Afghanistan: a mobile mortar that terrified the spooks. Afghan Mujahideen and Dushmans

Sand, mountains, thirst and death - this is how Afghanistan greeted Major Alexander Metla. There were two years left before the withdrawal of Soviet troops, which not everyone had the chance to survive. Every Afghan knows well how dangerous it is to step off to the side of the road, pick up an “accidentally” dropped object, or become separated from one’s own.

The political officer who first set foot on the concrete road of Kabul in early April 1987 had to endure all the horrors of the war. At the request of the site, Alexander Metla spoke about the features of that war and his inventions - improvised self-propelled mortars and the Metla 2 guntruck.

Scorpions were worse than bullets

– At first, I was no longer afraid of bullets, but of the local fauna, which was very unfriendly. Scorpions, tarantulas and various poisonous snakes did not allow us to relax. It was very risky to just fall asleep in the shade under the Ural. And before entering the room, you had to check all the dark corners that Scorpios love so much.

Most often, young people who had not been shot at suffered from bites. Once our fighter was bitten by a viper at night, the guy had less than an hour to live, and he was at an outpost in the mountains at an altitude of 3500 m. As soon as they told us about this on the radio, he rushed to the Mi-8 pilot, who was sleeping in the tent. I shook it up, I said, our fighter is dying, so the pilot didn’t even put on his overalls, that’s what he was wearing, and that’s what he flew in. At altitude, the engines began to run out of steam, and the helicopter literally fell onto the site, but the vaccine was delivered on time. They didn’t even fly back, but fell: the car literally dived down into the gorge. Then the pilot was able to level it, and we were soon home, and all this was done in pitch darkness - our helicopter pilots were unique guys.

The simplest and most effective solution in the fight against dangerous insects turned out to be an ordinary sheepskin coat, which Alexander received at the warehouse.

– Afghan sheep are special animals: they are practically omnivores; there is not much food in the dusty expanses of this country, so they eat everything they come across along the way. There were cases when soldiers threw away oily paper from cartridges, and it was instantly eaten by sheep. They also did not disdain scorpions and other insects. Therefore, the smell of sheep forced all the poisonous little things to retreat.

Their life is truly medieval

The conditions in which the Afghans lived amazed Soviet soldiers, but for the locals they were the norm—they didn’t know anyone else.

– If in Kabul living conditions were at a more or less civilized level, then in distant villages the real Middle Ages reigned. As a rule, peasants lived very poorly in adobe houses with small windows. And if the men’s half was more or less clean, the women’s half was dirty and unsanitary. Wives usually slept on hard mats on the floor, children and goats lived nearby, and the latrine was there. The only reminder that it was the 20th century was a Japanese tape recorder mounted on a wooden plow.

Ignorance of customs often led to misunderstandings with locals. For example, only the owner could enter the women’s half of the house, and if a woman was seriously ill and a Soviet doctor tried to help her, then most often an angry husband with a hoe would attack him.

In addition, the dushmans treated prisoners very cruelly, especially mercenaries who were trained in training camps in Pakistan.

– Many soldiers carried grenades in their breast pockets so as not to be captured alive. The death of those who were captured by the dushmans was very terrible. Do they have this special feature?- to mock prisoners. As a rule, I carried an F-1 with me, just to be sure.

From the first days it became clear that our uniform, to put it mildly, was not adapted to local conditions, only the Afghan uniform that appeared later improved the situation somewhat.

– The best-packed ones were the scouts who went to inspect the caravans. Dushmans often smuggled weapons under the guise of peaceful products. It was done like this: several boxes with fabrics, equipment and other goods were secured on top of the donkey, and weapons were hung from below, under the belly. The enemy was supplied by the whole world - weapons, ammunition, uniforms and equipment were supplied from the USA, Canada, China and other countries. Once from a raid, scouts brought me a pair of Canadian boots; they were soft, comfortable and durable throughout their service life. Unloadings were also valued; in our country they were also called “bras.”

They contained from 4 to 6 magazines and a couple of hand grenades. In addition to being easy to carry, this also provided good protection; as a rule, the bullet did not penetrate a full magazine. Many sewed such unloadings themselves. Rucksacks, durable and with many compartments, were also valued - these were not available in the Soviet Union. Today you can buy them in any store, but before they were in terrible short supply. And the coveted trophies were ankle boots, watches, compasses, radio stations and many other useful things, the likes of which we simply had no analogues.

But our weapons were better. For example, Chinese copies of AK-47s were often found as trophies; their metal was poor: it was enough to fire a couple of magazines for the machine gun to start “spitting” and the accuracy of the fire dropped catastrophically. The Soviet machine gun worked under any conditions; I don’t remember our Kalashnikov jamming. In general, the dushmans were armed very variegatedly, from flintlock rifles of the century before last to the brand new M16s.

