Jalaluddin Haqqani: A Legend in the Afghanistan Jihad, Part III
Rajab 08, 1431 A.H, Monday, June 21, 2010
By: Mustafa Hamed
The events of the past two installments on Maulavi
Jalaluddin Haqqani, one of the legendary figures of the
Jihad in Afghanistan, were taken from a book, entitled
“Highlights from the First Year”, which I had composed in
1983 but never published until now.
In this third installment, I had intended to move to another
stage in the story of that huge leader whose journey I had
accompanied from 1979 until the fall of the Communist regime
in Kabul in 1992 - had it not been for al-Somood Magazine
which in its last edition recounted the story of the martyrs
of the current battles against the American-European armies
of occupation in that country. They referred to the story of
the martyrdom of one young hero, Mullah Muhammad Amin (‘Ateesh)
who was martyred during an American campaign supported by
its allied forces against the detainees in the Pol-e Charkhi
prison on the outskirts of Kabul.
Rockets, tanks and heavy and light weapons were used in the
battle which resulted in the death of 85 people whom the
attacking forces led away, shackled in chains and executed
in front of the Mullah. That incident confirmed that the
Americans were applying – almost literally – the Communist
and Soviet experience in Afghanistan, and that the
“democracy” ruling now in Kabul under the protection of the
American army is literally applying the methods of Marxism
which ruled Kabul under the protection of the Soviet army.
In view of its terrible role in the political history of
Afghanistan in the modern era, the Pol-e Charkhi prison
deserves to be singled out for its own book. Perhaps a
Muslim researcher will be able to produce such a book in the
future.
We return to the events that were depicted in the beginning
of the book “Highlights of the First Year”. I had not
intended to deal with them here, because I thought that they
were unconnected to what is occurring today. But the
incident of the martyrdom of Mullah Muhammad Amin has
confirmed that the Soviet experience in Afghanistan has not
yet ended. Rather it is continuing, but at the hands of the
Americans and under a new name: “democracy”.
- Mustafa
The Communists Rule Kabul
[The sources for this part are the Afghan
Mujahideen and a story by the Kabul correspondent for the
German Stern magazine]
27 April 1978
At seven in the evening, the military forces attacked the
Dahamzank prison in the middle of the city, precisely near
Kabul University. The barrels of the tanks were aimed at the
walls of the prison and the main gates. After a short battle,
the attackers were able to enter the prison and liberate the
leader of the Communist movement in Afghanistan, Nur Muhammad
Taraki, who had been incarcerated with a group of his
comrades, including Hafizullah Amin and Babrak Karmal. In
their overflowing joy, the leader of the Communist Party
suggested that they all head to the radio station where the
Revolutionary Command Council would all meet in order to take
part in the military operation.
One of the armored vehicles carrying the Marxist leaders moved
to the radio station, but the situation remained obscure until
the middle of the night. Doubts assailed the leader of the
organization as he heard news of the violent resistance put up
by officers loyal to the president of the Republic, Muhammad
Daoud. Reports of acts of violence in other districts followed
successively, and this was sufficient cause for the
Revolutionary Command Council to refrain from officially
announcing the name of the new President.
When General Abdul Qader, one the prominent military men who
executed the coup, spoke on the radio at 11:00 PM, he
mentioned nothing about the country’s future leader or about
the other leaders of the coup. And so the party leaders spent
their night in Kabul directing the coup and monitoring events.
As for the Soviets, they maintained their connection with the
coup leaders through the Soviet embassy. The leaders of the
coup movement indeed spent the night on board an Antonov
aircraft at the Khwaja Rawash airport in Kabul, ready to leave
the country if necessary.
The coup plotters were able to finish off the resistance put
up by supporters of President Muhammad Daoud. When the
Communist leader Taraki assumed control of affairs and began
to direct the activities of the government, his first and most
important goal was to destroy “religious backwardness in
Afghanistan”.
(“Tara Ki”, or as made famous by Arab writers as “Taraki”,
originally Tara Ki which is the name of one of the famous
Pashtun tribes to which Nur Muhammad Tara Ki belonged).
