The Lion of Sabray

by Patrick Robinson

  Simultaneously, Russian tanks rolled out of the ancient Uzbekistan city of Termez, which was no stranger to war, having been conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 BC, and then, more than 1,500 years later, destroyed by Genghis Khan. In that wild northern territory, the Amu Dar’ya River divides the two countries, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The bridge across those swiftly flowing mountain waters is called the Friendship Bridge, but it should have been renamed. In the decade after the Soviet attack, more than a hundred thousand Russian soldiers marched out of their Termez military headquarters and over that highway, heading south into hostile Afghan mountains.

  Whatever Mr. Brezhnev said about supporting the Kabul government, there was nothing friendly about his armies. And their ultimate fate was sealed very early in 1980.

  The mujahideen, the historic jihadist army, declared that the Russian invaders had defiled both Islam and Afghani culture. And they immediately declared jihad, citing the literal meaning of that old Arab word: “struggle.” And they vowed to go on killing the Soviets until they left.

  This was a holy war, and they conducted it fiercely, in the name of Allah, reviving the nineteenth-century creed of the iron-souled mujahideen tribesmen who massacred the forces of General Elphinstone.

  Communications in the valleys of Kunar Province were limited, but in the ancient ways of the Pashtun tribes, the call to arms flashed through the high peaks, man to man, village to village, like a kind of tribal bush telegraph. Gulab was not yet seven years old, but he still remembers the men of Sabray gathering their rifles and leaving together, many of them led by his own brother.

  It was fitting somehow that the conflict’s very first battle was fought in a valley not eleven miles from his village. He was always told the mujahideen won it, but even at his tender age, he already understood that the men of Sabray would never admit defeat no matter what the outcome really was.

  And from that moment, in the opening days of the Christian New Year, the Russians would meet ferocious resistance all along the main Kunar road that runs along the river. In fact, the Russians ran into heavy-handed opposition whenever they ventured out of their city strongholds and into the countryside. And they probably never understood why the men of the mujahideen fought with such venom.

  The truth was, they had to win those early skirmishes for one practical reason: the mujahideen needed to grab the Russian weapons and the explosives. There was no way to buy them, so they had to be stolen in battle. And the tribesmen did not care how many of the enemy they killed—anything to get those rifles, machine guns, hand grenades, rockets, and bombs.

  They never took tanks or armored vehicles, because they were useless in the steep-walled valleys, and anyway, the mountain men were not sure how to work them. They usually just blew them up with the Russians’ own high explosives, on the basis that if the tribesmen couldn’t use them, neither could the occupying army.

  The mujahideen stuck rigidly to the strategies of guerilla warfare: ambush and surprise attacks, plus murderous assaults on the enemy guards and young officers in the dead of night. No training was needed for this.

  Gulab estimates that he was called in 1981. By that time, the Russians had taken some bad losses and in many ways were already on the run, especially out in the wild country, where they were hit hard over and over. Once he had recovered from being flattened by the AK-47, Gulab moved up onto his platform of mountain granite and began work as a gunner.

  This was his first job, and once he mastered the terrific vibration of the dushka, he was able to aim it pretty well. After a three-day walk from Sabray, they positioned themselves high up over a valley, on both sides. The heavy machine guns were already in place, the barrels aimed down at the road through the central pass. Behind just one of them, the flat stones awaited him, and they made camp up there in the hills and waited.

  They waited maybe for two days until the lookouts signaled that the Russian convoy was coming. There was huge excitement, but no one spoke. The commanders moved among the gunners, checking ammunition supplies. Gulab kept very still up there; at one point, his brother came by and told him to fire steady when the time arrived.

  Everyone saw the leading Russian tanks and trucks come rumbling into the valley, and the mujahideen commanders let them get well entrenched between the rock faces before ordering the Afghan riflemen to open up, pouring volley after volley into the convoy.