Commander of the combat vehicle

The 56th Guards Separate Assault Brigade, which included Alexander Metla, was entrusted with ensuring the security of the Kabul-Gardez road. The soldiers of the unit accompanied the columns and constantly suffered losses from the fire of the dushmans, who often set up ambushes and mined roads. It also happened that ordinary peasants became demolitionists, who fought not for faith, but for money - they paid well for the destruction of Soviet equipment.

– Most of the local population lived below the poverty line, so for them the war was one of the ways to earn a piece of bread. It was done like this: the peasant bought a mine with his own money and installed it on the road, if an armored personnel carrier, infantry fighting vehicle or other equipment was blown up, he received a reward, but if the sappers neutralized it, then the peasant was ruined. Therefore, often the locals also stood guard not far from the mine, opening fire on our sappers when they tried to defuse the mine.And the dushmans themselves gave no rest. They had good reconnaissance; often, when a column of Soviet troops left the base, they already knew its composition and route.

The mountainous terrain gave the attackers a great advantage; perched high on the rocks, the “spirits” could fire at the column without hindrance. Tanks could not raise their barrels that high, however, neither could armored personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles. Here the Shilka self-propelled guns came in handy, from which the radio-electronic equipment necessary for firing at air targets was removed, and in its place additional ammunition and Metla self-propelled mortars were placed. The latter got their name precisely thanks to the political officer who invented them.

– It so happened that along the route of our column in the same place the “spirits” constantly ambushed us. They approached the place along the bed of a dried-up river, made a small fire raid and quickly retreated. Artillery opened fire on them, including the Grad MLRS, but due to the terrain, the shells simply flew over the position of the spirits without causing them harm. The only weapon that was capable of reaching the Mujahideen was mortars. But if you equip positions along the column’s route in advance, the “spirits” will either mine them or set up ambushes and slaughter the crews.

Then Alexander Metla had the idea to make a self-propelled mortar. The political officer came to the unit commander, but he was very busy and, after listening half-heartedly, he just waved him off – "do". The basis was taken from the Ural car, in the back of which a ZU-23 carriage was installed, rotating 360 degrees. An 82-mm 2B9M "Cornflower" mortar was welded onto it, thanks to which the weapon had a circular firing sector. The improvised carriage was protected with a bulletproof shield, and the truck itself was armored with steel plates.

Having seen the self-propelled mortar, the deputy for armaments categorically forbade its use. They say that it is unknown how the weapon will behave and in general all amateur activities should be stopped. But the brigade commander, Colonel Vitaly Raevsky, did not allow the project to be buried, and he allowed the system to be tested at the test site.

–The deputy for armaments intervened here too, ordering to fire with a weakened charge. But what the hell is range and accuracy, especially since, on the recommendation of the same deputy, a rope was tied to the descent, and the fighter himself was sitting a couple of meters away in the trench. Realizing that everything would now go down the drain, he approached the brigade commander and asked him to fire with a full charge on his own responsibility. They shot at the hull of an old armored personnel carrier, located two kilometers away. The first shot is overshot, the second is undershot. All– a fork, the next salvo with a burst of almost a hundred mines, the armored personnel carrier is literally torn to pieces - everyone watching is delighted.

The first combat use of the installation was also successful. When the “spirits,” confident in their impunity, opened fire on the column, Alexander Metla ordered the mortar crew to open fire. In just a minute, a hundred mines fell on the positions of the “spirits”. The fire from the Mujahideen stopped instantly. Later, scouts discovered more than 60 corpses at the ambush site; how many were wounded is anyone's guess.

The military quickly recognized the effectiveness of Alexander Metla’s installations, and soon three more of the same ones were built. Alexander himself, as the commander of installation No. 1 (all of them received the name “Broom” as recognition of the creator’s merits), each time went to accompany the convoy. The Mujahideen launched a real hunt for this unusual type of shuravi weapon. And one day they managed to knock out installation No. 1.

– During the next battle, we got carried away and stopped watching the rear. And there was no time for that: every silent enemy machine-gun point meant that another guy would return home alive. At this time, a 12-year-old boy passed us on the kiryaz. I only managed to notice out of the corner of my eye how he threw off the RPG, which was cumbersome for him, and fired. A grenade hit the side, our entire crew was wounded, except me - all the fragments were taken by the helmet and body armor. Meanwhile, the boy threw down his weapon and disappeared into the kiryaz.