The movement leaders immediately and completely began to work
together to guarantee the destruction of the traditional
Islamic forces, and especially the ulema, who in turn
immediately launched a ruthless campaign against the new
regime. The new regime in its response did not spend a single
minute of its timein futile efforts. The new president Taraki
and his war staff (Hafizullah Amin and Babrak Karmal) killed
the former president Muhammad Daoud, his brother Muhammad Naim
and all members of their family. The sun did not rise on the
30th of April until the entire family of Muhammad Daoud had
been physically wiped out.
During the first week after the coup, all the supports of the
previous president in the army, police and civil
administration were executed by firing squad without even a
show trial. In the same fashion, the greater portion of high
ranking officers in the police, who had received their
training in Federal Germany, were also executed in the first
days after the coup.
But the greatest afflictions of all fell on the assembly of
the Muslims ulema. The members of the ruling Communist
Khalq – or People’s Party – would begin to beat up a scholar
and all his students and those close to him, and they would
see his patience and endurance. Then they would turn to
methods of spiritual torture, which are harsher upon the
spirit of the Muslim than physical torture, heaping abuse on
Allah, the Messenger and the Quran. This would enrage the
victim and subsequently the methods for physical torture would
proceed and this would be the end of the matter.
Some of the ulema were flayed alive in front of their
families, brothers and followers. Then the same procedure
would be conducted in turn on the remaining individuals one by
one. If a breath of life remained in any of them, they would
subsequently drag them into the square and the soldiers would
fire upon the corpses, shooting away most of their limbs.
Friday, 14 September 1979
Before lunch, the new president Nur Muhammad Taraki was
sitting in the Republican Palace, in the company of the Soviet
Ambassador, (Alexander) Puzanov. The ambassador was frowning
and the conversation was sharp. The reason for this was that
the Prime Minister, Hafizullah Amin had expelled from the
government two ministers who were among the strongest
supporters of Moscow. The first of these was Aslam Watanjar,
the Minister of Defense, who had received his military
training and education in Moscow. The second was Shah Jan
Mazdarjan, the Minister of Border Affairs.
The Soviet Ambassador suggested that Taraki order the
dismissal of Amin and strip him of all his powers. Taraki
stated to the Ambassador that it was impossible to do this,
because Amin’s supporters had penetrated all sensitive centers
of power, where he had placed his devoted men. He had also
formed a special military force equipped with the most modern
weapons including tanks and armored vehicles. Additionally,
the forces guarding the Ministry of Defense and the broadcast
station were all loyal to Amin.
In reality, since the appointment of Amin as Prime Minister on
the 28th of March, 1979, he immediately began to strengthen
his power and he had truly become the ruler of the country,
relegating Taraki to no more than a figurehead.
The Soviet Ambassador repeated his instructions to Taraki to
order his followers to arrest Amin. Under insistent pressure,
Taraki agreed and began to execute the plan. He issued a
summons for the Prime Minister to be present at the Republican
Palace, to convene an emergency session of the Revolutionary
Command Council. Amin’s spies inside the Republican Palace,
however informed him of what had transpired between Taraki and
Ambassador Puzanov and he deduced that the summon to the
Republican Palace was the beginning of a plot against him.
Before Amin made his way to the palace, he took precautions
and issued orders to his military units to prepare, and
contacted his military factional partisans to confront a
possible plot from hostile parties. Amin headed to the
Republican Palace where president Taraki was awaiting him in
the company of the dismissed Minister of Defense, Aslam
Watanjar and his armed supporters.
Amin arrived at the palace accompanied by his bodyguard. As
soon as he opened the door in front of him to meet with the
president, he was greeted by a hail of bullets from the
followers of Aslam Watanjar. Amin amazingly escaped the
bullets, but his comrade was killed. Amin fled the conference
chamber and his men began to exchange fire with the attackers.
President Taraki, however, was struck by a number of rounds
and taken to hospital for treatment. What occurred remained a
secret for more than three weeks until Radio Kabul announced
the death of Taraki.
During the above mentioned clash, the scheming General
Watanjar was able to flee the Republican Palace accompanied by
Soviet Ambassador Puzanov, using a secret path to arrive at
the Soviet embassy complex in Kabul, where the plotting
General requested political asylum.
