ropes of conventional warfare, and that coordination had so far been lacking...

...The second ring stood several kilometers from the urban districts and the third at the perimeter of the central city...

...by Marin Strmecki radio men, who worked to make contact with frontline units and with Peshawar, and one was for other aides who took down his orders on notepads with the NIFA letterhead and handed them over to couriers...

...No one can predict that," Wardak answered...

...He had been the first to train his fighters to wage quasi-conventional battles against Soviet forces.' As he organized his command post, a one-story cement structure with a corrugated tin roof, he clearly relished the new form of combat...

...So how can the enemy forces get resupplied...

...It is best to lie down...

...About 20,000 mujahedeen advanced against these positions from four directions...

...Faintly illuminated by the light of a quarter moon and the glow of his Kent cigarette, Wardak alternately addressed his aides and assessed the military picture...

...But that is considered a disgrace here, so I just tell the mujahedeen to sit down...

...As you can see, the airport is closed...

...I inquired whether his stocks of Stinger missiles, deliveries of which had ceased more than a year ago, had run out...

...A mujahed at the opposite end of the building ran across the courtyard and dove into the bomb shelter near the vegetable garden...

...After taking a final drag on his cigarette and tossing aside the butt, he concluded: "Unless the Soviets intervene with their ground forces —and intervene in a truly massive way—we will win...

...They have airpower, but even if supplemented by air strikes flown from the Soviet Union, that cannot be decisive...

...They know this location exactly...