Appropriate conclusions were drawn from the incident and a new self-propelled gun, “Broom,” was built. This time, a hull from a BRDM was placed in the back of the Ural, and a NURS unit from a Mi-24 helicopter was welded onto its turret. The Ural itself was thoroughly armored. Of course, it was impossible to conduct targeted fire from the NURS unit, but the psychological effect was strong. The dushmans simply ran away when the shuravi used their shaitan machine.

Alexander Metla was often told, why do you need to go into battle? I would sit, fill out cards, and the war would be safer, “... did you get this front line?” But the political officer always believed that one must educate and gain authority only by one’s own example.

–I was never eager to fight, I just did my job. And even without being under bullets, what could I say to those guys who walk under death every day and may not return from battle at any moment, could I understand them, will they believe me? Hardly. War is not a science or a craft - it is a test, which is very difficult to pass to the end without breaking down.

P.S. You will be able to see live how Belarusians fought in Afghanistan

Afghan Mujahideen (mujahiddin)- members of irregular armed forces motivated by radical Islamic ideology, organized into a single insurgent force during the civil war in Afghanistan in 1979-1992. Formed since 1979 from among the local population with the aim of waging an armed struggle against the intervention of the USSR and the “pro-Soviet government regime” of Babrak Karmal and Najibullah exported by the Soviet Union.

After the end of the war in the mid-1990s, some of the Afghan Mujahideen joined the ranks of the radical Taliban movement, while others joined the Northern Alliance units.

The word "mujahid" is of Arabic origin ("mujahid", plural "mujahiddin", literally meaning "fighter for the faith"), and is also the name of a jihadist or rebel.

Soviet troops and Afghan authorities called them dushmans (enemy), and Afghans called Soviet soldiers shuravi (Soviet). Soviet soldiers also used the slang word “spirit,” a derivative of “dushman.”

The Mujahideen, like the civilian population, wore traditional Afghan clothing (shirts, black vests, turban or pakol).

Ideology

The main line and basis of the political platform in the propaganda of the Mujahideen ideology was the declaration of the basic principle: “The duty of every Afghan is to protect his homeland - Afghanistan and his faith - holy Islam from the infidels.”

The unification under the banner of sacred Islam of all devout Muslims - “...In the name of the Prophet, the duty of every devout Muslim is a holy war - Jihad, for this he must go and kill the infidels, only then his soul can enter the gates of heaven.”

The spiritual and political leaders of the Mujahideen paid special attention to conducting political propaganda and agitation in the ranks of armed formations and among the local population. Mujahideen political parties and foreign sponsors spent significant amounts of money for these purposes.

It is known that as a result of mass anti-Soviet propaganda by the clergy and opposition leaders, total illiteracy and lack of education of the local population, the overwhelming number of Mujahideen - yesterday's farmers could not have a factual and objective understanding of the intentions of the USSR in Afghanistan and the goals of OKSVA's presence. These circumstances had a significant impact on the growth of popular discontent and marked the beginning of a large-scale guerrilla war.

In the propaganda struggle for the support of the local population, the Mujahideen won an unconditional victory.

Every year, the number of members of the armed formations of the Mujahideen since the end of 1979 - the moment the OKSVA was introduced, has grown with impressive geometric progression. By the time OKSVA was withdrawn in 1989, it exceeded 250 thousand militias.

Throughout the war of 1979-1989. in government circles, in the ranks of the army command, the Ministry of State Security, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DRA, among the local population, the Mujahideen had a widely ramified and well-organized intelligence network.

Target

The purpose of the armed struggle of the Mujahideen against OKSVA, the state authorities and the armed forces of the DRA was the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the overthrow of the “pro-Soviet government regime” in Afghanistan.

Tactics

The tactics of warfare are guerrilla. The main principles of controlling the rebels’ combat operations were:
- avoidance of direct clashes with superior forces of regular troops;
- not turning hostilities into positional warfare;
- refusal to consolidate and retain occupied areas for a long time;
- surprise attacks with extensive use of tactics of the Basmach movement;
- terror and indoctrination of Afghan army personnel and the local population.

