The Bear Trap (Afghanistan’s Untold Story)

by Mohammad Yousaf

  The long wait for a suitable target was rewarded at 3.00 pm. All eyes gazed up into the sky to pick out a magnificent sight—no less than eight helicopters, all their hitter enemy the Mi-24 Hind gunship, were approaching for a landing. With Ghaffar’s group were three Stingers, whose firers now lifted their already loaded launchers on to their shoulders and stood up. Another Mujahid, armed with a video camera, was shaking with nervous excitement as he tried to focus on the rapidly descending aircraft. The firing parties were within shouting distance of each other, deployed in a triangular pattern in the bushes, as it had not been certain from which direction the target might approach. We had organized each team to have three men the firer, and two others holding missile tubes for quick reloading.

  Although the Stinger has an effective ceiling in excess of 15,000 feet, Ghaffar waited for the leading helicopters to begin their final approach. The Hinds were about to be ambushed by the West’s most sophisticated shoulder-fired, man-portable air defence system. It was the Stinger’s first use against a real enemy anywhere in the world. The Stinger had become operational in Germany in 1981, and with the 82nd Airborne Division in the US the following year. Stingers had been taken into Grenada in October, 1983, during the US invasion of that island, but were never fired. It fired an infra-red, heat-seeking missile, capable of engaging low altitude, high-speed jets, even if flying directly at the firer. The missile carried a high explosive warhead with significant countermeasure immunity. Once a missile has locked on to a target no other heat source, such as flares, can deflect it. The only possible way to avoid the lock-on is to keep so high as to be out of range, or to dispense flares at such a rate that there is virtually no interval between them. This entailed knowing when to start firing flares and having an inexhaustible supply. On this occasion not a single flare was fired as the eight helicopters came in. The attack would have the added advantage of total surprise.

  The three firers waited for Ghaffar’s shout. They would then fire almost simultaneously, selecting their own targets. Aiming and firing had been made simple. The firer held the launcher, or grip-stock as the military called it, on his shoulder. On top was the tube containing the missile, which jutted out beyond the end of the grip-stock. The tube was left behind when the missile was fired and would normally be discarded, but I had insisted that these tubes must be collected and returned for security reasons. Also it was proof that the Commander had actually fired his weapon, and so was not hoarding or selling missiles. Without an empty tube I would not issue more ammunition. Each Mujahideen selected a helicopter through the open sight on the launcher, the IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) system signalled a hostile target with a pinging noise, and the Stinger was then locked on to the heat of the aircraft. If the target was out of range no lock-on could be achieved, or pinging heard. The trigger was pressed, the missile fired, and the firer could immediately reload, take cover or move away. It is a ‘fire and forget’ weapon, with no need to remain exposed to guide the missile to its target. Nothing, short of a miracle, could stop the missile. travelling at over 1200 miles per hour, from homing on its target.

  When the leading Hinds were only about 600 feet from the ground Ghaffar yelled ‘Fire’ and the Mujahideen’s shouts of ‘Allah o Akbar’ rose up with the missiles. Of the three, one malfunctioned and fell, without exploding, a few metres from the firer. The other two slammed into their targets. Both helicopters fell like stones to the airstrip, bursting into flames on impact. There was a mad scramble among the firing parties to reload and change over firers as everybody in the teams wanted their chance to shoot. Two more missiles were fired, with another success and a near miss with a helicopter that had landed. I believe one or two others were damaged due to heavy landings as the frantic pilots sought to touch down in precipitate haste. Five missiles, three kills—the Mujahideen were jubilant.

  Their cameraman was so overcome with elation that he tried to film while running around, so his record of the event consisted largely of blurred images of sky, bushes and stony ground. He only steadied himself sufficiently to film the black smoke pouring from the wrecks. Later, this video was shown to President Reagan, while the tube from the first missile was handed over to the CIA for them to make into a suitable presentation piece.

  It was a memorable day. Ghaffar had won his bet and became an instant celebrity. In the coming months he went on to shoot down ten helicopters or aircraft with Stingers. I subsequently had him called to Islamabad to meet General Akhtar, who rewarded him with a special presentation for his achievements.