(However, some Afghan sources report that after Nur Taraki had
differences with his trusted pupil Hafizullah Amin – famously
know by this name – was invited by Amin to the Republican
Palace at night and he had no bodyguard with him. Taraki
enjoyed shurba, which is a local Afghan food. In one of the
ground-floor rooms of the palace, Amin prepared for him shurba,
with a lot of meat in it. After he ate the food, one of Amin’s
guards placed a pillow over Taraki’s mouth and sat on top of
him until he died.)
The triumphant Amin returned after a short time with a force
of his private guard, armed with tanks and heavy weapons. They
surrounded the Republican Palace and exchanged fire with the
Republican Guard. Similar clashes occurred at the broadcast
station and the Ministry of Defense. Amin did not let the
opportunity slip from his hands. He issued orders to besiege
Kabul and close its access points. When night had just fallen,
the shooting stopped and he had taken control of the capital.
Taraki’s supporters were not able to recover power. They tried
to organize a military insurrection, but Amin’s supporters
swiftly put an end to them.
After the success of the coup and the stabilization of Amin’s
situation, the Soviet Ambassador conducted talks with him. The
Ambassador understood that it was unavoidable for his country
to deal with Amin. Nonetheless the Ambassador did not miss the
opportunity to explain to Amin that he would not be able to
hang onto his power without seeking the aid of Soviet might.
Amin immediately agreed to a deal. The Soviets extended their
support to Amin, who bestowed upon himself a number of titles:
President of the Republic, President of the Revolutionary
Council, President of the Afghan Democratic People’s Party (Khalq),
and Chief of the Council of Ministers.
In a press conference, Amin announced in the presence of
foreign journalists that the previous president Taraki had
been removed for “health reasons”. The Kabul government
imposed a complete shroud on news of Taraki and his
whereabouts and severely curtailed the movement of foreign
diplomats and journalists.
However, news leaked from the Kabul Military Hospital that
Taraki had been hit by gunfire while he was in his office on
14 September. The government immediately declared the news to
be a lie and attributed it to rumor-mongers. Amin said that
the president was very sick and that his health condition did
not permit him to exercise his duties. At last on 9 October,
the government in Kabul announced the death of Taraki
following what it described as a “chronic disease”.
Afterwards, one of the government employees declared that Amin
had tried to get Taraki’s to sign papers condemning him for
“betraying the revolution and the people”, but that he had
refused. He conducted the same method against other
politicians that were dismissed from power, so as to pave the
way for their execution.
Not two days had passed before Amin’s supporters began to
remove the huge pictures and posters of former president
Taraki, that were filling the capital, who had until recently
been receiving accolades and adulatory slogans from Radio
Kabul such as “The Great Beloved Leader” and “The Heroic Son
of Afghanistan”.
Before the masses discovered what had happened to Taraki, Amin
was standing before an Afghan labor delegation repeating his
slogan, “I and Taraki are like the fingernail and flesh – you
cannot separate us”.
On the Monday following his seizure of power, Amin received a
message from the Soviet leadership congratulating him on his
new position. It was signed by the Soviet Premier (Leonid)
Brezhnev and his Prime Minister (Aleksey) Kosygin. Moscow
quickly declared its support for the new coup, when only four
days before Brezhnev had at the Moscow airport greeted Taraki
on his way back from Cuba, where he had been attending a
conference of non-aligned nations!!!! The reception was lavish
and even Soviet news agency TASS had described what occurred
as “Talks governed by heart-felt love between the comrades”.
From the success of the coup until the assassination of the
“leader”, the regime had through murder and assassination
removed 25,000 Muslim religious scholars and educators.
Mujahideen sources estimated the number of victims of the new
regime from among the Muslim scholars and religious figures at
approximately half a million, in addition to another 80,000
Muslims from all other walks of life, including doctors,
teachers, merchants, tribal chiefs and farmers. The massacres
were conducted by Communist members of Khalq and Parcham
parties. The terror reached the point where it became a
customary event in the capital and other districts for any
critic of the regime or its “progressive” (!!) laws to be
summarily shot.
At the end of 1979 the activities of the ruling Khalq party
shifted to the countryside after they had “cleansed” the
cities of oppositionists and “reactionaries”. A ruthless
campaign began against farmers and land owners who opposed
farm ownership laws and agricultural reform.
At this point armed resistance to the regime expanded greatly.