Armament

Most of the Mujahideen weapons were made in China and the USSR.
- BUR rifles (Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield (Lee-Metford.Mk.I,II, Lee-Enfield Mk I, I*)) - ten-shot rifles of caliber 303 inches (7.71x56 mm) made in England 1890-1905 years;
- Kalashnikov assault rifles 7.62 mm produced in China, Egypt, USSR;
- M-16A1 automatic rifles made in the USA;
- automatic machines produced in Germany, Israel, England, Sweden;
- heavy machine guns DShK 12.7 mm caliber made in China;
- hand-held anti-tank grenade launchers RPG-2, RPG-7 made in the USSR, China, "Volsknet" - Switzerland, "Lanze-2" - Germany, "M72A" - USA, "Sarpak" - France, "Piquet" - Israel;
- recoilless rifles of 75 mm and 82 mm caliber made in China, Pakistan and the USA;
- mortars - 60 and 82 mm;
- Chinese PURS;
Air defense systems:
- Anti-aircraft mountain installations ZGU, ZU-25-2, ZU-23-4 produced in China, USSR, Czechoslovakia;
- Anti-aircraft guns of small caliber "Oerlikon";
- Man-portable anti-aircraft missile systems "Strela-2" USSR, China, Egypt, "Red Eye", "Jevelin" - USA, "Blowpipe" - England, "Stinger", "Redeye" - USA;
Different types of mines, including anti-tank (ATM) and anti-personnel (PM) and landmines;
- Italian mines (TS?1, TS-2.5, TS-1.6, TS-50, SH-55);
- American - M-19, M 18A-1, DSME-S, “Claymore”;
- Swedish - M-102, English MAK-7, as well as Czechoslovak and Soviet production.

Mujahideen leaders

* Allies The most combat-ready parties of the Mujahideen

The Mujahideen were not homogeneous; the units consisted of a large number of small formations, whose commanders often fought not only with Soviet troops, but also with each other. The reason is different national composition (Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Charaimaks, Nuristanis, etc.) and religious composition (Sunnis, Shiites, Ismailis), different sources of sponsorship.

Their largest coalition is the Sunni “Islamic Unity of the Afghan Mujahideen”, created in May 1985, or "Peshawar Seven", which included six Pashtun and one Tajik group (the leader of the Tajik Jamiat-i Islami party, Burhanuddin Rabbani, became the president of Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Soviet troops).

There was also a military-political organization of Shiite Mujahideen - "Shiite Eight", based in Iran.

Field commanders

Field commanders- commanders of armed opposition formations of various sizes, permanently based directly on the territory of Afghanistan. They carried out armed resistance to the current official government of the DRA, government troops and the presence of OKSVA. In case of tactical necessity, they came into contact with representatives of the DRA government and concluded temporary agreements on various issues.

There are known cases when field commanders and their troops went over to the side of the people's power. The bulk fought fiercely, under the banners of the “Alliance of Seven” or the “Shiite Eight”. There were also commanders independent of political parties.

The most famous and influential were - Ahmad Shah Masood, whose detachments operated in the Panjshir Gorge and the Charikar Valley, on the strategic Hairatan-Kabul highway in the Salang Pass area. Ismail Khan- controlled the west of the country, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Yunus Khales- East, Said Mansoor, Ustad Farid, Abdul Sayyaf, Abdul Haq, Said Jargan- Center, Mulla Malang, Mulla Naqib- South, Mohammad Bashir, Abdul Basir, Kazi Kabir, Abdul Wahob, Mohammad Wadud- North.

The ranks of the Mujahideen also included people from other countries of the world, especially from Saudi Arabia, contingents from Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and small groups from Morocco, France, and England.

The main zones of military activity were urban areas:

* Kandahar, Lashkar Gah - in the south;
* Alikheil, Urgun, Gardez, Shahjoy - in the southeast;
* Jalalabad, Asadabad, Asmar, Birkot, Surubi - in the east;
* Baghlan, Kunduz, Khanabad, Talukan, Kishim, Faizabad - in the northeast;
* Herat, Farah - in the west; - 5 motorized rifle division
* Panjshir Gorge, Charikar Valley, Paghman - central part of Afghanistan;
* Along the border with Pakistan and Iran there were several large bases and fortified areas of the Mujahideen, which were repeatedly occupied during military operations by Soviet troops during the Afghan War of 1979-1989.
The most famous of these are:
* Jawara - Paktia province.
* Tora Bora - Nangarhar province.
* Kokari-Sharshari - Herat province.

WRITTEN BY Sadisto;

Ending by Tortura

This story is completely fictitious... This has never happened...

Anyone who entertains even the slightest thought of putting something like this into practice must immediately leave here and not return. This story is not suitable for minors. This is only an erotic fantasy and is written for people over 18 years of age who find such stories entertaining.

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Prologue

March 27, 1982. President Najibullah turned to the government of the Soviet Union for help. Important guests arrived at his palace in Kabul - the Afghan president was visited by a Soviet military delegation. She arrived with two goals: to discuss a joint strategy against the Taliban and to agree on the transfer of a secret cargo of weapons and ammunition for the contingent of Soviet troops located in Afghanistan. The delegation included 12 men and one woman: Lieutenant Natalya Erofeeva. The Taliban leaders knew very well how much hope President Najibullah had in these negotiations. From their spies in the ranks of government troops, they knew that the Soviet command was preparing a powerful simultaneous attack on the main bases of the rebels. But I wish I knew where and when! The Taliban understood that any member of the delegation had enormous valuable information. But only one person in her knew everything - Brezhnev’s adviser on Afghanistan, the daughter of the Soviet Minister of Defense, the best cadet at the Leningrad Military Academy, 28-year-old Natalya Erofeeva. She alone knew all the plans. Therefore, the Taliban leaders carefully developed an operation to capture it and it was a brilliant success.

