Report from Abdul Raoof Hikmet

Logar Province is located south of the capital Kabul and what happens there has a direct impact on the capital. It is one the most important provinces due to its high population density and its fertile agricultural land.

The province is considered to be the southern gateway to the capital Kabul and these characteristics have given the province great strategic importance. During the time the Russians were occupying Afghanistan, they also exerted a maximum effort to impose their control over this province, in view of its great strategic importance, and they conducted huge military operations to clear Mohammad Agha and its adjacent districts of the Mujahideen, who had established bases from which to launch operations against Kabul. But the Russians failed to achieve their goals, because the dense population and fertile agricultural land provided appropriate cover to allow the Mujahideen to conduct hit and run operations.

After the crusader attack on Afghanistan, the central districts of the province, including the Mohammad Agha directorate first fell under the control of the Shura Nizar militias (the group of the deceased Ahmad Shah Masood), then later American and Czech forces opened military bases there.

The heroic opposition against the crusaders in Logar commenced with the beginning of the crusader assault, just like it began in the rest of the Afghan provinces. However, the province was the scene of great events and important triumphs for the Mujahideen in the past calendar year 2009. We shall mention in this report an aspect of the important changes that have occurred in the Jihadist situation in this province.

At the beginning of the past year, Obama sent an additional 18,000 American troops to implement his new war strategy. Most of those new soldiers were deployed in the proximity of Logar province to reinforce the Czech forces station there with the aim of destroying the armed resistance of the Mujahideen. At the time, the Americans announced that the goal of increasing troop strength in Logar was to protect Kabul from the Mujahideen threat directed towards it from the south. However, this increase did not yield the result that the Americans had expected and in fact it escalated the Mujahideen’s operations from their previous level. Indeed the Mujahideen presence emerged from hiding out into the open, and their sphere of influence expanded to the central areas which were outside their control.

The Mujahideen in Logar say: their military presence was weak before the recent increase in American troops, and the enemy was able to easily move between the province center and the districts. The Mujahideen, however, have through the grace of Allah Almighty been able to impose control over many districts and to confine the presence of the crusader forces to their military bases in the province center and the districts of Kharwar, Charkh, and Baraki Barak.

The new crusader forces have tried much to extend their influence to the Mujahideen areas through large sweep operations. But they have encountered stiff resistance from the Mujahideen and sustained heavy losses in all their military operations. Heavy American bombing on the villages and rural areas and raids conducted by American soldiers night and day on people’s houses have had a great effect in the people’s intifada against the occupiers and in people joining the Mujahideen in response to American massacres.

Enemy infantry patrols and tanks moving through the fields and orchards have become easy targets for Mujahideen ambushes and remote-controlled explosive devices. The areas of Dabru, Banduka in the Charkh district, Shamzar in Baraki Barak, and the areas of Kulnakar, Burak, Kaji and Chadkhawab belonging to the province center have become the scenes of vicious clashes between the Mujahideen and the crusaders in Logar province.

The importance of Logar province is heightened by the transit through the province of the main road which connects the southern provinces such as Paktia, Paktika and Khost with the capital, Kabul. Last year, the convoys of the enemy were subjected to Mujahideen ambushes and raids, and the region of Chal Qandahari near Kabul was the scene of clashes and many explosions targeting the crusader forces.

Likewise, the areas of Zarghun Shahr, Mughil Kheil, Daud Kheil, Kulinkar and Chadkhawad along the road between Kabul and Kardiz witnessed heavy fighting during which the Mujahideen inflicted great losses on the crusader forces transiting along this road. The situation in the districts is likewise to the advantage of the Mujahideen, with the Mujahideen enjoying complete influence in four of the six provincial districts: Kharwar, Charkh, Baraki Barak and Mohammad Agha.

The enemy in the Kharwar district center is living in a state of complete siege by the Mujahideen and receives supplies through the air only. Likewise the enemy is not able to bring supplies to his bases in the Charkh and Baraki Barak district centers except under the protection of air forces and accompanied by very large ground forces. As for the wide Sajawnad regions and the villages situated between these districts, they are under the complete control of the Mujahideen. The Khoshi district alone is largely controlled by the enemy and the capabilities of the Mujahideen there are small. Azra is another district in which the enemy presence is confined to the center, while the Mujahideen control the rest of its territory.

If we take a quick look at the situation in recent months in Logar province, we see that wide swaths have slipped from the control of the Americans and the puppet government. American forces and their Afghan lackeys have not been able to re-impose their control despite using the largest military force they have.

The enemy force has lapsed from the initiative and offense into self-defense in fortified centers. They have therefore begun building strong, military fortifications around their bases in the area. One of these large bases is the al-Sahara base (Khadr) in which the crusaders have opened a military airport and gathered there a large number of soldiers from the military installations which spread out over the desert from Chadkhawab to Dubnadi east to the Terra pass in the south. They have spent vast sums of money building these fortifications but they encountered a swift defeat in attempting to hinder the Mujahideen movement, and perhaps this strategic defeat will be transformed into a model followed in the failure of the new Obama strategy in the remaining regions of Afghanistan.

The tragedy in this province during this past year has been the increase in the number of victims among defenseless civilians as a result of barbaric bombing of the villages and countryside conducted night and day by American forces. These painful incidents have stirred up the civilian residents in all the regions of the province and made them stand in the ranks of the Mujahideen to clear their regions of the crusaders and their Afghan lackeys in the security and armed forces.

The areas of Mohammad Agha and Baraki Barak have been greatly damaged by American attacks against unarmed civilians. As for the area of Kharwar directorate, because the Americans have no access there, it has been turned into a target for American missiles launched from Khadr base and Sid Abad base in the adjacent Maidan Wardak province. These blind missiles have inflicted enormous damage on civilian lives and property but the so-called global media does not speak of these great injustices because it is prejudiced in favor of the international crusader alliance against Islam and its alleged neutrality in publishing facts is a lie.

The Muslim Afghan people in Logar province stand in a unified rank against the crusaders, just like they stand against them in the remaining provinces, and they continue their Jihad against the occupiers.

The facts of crusader defeats have proven in Afghanistan that the crusaders are not able to impose their occupation on our Muslim people permanently even if they have been able to achieve temporary control in some areas. We are certain of victory for the Believers, and the central areas in Logar will be cleansed of the filth of the crusaders, just as the villages and countryside of the province have been cleansed.

Source: Al-Somood Magazine, Issue 44, January 2010

May Allah reward brother Abu Saleh who helped with this translation