Mujahideen organizations spread and achieved tangible
successes, expelling government representatives from their
areas. The regime tried to cling to the land in its hands, and
greatly widened the killing and use of the army in those
districts. The pools of blood did not stop even after the
transfer of power to Hafizullah Amin.
Meanwhile, the power and the victories of the Mujahideen grew
greatly and unexpectedly, causing a political and military
blow to the ruling Revolutionary Council in Kabul as well as
the Kremlin. The enormous losses in lives and equipment they
suffered made the soldiers and officers shrink from
confronting the Mujahideen. To rescue the regime, Moscow
decided to use its air force over the broadest possible area.
It launched unparalleled and barbaric attacks on Mujahideen
regions and rural villages. Thousands of civilians were slain
and dozens of villages and large swaths of agricultural lands
were incinerated along with their crops.
To counter this aggression, a number of popular armed
insurrections were launched, one of which was able to seize
control of the city of Herat in March of 1979. Another
uprising occurred in the city of Jalalabad in April of the
same year, costing thousands of civilian lives to stamp out
the insurrectionists. Soviet bomber aircraft deployed from
their bases to strike Herat with severe force.
The government lost confidence in the communist officers who
had been exhausted by the war and whose ranks had been torn
apart. These ranks were also shredded by the internecine
campaigns of elimination in the internal struggles between the
different Communist fractions.
Many of the officers in the army who were not party members
were inclined to help the Mujahideen. Some units joined them
along with all of their weapons. Some officers were content
with merely leaking information to the Mujahideen.
In September of that same year, the Soviets understood the
gravity of the situation as the political and military
collapse of the (Kabul) regime became obvious to them. The
Mujahideen controlled almost the entire area in the
countryside and the mountains and were satisfied with
besieging the large cities and skirmishing with their military
garrisons. At the same time they were pushing towards the
capital with a large force and concentrating in the
surrounding mountains, preparatory to storming it. Having no
faith in the ruling regime there, the Soviets then decided to
take over the job, and enter inside Afghanistan themselves.
And President Amin had to leave office.
Preparations began in Moscow to burn Amin politically. The
Soviet TASS news agency carried a report from Kabul that
former President Taraki had been strangled on 8 October 1979,
after being arrested on the orders of Hafizullah Amin. The
agency published the names of three soldiers who claimed that
they had participated in the act: Officer Muhammad Iqbal,
Corporal Abdul Wadud and Private Rawais. The agency did not
reveal the source or how it obtained the news. But after the
death of President Amin, many of his “crimes and terrorist
practices against the people” became known although these were
things that he would not have been able to accomplish without
Soviet help.
After a while, Amin grasped that the Soviets would get rid of
him so he began a desperate race against time, just as
President Daoud had done previously. Amin felt as if he were
suspended in the air after the party lost most of its cadre in
the mutual exterminations and in the battles with the
Mujahideen. Amin drafted a quick plan to counter Soviet
intentions. For he knew through practice how they thought and
how they disposed of their men who were burned after they
burned their countries. The plan was centered on courting the
growing Islamic power, reaching a truce with them and
convincing them to march under his banner. With them he would
frighten the Soviets and warn them against touching him.
The plan began with changing the state’s media program and
ceasing the campaign against Islam and describing it as a
“reactionary force”. He began to refer to Islam as the
“official religion of the state” and radio programs started
with Bismallah. Recitations of the Quran found their
way to the listeners of Radio Kabul, after having been
previously banned. Amin did not stop at that, but began a
dialogue with the ulema in the mosques about the
situation in the country and how to escape from the current
predicament.
The Kremlin leadership was not sympathetic to this or happy
about it. On 27 September, President Amin received the first
serious warning from the Kremlin, cautioning him against this
program (to avoid bloodshed!!!) and promised personal support
to him and guaranteeing the lives of his family – his wife and
four daughters and the lives of all his relatives.
Amin understood from these guarantees and assurances, in
Soviet usage, were nothing but a prelude to strike and dispose
of him. He also knew that they were preparing Babrak Karmal to
take power. Babrak was at the time located in one of the
Soviet Republics near the Afghan borders in the company of
Aslam Watanjar, the previous Minister of Defense, whom Amin
expelled and he had tried to assassinate Amin in collaboration
with Taraki in the original conspiracy that ended by bringing
Amin to power rather than killing him.