Kidnapping

Natalya stood in the shower in her single deluxe room in the guest building of the presidential palace. She was a real beauty! A slender blonde with blue eyes, long chiseled legs, firm, wonderfully sculpted breasts, rounded hips... Every man's dream. She was not yet married. She had a lover, a 35-year-old KGB officer. What she liked most about him was the way he knew how to make love. She was so excited when he kissed her entire beautiful body... He was her first and, so far, only man. They met 8 years ago at a military school and have been together since that day. But now he was far from her and the girl tried to concentrate on the upcoming conversation with the President of Afghanistan. They were scheduled to discuss the details of a Soviet missile attack on major rebel bases in two weeks. Her thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected knock on the door, and she turned around in surprise.

"Who's there?"

“Emergency call for Miss Erofeeva from Moscow... You must come to the Communications Center immediately...” answered someone in the corridor.

“I’m going now... I’ll just throw on something...” they quickly pulled on an elegant skirt, just above the knees, a blouse made of milky white silk, high-heeled shoes (she knew very well that a woman must use all the weapons given to her by nature to to achieve success among men, so for her trip to Kabul she chose clothes that best emphasized her lovely figure). Opening the door, she looked outside. There was no one in the corridor. His silence seemed too unusual to her. She walked a few meters away from her room and suddenly froze, as if petrified. In front of her, a security officer lay on the floor with his throat cut, floating in a pool of blood. Before she could scream, a strong hand pressed a rag with chloroform to her face and after a couple of seconds she lost consciousness. Four Taliban saboteurs picked her up, carried her out into the street, loaded her into a jeep hidden in the backyard of the palace and silently disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Interrogation

Natalya came to her senses not understanding what had happened and where she was. She lay in a dark prison cell. She understood this. But how did she get here from a luxurious palace surrounded by security??? The heavy steel door swung open and two burly Taliban men twisted her arms behind her back and, without saying a word, dragged her along the dark corridors. There were no windows, only electric lamps on the ceiling. They are somewhere underground, she thought. They soon came to a wooden door at the end of the tunnel. One of the soldiers opened it, but to the surprise of the captive, there was a second door behind the first one! And it was even thicker and upholstered with some kind of soundproof material. Why? They entered a large white room that looked like an operating theater. Yes, this was the operating room! A large table, similar to a gynecological chair, only with a lot of steel paraphernalia, stood in the center of the room. Natalya shuddered, suddenly understanding everything! This is a torture chamber! Yes! She will be tortured!!! A variety of torture instruments were laid out on several small tables, sparkling under the bright rays of neon lights.

The door at the other end of the cell opened and five men walked inside. These were Taliban leader Abdul Rahdi and four of his assistants. For a second, those who entered hesitated, embarrassed by the presence of this young woman of rare beauty. They had already seen several photographs of her, but in real life... They had never seen such a beauty before! The girl stood in the middle of the room, proudly throwing her head back, trying to appear completely calm. Her blonde hair seemed to glow in the bright light, making her even more desirable.

Having overcome the first timidity, Abdul Rakhdi began, “So, Miss Erofeeva! You know why we had to bring you here.”

“I protest! I am a representative of the Government of the USSR. You have no right to keep me here. I am the guest of the legitimate president of Afghanistan!”, the captive tried to be indignant.

“Please stop... That’s it, Natalya. We don’t have much time. We are... what should I call it... people of action...” he smiled and the prisoner felt weak in her knees.

"We know that your army is plotting a powerful attack against us. We also know that you are the only one who knows everything about this operation. And we want you to explain to us when the attack will begin and where."

“I don’t know anything... I’m just a translator...” the girl became embarrassed.

“For God’s sake, Miss Erofeeva! This will not work. We know very well who you are. We promise that you know everything. Please tell us this.”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know anything... You’re mistaken...”

“Well, Natasha... Do you see all these devices? You don’t have to guess, these are all instruments of torture. I won’t stop at anything to make you talk. Besides... to our happiness, one wonderful person decided to help us. He is Chinese and hates communists. Oh, I forgot to introduce him, he comes from a respectable family that has been involved in torture for centuries. A curious profession, isn't it? Let me introduce you to our guest, Mr. Jiao!"

The door opened and a short but very strong man entered the dungeon. He was about 60. His appearance was terrifying, especially his face - thick-lipped, swollen with fat, with small eyes, a mouth in which half of the teeth were missing. He was no taller than sixty-five meters.