  They could see the armored vehicles swerving, trying to get away from the fire. But then Commander Haji Nazer Gul ordered the dushkas to start shooting. “For the first time,” said Gulab, “in the anger of battle, aged eight, I hit the trigger.”

  Gulab recounts that opening action of the Russian war:

  I could tell my big shells were slamming into the vehicles I aimed at, but very quickly a great cloud of dust was surrounding them, and I thought I’d better stop wasting ammunition, since I could no longer see what I was shooting at.

  That was one of my earliest military errors. There was a sporadic return of fire from Russian troops, who had got free of their tanks, and I could tell there were bullets hitting the dusty terrain around me and ricocheting off the rocks.

  Up on the higher slopes, where a line of our machine gunners worked, there were several big explosions, with shale and sand being hurled down over our heads. Nothing hit me, but I was covered in dust and feeling a bit bewildered.

  But right then, Haji Nazer Gul yelled at me to get behind the iron shield on my dushka and keep firing no matter what: “Fire into the dust cloud! Don’t let them think they have cover! Keep banging away until there’s no one left alive!” And that’s what I did. If something or someone moved, I blasted it—I knew my high-caliber bullets could cut a man in half, and I just kept blazing away into the melee below.

  “Keep firing, kid! Hold your position!”

  By now, I had learned the chilling battle cry of the mujahideen, a loud, echoing roar, which sounded like a scream from the mouth of hell. It was designed to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy, and from all accounts, that’s what it did. I loved it, and even though my voice had not yet broken, I could still do it, and I thought it sounded like everyone else. I also used to practice it in my village, very loudly and very often, until several people told me it was not absolutely necessary.

  Spurred on by my brother, I fired that dushka until the barrel glowed hot, yelling and blasting—that was my new life. And soon I would see the remnants of the Russian convoy trying to go forward, as if they’d given up on the wounded and abandoned the burning vehicles. All of them were just revving, skidding, and swerving along the road, desperate to get out of the hellhole we’d created.

  And then I saw the biggest explosion I’d ever seen. The lead Russian armored vehicle was blown into the air and the one behind it, and when they crashed to the ground, they burst into flames. That was our booby traps, and within a couple of minutes, just about every vehicle was in flames, and I could see the Russian troops fighting to get out of them.

  I remember I just stood there, gaping at this scene of destruction, until, right behind me, I heard Haji Nazer Gul bellowing at me, “Keep firing! Cut them down! We want their equipment—kill them all!”

  And then he patted me on the shoulder and told me I was doing great, but always to remember: “If we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us. Come on, kid, let’s finish them.”

  Just then there was another huge blast from the exit end of the valley, and a rockfall came smashing down into the road, and now no one could get out, and no one ever would, not in this life.

  Finally, I understood what my Islamic teachers meant by “Death to the infidel.” And never again would I wonder exactly what Haji Nazer Gul meant when he said, “Gulab, they should have thought about all this before they tried to conquer us and insult the name of the Prophet and the glory of Allah.”

  Later that evening, when we began to pile the spoils of war onto our mountain mule carts, the air still smelled of gunpowder and death, and black smoke still waf
ted upward from the shattered Russian convoy.

  The scene was still one of horror, but we nevertheless turned to face Mecca that evening. And there on that hillside, prostrate on our prayer mats, we thanked Allah for our great victory—for there is no other God but Allah, and God is great.

  Looking back, that was probably the day Gulab grew up. No one could have lived through that much carnage and remained a child. He couldn’t read, and he couldn’t write. He knew nothing of the world beyond his mountains, and he knew little history.

  But he did know the Prophet had been not only the holiest of men but also a warrior, and that he, Gulab, was already following in those hallowed footsteps. Haji Nazer Gul told him they’d all fought together that day, and that Allah stood alongside them, protecting them and helping them to victory.

  Gulab believed him implicitly. He still does.

  Later, however, he learned that first encounter with the enemy had not been quite so pristine perfect as he’d imagined. They had apparently wiped out two thousand Russian troops, destroyed their tanks and armored vehicles, and stolen a large amount of weaponry and ordnance.