  His rival, Darwesh, did not fare so well at Kabul. He had been tasked, not to get close to the airport, but rather to position his men on the usual approach flight path, some distance from the runway. From there he was to launch rocket attacks on Kabul to try to tempt aircraft to take off on retaliatory strikes. I also suggested he could attempt to get in closer to the airfield at night to take on Soviet transport aircraft. After several days of fruitless waiting for a suitable target, his frustration got the better of him and he let fly at a fast-moving jet at extreme range that was moving away from the firer. It missed, as did two further missiles. He had broken the rules for engagement we had given him during training, so he was recalled for a thorough debriefing and more tuition. This was always considered to be a personal insult, but Darwesh came with comparative good grace for his refresher training. Within two weeks of returning to Afghanistan he redeemed himself with two confirmed hits.

  After firing, Ghaffar’s men quickly gathered up the discarded tubes and destroyed the unexploded missile by smashing it with stones; they had no demolition kit and could not leave it to fall into enemy hands. Their dash back to base was uneventful, although about an hour into their journey they heard jet aircraft in the distance, together with the crump of exploding bombs.

  At Jalalabad there was no immediate reaction that afternoon, just stunned disbelieve. In the event the airfield was closed for a month. When flights resumed, flying techniques had changed dramatically. No longer did helicopters come cruising in on a straight, gradually descending flight path, but rather in a tight, twisting spiral from a great height and firing flares every few seconds.

  Both these two Commanders belonged to Hekmatyar’s Party, so the second Stinger training course was allotted to two of Khalis’ Commanders, Mahmood from Jalalabad, and Arsala from Kabul. They were both veterans, much respected for their operational performance, and highly reported on by my officers who had previously accompanied them inside Afghanistan. Our confidence in them was subsequently confirmed when they both successfully fired their Stingers.

  Mahmood’s achievements were, however, seriously marred by his irresponsibility afterwards. His indiscretion was the equivalent of making a broadcast to the world that Stingers were now in use against the Soviets. After his first ‘kill’ near the Sarubi dam he gave an extensive and revealing briefing to a journalist. He gave out highly confidential information, including the general location of the training school and details of my policy of rewarding each confirmed kill by issuing two more missiles to the Commander. Mahmood even went so far as to have a Mujahid carrying a Stinger photographed.

  It was an infuriating breach of security, but it could not detract from our delight that at last we had a weapon which could be a war-winning acquisition. When the news broke, and spread throughout the Mujahideen, there was a wave of jubilation. Morale soared, and I was almost overwhelmed by the clamour of every Party to receive their share. To have a Stinger was the ultimate status symbol. It was also, I believe, the turning-point of the campaign as far as the four-year period of my stint with ISI was concerned. Unfortunately, its arrival had been needlessly delayed—not by soldiers, but by American and Pakistani politicians.

  We felt it was appropriate that the first Stinger victims should be the Hind D helicopter gunship (MIL Mi-24). It was particularly loathed for its destruction over the years; not so much for the casualties it had caused to the Mujahideen, which were comparatively light, but fo
r the countless hundreds of civilians and women and children it had gunned down.

  It was a formidable helicopter, designed by the Soviets for a battlefield assault role—not only could it deliver massive firepower but also up to eight fully equipped combat troops. It was, like the American equivalent, the Black Hawk, the workhorse of the war as far as the Soviets and Afghans were concerned. Under its auxiliary wings were four pods for rockets or bombs. With a full load 128 rockets could be carried, plus four napalm or HE bombs, while its cannon could fire at the rate of 1,000 rounds a minute Within a year of the Soviet invasion the Hind D model, with its heavily armoured belly and cockpit for the pilot and copilot, appeared in large numbers. Its armour made it almost immune to our medium or heavy machine guns. By staying high, over 5,000 feet, it could strafe the ground with impunity as our SA-7 could not reach it at this height. Even when within range of this outdated SAM a few flares could usually be relied on to deflect our missiles off course. The technical details of these state of the art aircraft were top secret. At one stage a US magazine offered a million dollar reward for the first intact Mi-24 to be captured. I have already described in chapter five how two were handed over by us to the US authorities after their pilots defected. As far as I know nobody got the reward—we certainly didn’t.