“Hello, Natasha!” he said in perfect Russian. “Don’t be surprised, I speak Russian. At school in my homeland I was forced to learn Russian. But it helped me a lot here in Afghanistan. You are the seventh Russian woman I’m interrogating here. I’ll tell you a secret, I really love your girls, they scream so much under torture! Ha-ha-ha! ", his laughter rang out like a croak.

Natalya turned pale. She couldn't believe what was happening. It seemed to her that this was all a terrible dream. They're really going to torture her.

“Well, girl, are you going to talk?” Abdul Rahdi asked her one last time before ordering the torture to begin.

“No, I don’t know anything,” the young woman said emphatically.

“Mr. Jiao,” laughed Rahdi, “This lady is yours. Gentlemen, generals, sit down and get ready to admire the entertaining show.”

Torture

“Tear off her dress!”, ordered the Jiao soldiers and they jumped up to the girl. There was a sound of tearing material and a few seconds later, she, completely naked, stood in front of the 8 ruthless sadists gathered in the cell, knowing that the torture was about to begin and that she must remain silent. The executioner nodded towards the table and they threw her there. Her chiseled long legs were spread wide apart and tied to iron rings, her hands were chained to the top edge of the table. Jiao combed her hair and tied it into a ponytail. With her genitals exposed to everyone, she was ready for torture. Her womb attracted glances. Thick blond rings of hair on her sharp triangle and on her labia. Her inner lips, plump as two cutlets, surrounded her wonderfully defined clitoris. The soldiers wrapped her body in a chain, wrapped around her breasts, so that she could not move. The Chinese whispered in her ear that now she would enjoy such pain that she could not even imagine and would tell everything about the Russian plans.

The girl repeated that she didn’t know anything and asked to let her go. Thin streams of sweat began to flow down her body. Thousands of thoughts raced through her head as the executioner took his place between her spread legs. Jiao examined her and shouted to the guards to tighten their belts. They wrapped ropes around the victim's knees and tied them tightly to two more rings on the table. They pulled the ropes until her knees were pressed against her breasts. Now the unfortunate woman could not even move and her butt was right in front of the executioner. The spectators seated along the walls tried not to miss a single detail of this magnificent performance. The Chinese knew that even if the woman confessed to everything, the torture would still continue until she died. He did not want to give even the slightest opportunity to international organizations to raise the issue of the Taliban's violation of human rights.

A beveled piece of wood was placed under her buttocks to raise her butt slightly. “It’s time to start,” Jiao purred. With these words, he began to massage the captive's inner labia. He inserted the finger of his other hand into her vagina.

“What a delicious hole, you’ve already been fucked by many men, and what about the beauty?” Natalya looked in horror at the men who, swallowing saliva, stared at her. She didn't make a sound, only beads of sweat rolled down her forehead. Going to the table with the instruments, the torturer brought something that looked like a large gynecological speculum. Closed, it was about 8 centimeters in diameter, with slightly rounded protrusions on both halves. The prisoner's eyes were glued to this shiny metal object approaching her womb. Jiao parted her labia and pressed the end of the mirror to the entrance to the vagina. Very slowly he began to push it inside. Centimeter by centimeter, then he began to rotate the screw, opening it. One, two, three,..., eight centimeters and so on. Her vagina was stretched to the limit, and bleeding cracks appeared in two places on its walls. The mirror was so wide open that the executioner could easily reach her uterus during the torture. Spectators with burning eyes looked at the spread-eagled girl, motionless tied to the table, her body trembling slightly.

Now Jiao was showing his victim a strange instrument, consisting of two tweezers with sharpened, hook-like ends curved inwards, connected by a screw, by rotating which they could be brought closer or further apart.

IV. At war

Our company's combat operations took place in the vicinity of Kabul, near Charikar, Jebal Ussaraj, Bagram and Gulbahar, three operations in Panjshir, fought twice in the Togap Gorge, in the Sarobi region, near Jalalabad in the Tsaukai Gorge, beyond Kunar near the Pakistani border, near Gardez and in other places.