At 3:30 in the afternoon, a large group of Soviet technicians
headed out to make repairs on the central telephone exchange
located in the Republican Palace. As a result of these
“repairs” all telephones connected to the Republican Palace
were rendered inoperable. No one paid any attention to this
occurring, because this was the completion of repair work that
had begun months before and had already been scheduled to be
finished that day.
The same night, the Soviet Embassy in Kabul threw a grand
cocktail party in honor of the “Great Leader Of Afghanistan”.
Most of the leadership of the army and air force were invited
to attend. One of the military men that attended described
what happened:
“Bottles of vodka were
distributed around the tables in a conspicuous manner. The
Russians were plying us with wine in strange fashion. It
became clear to us afterward they had intended the wine to
play with our heads to allow them to carry out their fiendish
plan. The food and hors-oeuvres were very delicious and the
vodka was even more marvelous. But after I departed the place
and returned home I fell unconscious. When memory of this
party returned to me, I realized that the Russians had taken
the food away quickly and replaced it with appetizers and
vodka, and thereby all the officers became paralyzed with
inebriation.”
That same night, Hafizullah Amin was sitting in his office
pondering the unknown future, when he was surprised by a
Soviet officer who burst into his office and handed him a
communiqué issued by the Kremlin ordering him to hand over all
his powers to the Soviets. The Soviet officer informed him
that he had orders to move him and his entire family from
Kabul within half an hour, adding that armored vehicles were
already surrounding the Republican Palace.
The officer withdrew and Amin quickly thought of how he could
make use of the half hour respite granted to him. He tried to
contact his men in the army to make them understand the
situation, but the phone lines were cut. The Soviet experts
had not yet finished the “repair” work which they had begun in
the morning.
Then Amin issued orders to the guard to open fire on the
Soviet force which was surrounding the place, which numbered
1,200 Soviet soldiers equipped with armored vehicles.
Violent gunfire broke out between the two sides and some of
the armored vehicles were set alight. But the attackers
overcame the guard, and according to the orders they had
received, they arrested the President alive and led him to the
Soviet Embassy building, taking with them three sacks filled
with important documents from the Republican Palace. In the
Soviet Embassy, intelligence officers interrogated Amin for
four continuous hours before executing him by firing squad at
four in the morning.
(This was the story written by the German correspondent in
Kabul, but the confirmed Afghan story is: After the Russian
had poisoned his food, Amin went to his home in the Tajbeg
Palace overlooking the small hills in south Kabul, near the
famous Darul Aman Palace. The Soviet soldiers who arrived on
the day that Hafizullah Amin’s food was poisoned stormed the
palace using machine guns. They knew the room on the second
story of the palace was where Amin was living. They attacked
him while he was lying on his bed, killing him there and
wounding some members of his family. After they were sure they
had killed him, they stopped the attack and took his family
members – his wife, four daughters and his son Abdul Rahman,
12 people in all – to the Pol-e Charkhi prison.)
On the same night there was a huge air bridge carrying Soviet
forces numbering 80,000 with all their equipment. The Soviets
began a swift and decisive operation to seize control of the
Afghan capital. A number of Afghan units attempted to resist,
but they were put down without mercy. All who tried to resist
or protest were shot, no matter what their position in the
party or the army was.
Two important people paved the way for the Soviet invasion and
the swift and easy subjugation of the Afghan army: General
Watanjar, who had remained hidden in the Soviet Embassy since
the 14th of September, and General Abdul Qader, whom Amin had
arrested a short time before his death on charges of high
treason.
Generals Watanjar and Abdul Qader were able to take control of
the Ministry of Defense and Presidential Palace. The Soviet
Embassy ended the party it had thrown for the top Afghan
officers, who left the embassy building intoxicated. Before
they arrived home, they heard machine gun fire reverberating
around the capital. With difficulty they grasped what was
afoot. Some of them tried to head to their units, but to no
avail.