  We did, however, manage to hit some of these helicopters in the years preceding the arrival of the Stinger. Our successes were always the result of superior tactics, of achieving surprise, and thus getting in a shot at close range before the pilot was aware of danger. Sometimes we positioned firers high up the slopes of a valley, hoping to fire down on to a helicopter if it came up the valley floor. For a while this worked; we even killed several with our anti-tank launcher, the RPG-7, in this way, but pilots are quick to learn when their lives are at stake, so they mostly kept high.

  One of our most startling achievements against aircraft prior to the use of Stingers was in 1985, when we downed a MiG-21 piloted by a Soviet Air Force major-general. He was flying from Kandahar to Shindand when his plane was hit by an SA-7 missile. The general ejected safely but was captured by the Mujahideen, although at the time they did not realize his importance. The disappearance of the general triggered perhaps the most massive air search of the war. Scores of planes were scrambled to find the missing MiG. Fearing the scale of retaliation the captors shot their prisoner, not knowing for several days that he was a general. Later the Mujahideen brought his parachute back to Pakistan, where it is still kept as a souvenir of success.

  The Mi-24 has a crew of three. The pilot and copilot, who is also the gunner, sit in tandem one above the other in the front cockpit while the flight engineer/mechanic sits in the main cabin with the troops. The Soviets had hundreds of helicopters, including reconnaissance and transport types in Afghanistan. The main bases for the Hind D were Bagram, Shindand, Jalalabad and Kunduz. The Afghan Air Force had large numbers at Kabul airport, including a squadron of Hinds, with another at Jalalabad. With these Afghan-operated helicopters it was normal for a Soviet or a KHAD agent to be a crew member. This was considered necessary to ensure missions were carried out as ordered. As the war progressed and particularly after we started using Stingers, all helicopter pilots began to show a marked disinclination to press home attacks. The Soviets would tend to send Afghan units on difficult missions, while Afghan pilots would sometimes fire off their ammunition at any soft target, and report a successful strike, when they had not flown near their intended objective. A lot of distrust built up, confirmed via the interception of radio conversations.

  Both the Soviets and Afghans flew their missions in pairs whenever possible. From early in the war road convoys were given air cover, with the gunships either flying overhead as the column crawled along the road or, for the less important convoys, on immediate call. The Hind was conspicuous in all retaliation strikes or in protecting and supporting a ground advance. Sometimes it operated as airborne artillery, sometimes it combined strafing with dropping commandos in cut off positions, but it was as the primary instrument in search and destroy operations that the gunship earned its infamous reputation.

  The attack on the village of Rugyan in 1982 was typical of Soviet methods. Rugyan had a population of about 800 people and lay 8 kilometres NW of Ali Khel. It was an agricultural village set in the narrow valley of the Rugyan River and was, at that time, a thriving community which supported the Mujahideen. The mud-brick houses were clustered together on the lower slopes of the mountains on both sides of the valley, and up a smaller side valley, whose stream joined the Rugyan from the east. In the centre of the village were numerous wells and more houses. Every possible use had been made of terraces to give maximum soil and space for crops of wheat or maize.

  On the day in question the villagers were going about their normal chores when at around 9.00 am six helicopters were spotted high above the valley. The leading pair came lower, straight at the village. At about 2,000 feet the first rockets were fired, then another salvo, then another, the high explosive ripping apart the flimsy dwellings and killing or maiming the occupants. For at least two hours the endless bombardment continued with short intervals as one pair flew off to make way for the next. As a gunship ran out of rockets it circled round hosing the houses and fields with machine-gun fire. On the ground a few younger men fled up into the hills, while the remainder, the elderly and the women and children cowered in the rubble or behind boulders. Many died outright, many more were to die later from shock and loss of blood. If there seemed to be a lull in the firing uninjured people would come out to attend the wounded. It was futile; any movement below was the signal for the next pair of gunships to attack. There was no defence. The number of Mujahideen in the village at the time was negligible. There were no anti-aircraft weapons and no caves in which to shelter.