I didn’t feel hatred for the enemy and there was nothing to take revenge for. There was a fighting passion, a desire to win, to show oneself. When losses occurred, a feeling of revenge was mixed in, but in battle the combatants are equal. It’s bad when some people take out their feelings of revenge for their fallen comrades on civilians.
At first, no one really knew who we had to fight with; we were aware that the enemy was cruel and insidious. During the war, the Mujahideen began to be taken more seriously; they knew that they could commit bold, unexpected and desperate acts of sabotage. For example, they seized several regular buses on the road, disembarked the passengers, and drove through the checkpoints to the center of the village, shot and... left.
In designating the enemy, the name “Basmachi”, known in Central Asia, was first used, but then they were most often called “Dushmans”, translated from Afghan as “enemies”. By the way, it’s almost the same in Mari. This is where the derivative form “perfume” comes from. Very fortunately, they, like spirits, could appear from anywhere - from the mountains, from underground, from a village, from Soviet or Afghan units. Some dressed in Soviet military uniforms and spoke Russian better than our Turkmen and Uzbek fighters. The name “Mujahideen” (fighters for the faith) was known, but was not popular. Afghans called Russians “shuravi” from the word “shura” (council) in the meaning Soviet.
I saw leaflets and caricatures of enemies, they were Afghan leaflets, I still have one. I also saw posters with portraits of dushman leaders. The most common portrait was of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who led the Islamic Party of Afghanistan (IPA).
There are two reasons for our participation in that war. The main thing was to support the pro-Soviet regime and an additional reason was to protect our southern borders. Observing the poverty of the bulk of the population, we sincerely believed that we needed to raise their standard of living to ours, help them overcome difficulties, and protect them from rebels and foreign interference. That's how it was understood then.
The first battle took place on February 23, 1980, near the road north of Charikar, somewhere in the area of ​​the Bayani-Bala village. Fighters for the faith approached the road and harassed the passing columns with shelling. We parachuted out of combat vehicles and, under the cover of machine guns, went on the attack in a chain. The rebels, firing back, began to retreat. We ran through fields and rolled down terraces. They have many terraces, since the country is mountainous and there is little flat terrain, and even fertile one. We didn’t catch up with them then and retreated according to orders; the commander did not want us to move away from the road. The most difficult thing then was to hold the chain, not to run ahead and not to lag behind. A group of fighters took a roadside house. Although they are made of clay, they are built like fortresses, and it is not always easy to take them with small arms. The house was the key of defense for the spirits. Sergeant Ulitenko shot an old man with a gun there. Initially, the dushmans were poorly armed: flintlock and hunting rifles, English “Boers”, and then in small quantities; there were few automatic weapons. Not everyone even had bullets; some were shooting with shotgun pellets. They fought with whatever was at hand - with an ax, a stone, a knife. It’s bold, of course, but reckless with such weapons to go against artillery, machine guns, machine guns and rifles. In this battle we were dealing with a disorganized, untrained and poorly armed militia. Then four of our soldiers almost died: Vladimir Dobysh, Alexander Bayev, Alexander Ivanov and Pyotr Markelov. They did not hear the order to withdraw and went so far into the village that, in the end, they were attacked by superior forces of dushmans, who fired at them from behind a duval (clay fence). They did not have grenades, and they could not throw them at the dushmans through the duct, and bullets from machine guns did not pierce it. Only sniper Sasha Ivanov pierced the blower with his rifle and hit at least one. The rest of the guys, taking advantage of their advantage in automation, lay down behind a pile of rubble and shot at any head that appeared above the fence. The appearance of the Afghan vehicle saved us. The soldiers stopped her, sat down and left the battlefield. The dushmans did not shoot at their villagers. The Afghan took our guys very close and, citing a breakdown, stopped, but this was enough to break away from his pursuers. The fighters left the car and, holding their weapons at the ready, walked through the bazaar. The driver deceived him; as soon as the soldiers left, he drove away, but without him the guys could have died. They reached their home safely. Everyone was wounded. Bayev was hit in the back by a bullet, Dobysh received a through wound to the shoulder, and the rest were scratched. Markelov received several pellets under the eye. We later joked that they wanted to shoot him like a squirrel in the eye, so as not to spoil his skin.
The hardships of the war were perceived as written in the oath: “they steadfastly endured all the hardships and deprivations of military service.” A person gets used to everything: bad weather, inconvenience, and constant danger.
The losses and injuries were depressing. In two years, 17 people from our company died, and every 6th was wounded. In reality, the losses were greater, since I do not count the deaths of the signalmen, mortarmen, sappers, tank crews, air controllers, artillery spotters, etc. assigned to the company.
Many of those I wrote about above died. As written in the “Book of Memory”, on December 16, 1980, Alexander Bayev died from a severe infectious disease. You can write it this way if drug overdose is classified as an infectious disease. I was an orderly at the time and was the first to discover during the climb that he had died. One of the soldiers with whom we tried to “wake up” Bayev shouted to the others that he was cold. Sergeant M. Alimov, not understanding the meaning, said: “Let’s bring him here to the stove, we’ll warm him up.” The doctor came running, but it was too late; the rescue was about 30 minutes late.
