I did not share this view. 1985 had seen some spectacular Mujahideen successes. In June Massoud, in the Panjsher Valley, seized the heavily defended post at Peshghor which was held by a battalion of 500 men, supported by ten mortars, four 76mm guns, two T-55 tanks and five BTR-60 APCs, all protected by sandbagged bunkers, mines and barbed wire. The attackers breached the minefields during darkness, to storm the place at dawn under cover of rocket and heavy machine-gun fire. Resistance was quickly subdued and among the corpses was the Afghan Central Corps Chief of Staff, Brigadier Ahmaddodin. Over 450 prisoners were taken, including five visiting colonels from Kabul.

Also in June we had stepped up our efforts around Kandahar airfield. Rocket attacks on aircraft on the ground were so successful that the Soviets were forced to move the bulk of their planes to Lashkargah and Shindand bases. Lashkargah was developed into their alternative airfield for Kandahar. Our ambushes on the main road leading to Kandahar became so frequent and effective that a by-pass route had to be developed in order to get transport to the city.

In the northern provinces our attacks were gaining momentum, and barges were now being sunk on the Amu River. If our efforts at training, increasing the quality and quantity of supplies and persuading the Mujahideen Leaders and Commanders to spend less time feuding and more fighting the enemy had not been successful, I have little doubt that 1985 would have seen the collapse of the Jehad. Instead, the Mujahideen withstood all that the Soviets could throw at them, despite the grave imbalance in numbers and weaponry. Not that I was overconfident. I was fearful of the effect on our supply system of the Soviets’ scorched-earth tactics that deprived the guerrilla of his local source of food and shelter; there was a real need for a light, but long-range rocket-launcher to supplement the heavy MBRLs; the lack of reliable, modern radio communications to important Commanders inside Afghanistan was a major handicap; and without an effective SAM to supplement the SA-7 I despaired of ever being able to defeat the helicopter gunship. But my real worry was Kabul.

IN the twenty months from April, 1978 to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, 1979, Kabul was surely the coup capital of the world. In that short period no less than three bloody coups took place in the city. During those months tens of thousands of Afghans died in perhaps the most murderous purges since Stalin’s day. As always Kabul was at the centre of the bloodbath, with its brand new jail at Pul-i-Charki, 10 kilometres east of the city, becoming the primary site for executions and torture. Whoever controlled Kabul controlled Afghanistan, both in the eyes of its people and the world.

For centuries the palace and throne of Afghan kings had been in Kabul, until royal rule was abruptly overthrown by King Zahir Shah’s cousin, Daoud Khan, in 1973. But within five years Daoud was showing disturbing signs of independence from his Soviet masters in Moscow. Things came to a head in 1977 when, during a visit to the Kremlin, Daoud had a flaming row with Brezhnev, literally banging his fists on the table, while yelling that Afghans made the decisions in Afghanistan. Fury showed on the Soviet President’s face. Daoud had signed his own death warrant. At 9.00 am on 27 April, 1978 a group of young Marxist officers led an armoured and air attack on the Arg Palace in the city centre, where Daoud and his family lived surrounded by the 1,800-strong Presidential Guard. The coup got off to a slow, unsteady start at Kabul airport. By afternoon the palace was being strafed by MiG-21s and Su-7S, but was holding out; that evening Radio Kabul fell; but not until 4.00 am on the 28th did Daoud die, with his family, in the rubble of the palace.

The Soviets had to choose who would be the most amenable puppet to install. The choice was complicated by the fact that the Afghan Communist Party was split. Like the Mujahideen, these Marxists were first and foremost Afghans subject to the same propensity for infighting, violence and tribal rivalries. The Afghan communists were. and still are, divided into two factions. In 1978 the Parcham faction was led by Babrak Karmal and the Khalq group by Nur Mohammad Taraki. Brezhnev picked Taraki as he had met him once and ‘was sure he would do a good job’. Taraki’s first act was to get rid of his rival, Karmal, by appointing him ambassador in Prague. Then he set about killing Karmal’s supporters, many of whom were KGB agents. Afghanistan was now officially a communist state.

Within a month an armed resistance movement started. In Kabul red replaced green as the national colour. A huge demonstration was organized to watch the raising of the red flag and the release of scores of pigeons decorated with red ribbons. Public buildings were painted red, while shopkeepers and householders in Kabul vied with each other to display the largest portrait of Taraki, or have their doors and windows the brightest shade of red. By the spring of 1979 stocks of paint were exhausted. But most Kabulis, indeed most Afghans who professed to be followers of the new faith, were radish communists, red on the outside and white within. Their feverish decorating was inspired by fear rather than political conviction.

The bulldozers were hard at work in the fields outside Pul-i-Charki jail, excavating mass burial pits as execution squads did a brisk business. It was later alleged by witnesses that thirty huge holes were dug. Each was the grave of some 100 prisoners who, with hands tied, were pushed into the pits at night, then buried alive when the bulldozers filled the graves.

In February, 1979, the US Ambassador, Dubs, was shot dead in a Kabul hotel as previously related. The next month saw the mass mutiny of the 17th Division of the Afghan Army at Herat, coupled with the slaughter and dismemberment of Soviet citizens in that city. By then even Brezhnev was having doubts as to the wisdom of picking Taraki. He dispatched the ideological head of the Red Army, General Alexei Yepishev, with six other generals, on a fact-finding mission to Kabul. He was severely shaken by what he saw. The indiscriminate killings were driving the people into the rapidly growing resistance movement, the Afghan Army was on the point of collapse, and Taraki would not listen to his Soviet mentors. A plot was hatched in the Kremlin that Amin, the Prime Minister, should take over the presidency from Taraki. According to KGB sources, this was against their advice as they were suspicious of Amin’s student days in the US, at Columbia University, even suspecting he had links with the CIA. Once again Brezhnev overruled them. Taraki was summoned to Moscow for consultations, while in Kabul Amin prepared to pounce. Shortly after Taraki’s return, Amin had him seized, tied to a bed and suffocated with a cushion. That was in September, 1979.

Within weeks it was apparent that Brezhnev had made yet another blunder. Amin began to renege on promises made to Moscow. He demanded that Soviet advisers be recalled; he protested against KGB activities; he did nothing to combat the uprising against communism that was taking hold in all provinces. The KGB, who had advised against his appointment, were given the task of removing Amin. An agent, who was at that time one of Amin’s chefs, was given the job of poisoning him. But as Amin kept switching his food and drink this method proved difficult. The Politburo lost patience and opted for a full-scale invasion, preceded by a KGB-organized coup that would kill him. In late December, 1979, the Christmas coup took place with Amin dying in Darulaman Palace under the guns of the KGB commandos who had stormed the building. They were under orders that nobody should survive, and had had a tough, room-by-room fight against Amin’s guards. As their commander, Colonel Bayerenov, who was in Afghan uniform, left the palace, supposedly to call up reinforcements, the edgy troops outside shot him dead as well. Soviet divisions were pouring over the Amu and landing at Kabul airport. The invasion was underway, the Jehad was about to start, and Babrak Karmal finally secured his place in the President’s palace.