  The next phase was heralded by the approach of ground troops from the direction of Ali Khel. Two hundred infantrymen, with several tanks, APCs and mortars, halted a few hundred metres from the village. They spread out before opening fire. For another half an hour gunfire, mortar bombs and heavy machine-gun bullets pummelled the rubble and every possible place of concealment. At last, by about midday, the Soviet commander stopped the firing. None of his men had been scratched. It was a search and destroy operation in which the destruction preceded the searching. An Afghan officer yelled through a bullhorn for anybody still living to come out. The shocked, petrified, wailing women and children were segregated from the handful of men still able to walk. The searching of the ruins began, with the soldiers setting fire to any building left intact. No attention was given to the wounded, they were ignored until the troops finally departed, taking a few men for interrogation.

  It was the end of Rugyan village. All 200 or so survivors trekked to Pakistan, carrying their injured strapped to horses and mules, or carried on beds. It took them ten hours to reach Parachinar hospital. On that occasion the surviving women had been fortunate to escape with a few blows and curses. There was no rape or cold-bloodied butchery as it was not just a Soviet operation. When Afghan troops were present the Soviets usually refrained from their more gruesome atrocities. After a similar mission elsewhere three young girls had been taken up by the Soviets in a gunship, raped, then thrown out while still alive. Multiply Rugyan by hundreds and you get some idea of what the Soviets’ scorched earth strategy meant. Not for them any attempt to win hearts and minds, but rather wholesale destruction, the killing of civilians, or the driving of them into exile. This was their way of rooting out opposition, of depriving the Mujahideen of support, and of putting pressure on Pakistan through the refugees. I must confess that it was partially successful. Had we had the Stinger in 1982 or 1983 I believe countless civilian lives would have been spared.

  For almost six years it was politics that prevented us from receiving Stingers. Not long after I had taken up my duties with ISI, and before I became aware of the political issues, I had advocated their use by the Mujahideen. In early 1984 a delegation of US officials, who were
advising Congress on the war, visited me at Rawalpindi. A member of the delegation asked me which weapon system I would recommend to counter the growing Soviet air threat. Without hesitation I replied, ‘The Stinger’. Back at their embassy my visitors had asked the CIA station chief why the Mujahideen were not getting this weapon, as it had been strongly advocated by Brigadier Yousaf. The CIA’s answer was that it was the Pakistani government that would not allow its introduction. This was only half the truth, as neither would the US administration, but I had inadvertently touched on a very sensitive spot.

  The CIA chief had immediately contacted me to protest that the delegation seemed to be convinced that it was they, the CIA. who were preventing-the issue of the Stinger, whereas I knew full well it was my own government. At the time I knew no such thing, but I had obviously caused problems with my ignorance That evening I had to explain what I had done to General Akhtar. I stressed that I was unaware of any political motives for not accepting this weapon, and that my recommendation had been entirely a professional, military judgement. The General called a meeting with the delegation to clarify our position. I was conspicuous by my absence.

  While it was not denied that the Stinger was the ideal weapon with which an infantryman can knock an aircraft out of the sky, as far as Pakistan was concerned it was too good. It was the best of its kind in the world at that time, and had recently been issued to US forces, so its technology was still top secret. President Zia took the view, changed in 1986, that for the Mujahideen to be given this sophisticated American weapon would contradict the policy of keeping all arms supplied to the Mujahideen of communist origin. Its introduction could not be kept secret for long; missiles, or even the weapon, might be captured or seen by enemy agents. In this event how could Pakistan maintain the presence that it was not allowing the US to support the Jehad directly? Also, but never openly admitted, the President was worried that a Stinger might get into the hands of a terrorist organization and be used against his own aircraft. He had many enemies, and already they had tried to shoot down his plane. Ironically, President Zia was right in so far as he later met his death by terrorist sabotage of his aircraft, but not by the use of a Stinger missile.