A high-ranking officer who later served in the ranks of the
Mujahideen said that on the night of the Soviet invasion, the
airport officer was surprised by Soviet military aircraft
landing on the runway without prior permission. Feelings of
confusion prevailed when everybody discovered that no one
there knew about these airplanes or who had given them
permission to land. So they started to contact the high
command, and those commands tried to contact the President of
the Republic, to inquire if he had authorized them to receive
the Soviet aircraft. Because communications with the
Republican Palace had been cut off, those officers’ efforts
became fruitless.
The Soviet soldiers landed with armored vehicles from inside
huge Antonov aircraft. They swiftly seized control of the
airport installations and marched towards the capital.
As for President Amin, the Mujahideen knew that his private
doctor was a Soviet agent and he had persistently slipped
poison to him during treatment. On the night of the invasion,
Amin was robbed of his will and incapable of making any
decisions. Enthusiastic statements were launched from Radio
Kabul announcing the fall of the Amin’s rule and the
appointment of a new President of the Republic, Babrak Karmal.
It also announced the release of members of the Communist
Parcham Party whom Amin had arrested. General Abdul Qader was
also released. Then the voice of the new President Babrak
Karmal rang out forcibly announcing: “The fascist regime of
Hafizullah Amin has been swept away”.
Those declarations were nothing, but tapes recorded previously
in Tashkent, where Karmal had been lurking, waiting for the
Soviets to summon him to ascend to the Kabul throne. One
night, under the cover of darkness, a Soviet Antonov aircraft
transported him from Tashkent to Kabul to become the third
Communist President in the history of Afghanistan.
The speed and force of the strike deprived the residents of
Kabul not only of the ability to react, but to even imagine
what was taking place. The residents of the rest of the
country were baffled or drunk with shock from what they were
witnessing. All were struck by the paralysis and impotence. No
one wanted to believe what he was seeing and hearing.
Harbingers of Jihad
With the arrival of Taraki to the seat of government as the
first Communist President in the history of Afghanistan and
the success of the Communist regime in controlling the country
with prompt speed, the ulema launched a violent
campaign of criticism against the former ruling regime of
President Daoud, the in-law and cousin of King Zahir Shah.
They accused the two of opening the door wide for the
infiltration of communist ideas among the youth, an increase
of Soviet influence in the country and an expansion in sending
military academy cadets and officers to receive their
education in Moscow, where they were indoctrinated with
Communist principles. The Daoud era was the one in which
Communist organizations began to be established and to
infiltrate the security apparatus and civil administration.
However, after Daoud sensed the imminent danger his communist
friends posed to himself and that Soviet pressure on him was
increasing, he moved to arrest prominent Communist leaders in
an attempted race against time. But the opportunity slipped
from between his hands. The Communists were able to beat him
and aim their blow against him and strip the country from his
grasp and in doing so drowned Afghanistan in a dark sea of
blood.
The Muslim ulema had passed through difficult times
during the reign of King Zahir Shah and the subsequent rule of
his cousin, President of the Republic Daoud. During their two
reigns, successive governments strived to stifle action by the
ulema. One means of doing this was appointing some of
them to government posts and prominent social situations. For
the most part, however, these labors went the way of the winds
and yielded no results.
This is regarded as an extension of those efforts that go back
to old times, beginning with King Amanullah in 1929, when the
king tried to overturn the notions of the Afghan people about
Islam and replace these with Western ideas until he was
answered with a popular revolution led by the Muslim ulema
which resulted in him losing his throne.
First day of the coup
Nur Muhammad Taraki had barely returned to the seat of
government in the People’s Palace when Marxist Parties began
executing a well-studied and masterful plan to physically
eliminate their political competitors. In less serious cases,
they threw them into awful prisons, none other than the Pol-e
Charkhi prison where no one knew anything about them.
The Communist coup, which occurred on the evening of 27 April,
began at dawn on 27 April in order to execute its previously
prepared program to eliminate the Islamists. Communist cells
throughout the country had beforehand compiled detailed lists
with the names of persons who had to be killed “to guarantee
the safety of the revolution”.
The lists contained the names and addresses of tens of
thousands of men, ulema, and students of religious
madrasas in addition to university and college students
and even tribal leaders. The lists did not exclude one person
who had any connection or suspected links to Islamist
activity. In a series of raids, thousands of men and youths
were led away, to no one knows where.