  But the men from the high villages had losses, too. Those explosions right behind Gulab had blown many of his comrades off the mountain, killed and maimed many mujahideen warriors being blasted by great hunks of rocks ripped off the mountain walls.

  At the time, Gulab was, of course, unaware of how this happened. He soon found out, however, that this was the professional work of the Russians, who, if they could climb out of their tanks and vehicles, went quickly into action with their RPG-7’s, launching rocket-propelled grenades.

  These are fired from portable shoulder-launchers, which weigh about fifteen pounds and can hurl a powerful grenade a thousand yards and make one hell of a bang when they hit home. The true purpose was always as an antitank missile, but the Soviets found it was just as good at splitting Afghan rocks and causing havoc among their mujahideen enemy.

  That’s what did the damage in the first battle. The launcher is reloadable, and an enemy using it against you must be stopped—thus Haji’s yell to keep firing no matter what.

  The RPG-7, with its telescopic sight, fires at a high standard, and its missiles are often heat-seeking, some of them fitted with infrared sights. It works with a gunpowder booster charge, and when the missile leaves that hot steel tube, it’s clocking 350 feet per second, stabilized by two sets of fins. You have to be quick to see it coming. Two additional qualities made it vital to the mujahideen: it was relatively simple to use, and it could take out tanks.

  Gulab remembers that when they swooped down to grab the remaining hardware from the defeated Russians, those launchers were top priority.

  With the Russian war seriously under way, and throughout the following years, the youth of Sabray would be called to the front line every two or three weeks.

  This location was never disclosed, and they all kept walking, destination unknown. It took three or four days, crossing the mountains through these ancient fighting grounds, until they reached the valley to which the Soviets were heading.

  Even on the walk, the Sabray cadets were an armed military force. And they were careful not to leave tracks or disturb the ground. No Russian spy could track like they could, and they stuck to the old tribal standards, moving through the shifting shale on the hillsides and sticking to areas where they could swiftly find cover on the heavily forested slopes.

  Their escape routes were always upward, because once they reached the higher slopes where the rocks were huge and tightly packed, no enemy could locate them. And if anyone tried, he would die.

  By the time the mujahideen battalions arrived for an ambush, they had usually been joined by other small mountain armies, and commanders were already prepared for the forthcoming theater of war.

  While media reports often suggested that the native Afghani army was disorganized, undisciplined, and mostly a bit lucky, the opposite was true. The Afghanis were brilliantly organized, with excellent intelligence, and efficient commanders, especially Gulab’s older brother.

  When any Russian convoy moved toward an ambush valley, it was already in enormous trouble. The mujahideen explosive was placed meticulously, snipers settled into perfect firing positions, heavy machine guns in the most destructive possible formations, swiveled to face the oncoming tanks and armored vehicles.

  “I learned to select my target early,” Gulab says, “and to follow it through the machine gun sights until the order came to open fire. I rarely missed, and I knew how to hit a tank crew, keeping my gun sights trained on the top part of the turret. If we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us.”

  Gulab is, in many ways, a wise historian about his own nation. He accepts that Afghanistan is a land of misconceptions and that the world has never figured out how it remained unconquered for all those hundreds of years. This didn’t happen by some kind of a fluke. Mujahideen tribesmen, to this day, remain masters of guerilla warfare and masters of ambush.

  They may have few sophisticated weapons, and may be too poor to buy them. But they know how to get them. They know how to engage and defeat enemies. And once they seize an advantage, they know how to finish them.

  “Above all,” says Gulab, “my mountains breed warriors. And these are not tribesmen as popularly conceived in Africa, an uncontrolled rabble, shouting and jumping and firing their weapons in the air, butchering women and children. Our tribesmen are born to military combat. And we breed superb commanders, tacticians, and strategists; they are men who comprehend mountain contours. Our leaders do not even need maps because of their mastery of the moon and the stars, and the great shadows of the sun. It’s our enemies who need maps and charts. Up against us, they are facing the ultimate warriors: men of valor, who are born for battle. And who are unafraid to die.

  “I grew up watching our field commanders in action. And in later years, I learned of great generals from other lands. I’ve always had one thought, however: that a top Afghani battle commander could equally direct troops from any other nation.”

  Nonetheless, the misconceptions remain that the mujahideen defeat their enemies simply because of the terrain. Gulab admits the mountains help them, but you don’t win wars because of narrow roads.

  The terrain of Afghanistan is another misconception. Beyond those dusty borders, people envision a barren land, a kind of landlocked moonscape covered in dust, sand, and boulders amid towering rock faces; and perhaps a few flat places at high altitude, suitable only for growing drugs.

  That could scarcely be less accurate. The glacial history of Afghanistan is a story of great walls of ice, sometimes a thousand feet high, cleaving through the mountains, grinding up the terrain, and leaving behind a cover of fine silt. It is called khaki, and that’s its color. It blows all over the place, forming a large part of the soil. It makes Afghan soil extremely fertile, rich growing earth.

  There is good rainfall in many parts of the Hindu Kush, and mountain rivers rushing past are usually full of snowmelt from the high peaks of the western Himalayas. Afghani farmers need only to add water to that silt-laden earth, and they can grow melons with full orchards of fruits and nuts. They also grow large crops of potatoes, squash, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, as well as wheat, barley, cotton, flax, rice, and sesame.

  Visitors to Afghanistan often run into either searing summer heat or blasting winter cold. They are apt to look at the dusty plains, barren mountain slopes, and deep caves and wonder where people once lived. This might give the impression of a land where life is only borderline possible; where the population is essentially Stone Age in outlook and achievement. But this is not so.

  The culture of Afghanistan stretches back more than two thousand years, and it’s always been a land of poetry, philosophy, and art. The world’s first oil painting was discovered in Afghanistan, and the wisdom of ancient proverbs rivals those of Confucius, or a Zen koan, or Mark Twain.

  Afghanistan’s traditional religious beliefs have remained unaltered.
That is not a misconception.

  They follow Islamic traditions, and right across the nation, they celebrate the same holidays. They dress the same, eat the same food, enjoy the same music. Most of the country is multilingual, except for mountain warriors like Gulab. And all of them fear Allah and try to obey the words of the Prophet. In the northeastern mountain range, the men fear only Allah. No one else.

  • • •

  Gulab took part in many of the crushing defeats the mujahideen inflicted on the Russian armies in the terrain around Sabray. His small size may have contributed to the fact that he was never hit or even wounded throughout the campaign.

  He was never moved from his position of master gunner, and where that dushka went, so went Gulab, trusted by the commanders to strip it down, clean and oil it, and then put it back together. He was subjected to inspection, like all gunnery personnel, but he swiftly learned to do the job properly.

  Much of the mujahideen weaponry, especially the rockets, was provided by their friends, the Americans and the British. Everyone preferred their battle equipment, and the Afghan commanders were grateful for it. From the United States, they also received guns, money, data on battle locations, and tactical instructions. To their modern allies, it seemed that a mujahideen victory was paramount.

  Sometimes US fighter jets overflew the mountains, and the population would always hear them coming. American pilots reported local people shouting and waving at their great benefactors, high in the sky, all the way from the other side of the world. Gulab now knows that there were US air bases all over the place, and they flew in from Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. But it didn’t really matter where they came from. The fact that they were there, helping Afghanistan, was all that mattered.

  In the Hindu Kush, no one knew anything of the Cold War and nothing of the Soviet construction of the Wall across the middle of Berlin in 1961. Gulab had never heard of the Iron Curtain, and never caught anything on any news broadcast when the Americans told the Soviets to “tear down this wall.” When President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” Gulab and his fellow mujahideen did hear about it eventually and came to think of him as an all-powerful friend and ally in their fight against the marauding Red Army.