Thousands were executed immediately. For those found in the
outskirts of the cities or in the countryside, they were
ordered to lie flat on the ground where they were mowed down
with fire from heavy machine guns mounted on armored vehicles
and tanks, which would run over them at the end of the
massacre to make sure that the mission was fully accomplished
and none of those upon whom suspicion fell remained alive.
The Second Day of the Coup
Hundreds of homes were burned in the villages and the
mountains and the families of those wanted men who had been
able to escape were arrested and detained as hostages until
the fugitives gave themselves up. Mosques large and small were
attacked. Any attempt at protest, or even holding up a sign
expressing dissatisfaction, was debated with the muzzle of a
rifle. In short, the theory of “revolutionary violence” was
applied with exemplariness worthy to be taught in the highest
Marxist institutes.
Throughout their long history, the Afghan people had never
seen anything at all like this huge “accomplishment” by any
government. So cruel and violent was this blow that they were
frozen and struck by what resembled complete paralysis. Even
the tough mountain men – who traditionally keep weapons and
rifles to defend themselves – were afflicted by this
paralysis. For the first time, tanks and armored vehicles were
trampling their villages and high speed jet fighters were
circling near the roofs of their homes, shaking the spirit and
killing any idea of disobedience. For the first time the
central government was able to humble the mountain tribes and
burn their homes; to arrest their leaders and their ulema,
to throw them in prison or to execute them in full view of
all.
A few inside the country however were able to recover swiftly
from the fright of that first blow of blood and terror. On the
third day, the first act of resistance to the new regime
began, as an example and a traditional pattern to be followed
in many parts of the country even if the details differed. The
following incident occurred:
The First Rebellion in Zadran
The Place:
A mountain region in Paktia province where the Zadran tribe
dwells.
The Event:
The arrival of a notification from the government to one
family requiring their presence at the police center to
receive the corpse of one of their sons, killed hours after
his arrest.
The corpse was handed over to them and the officer gave the
family instructions that the body was to be buried quickly
with no ceremony, no reading of the Quran, or any other
religious or traditional ceremony for the burial of the dead.
To guarantee his orders were followed, the officer sent a
squad of his men to guard the funeral party until the body was
buried. A son of the village, Major Muhammad Akbar, was hiding
outside the village near his clan. He was well known in the
army for his integrity and his hostility to the Communists. At
night Akbar made an agreement with the village scholar Maulavi
Aziz Khan that after the burial he would stand up and preach
to the people, making clear to them the shari’ah
requirement to fight this infidel regime which was controlling
the country. He also told a number of the young men of the
village of the plan.
On the morning of the next day, the quick, sad and silent
funeral procession moved out with their guard of security men
armed with automatic weapons. Quietly the martyr was buried.
The village cleric Maulavi Aziz Khan stood and gave a speech,
starting with Alhamdulillah and beseeching mercy for
the departed. Then suddenly he cried in a loud voice calling
upon those present to declare Jihad and fight the infidel
government.
Immediately cries of Allahu Akbar echoed off the
mountain sides and reverberated through the valleys. The men
pounced on the security men who were thunderstruck and swiftly
killed by the village men who seized their weapons. The men
immediately went down to the police center, destroying it and
killing the officers and soldiers. They seized the weapons and
ammunition they found there and liberated the prisoners
inside.
What happened in Zadran was repeated in dozens of places in
the mountains and plains, in the cities and villages at the
hands of men who had gained control of themselves and
recovered after two days from the shock of insane violence
practiced by the new regime. But the Afghan army was composed
of 80,000 soldiers armed with the latest Soviet weaponry. Its
leadership of “revolutionary comrades” assumed responsibility
for opposing this “counter-revolution”. Columns of armored
vehicles began to push towards mutinous villages and wiped
them from existence, as bomber aircraft leveled the mountains
with hundreds of tons of bombs. How swiftly had the
“revolutionary violence” evolved from simple arrests according
to previously prepared lists to punitive military operations
to confront a campaign of guerrilla warfare involving
martyrdom squads.
The year of the “revolution” had not ended before the army
officers and party cadre were searching for a solution to the
problem that they began, but could not finish or even control.
Translated From The Islamic Emirate Of
Afghanistan: Al-Somood Monthly Magazine
Submitted by a Mujahid
jalaluddin Haqqani, a Legend in the History of the Afghanistan Jihad part 1