Deputy Ensign A.S. On June 6, 1981, on the road to Sarobi near the village of Gogamund, Afanasiev’s skull was blown apart. I remember one warrant officer medic. When he first arrived from the Union and asked me how it was here, I said that they were shooting and killing. He cheerfully responded to this that, as a medic, he would not participate in battles. But in war, everyone has their own destiny. One has been constantly in battle for two years without a single scratch, the other dies at headquarters. In the same battle, when an armored personnel carrier was hit by a grenade launcher, this ensign’s head was torn off, only the lower jaw was hanging on his neck.
When we were standing on the Bagram road in the Karabagh region in the spring of 1981, such an incident occurred. Staff officers met the cryptographer at the Kabul airfield. He studied for six months in the Union and was supposed to work at the headquarters. We hurried, did not wait for escort, and five of us drove to the unit in a UAZ: a sergeant driver, a cryptographer, a senior lieutenant, a captain and a lieutenant colonel. The dushmans seized a ZIL on the road, overtook a UAZ, blocked the road and shot at the approaching car. The driver and cryptographer were killed, the senior lieutenant was seriously wounded. The captain and lieutenant colonel ran away. The first was shot in the back, but survived, the second was not injured. The Mujahideen cut the throat of the wounded senior lieutenant and went into the green area. The car, riddled with blood and spattered with brains, stood at the post for several days, recalling the proximity of death and the need for vigilance and caution. The cryptographer served in Afghanistan for several hours without even being included in the unit lists.
On September 27, the driver of the armored personnel carrier, Urusyan Derenik Sandroevich, died along with two soldiers. Their car fell into the abyss. It was completely by chance that I did not go with them. Company commander Senior Lieutenant Kiselyov and platoon commander Senior Lieutenant Gennady Travkin and tanker Senior Lieutenant Valery Cherevik died in the same armored personnel carrier on November 7, 1981 in Sarobi. Soldier Mikhail Rotary from Moldova had his leg torn off at the knee by a mine, and we took him down from the mountains. Then I corresponded with him. He was given a prosthesis, and he worked at the military registration and enlistment office.
Each injury and death is a separate sad story.
In between fights, of course, they remembered home. In difficult times, memories of home and plans for the future strengthened the spirit.
When they went on the attack, they didn’t shout anything. When you run through the mountains in thin air, you can’t really shout, besides, we tried to listen to commands and sounds of battle, in the mountains the sound can be misleading due to the echo. We did not have psychological mass attacks on the enemy, and there was no need to shout. Most often, clashes took place in the form of skirmishes at long or medium distances; when moving forward, the enemy, as a rule, retreated. Another form of combat is action in the village and “greenery”, where contact with the enemy even reached hand-to-hand combat. Close combat also ensued when being ambushed or in the event of an unexpected collision or detection of the enemy.
I had to participate in events that were reflected in specialized and memoir literature. I came across one fact in the memoirs of Colonel General B.V. Gromov "Limited contingent". In 1980, he was the chief of staff of our 108th division. The general writes that at the end of May, in the middle of the day, 181 regiments were fired upon by dushmans and that as a result of the shelling, almost all warehouses with food and ammunition supplies were blown up, the regiment almost lost its battle flag, an officer and five soldiers were killed, the tank in which they climbed up. Gromov notes the professional shelling and writes that even now he does not know what weapon it was fired from - the dushmans did not yet have artillery, rockets - and even more so, and only mortars were used. The general suspects the Afghan military, whose training ground was nearby. This event was noted in other publications. V. Mayorov and I. Mayorova write this: “It was the last day of the second ten days of May. The shelling of the 181st Motorized Rifle Regiment began at noon in bright sunshine, when it was difficult to determine where the shooting was coming from. Almost all the ammunition and food depots were blown up into the air, and the regiment almost lost its battle flag.” It is further noted that an officer and five soldiers died while trying to fight the fire with tanks. The authors are also perplexed as to the cause of the explosion: “It was unclear who opened fire: the ‘spirits’ from the surrounding mountains or the Afghan soldiers from the tank brigade?”
Chief of Staff B.V. Gromov, of course, received official information in the form of a report, most likely from the commander of the 181st motorized rifle regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Nasyrovich Makhmudov. I can clarify something in this matter as a witness, although I cannot vouch for the final truth.
The doubts of the general and other authors are justified; it was not easy to blow up the warehouses. They were located in a hollow between the hills (by Afghan standards they cannot be called large, but for the inhabitants of the plains they would seem impressive). It was impossible to fire at the warehouses with direct fire; our units were stationed everywhere on the approaches, the area around was clearly visible - a relatively flat desert without any vegetation, only thorns. The shelling could only be carried out from a very long distance and from a mortar.
At this time, I was sent to carry out the combat mission of protecting and defending a repair battalion (rembat), which was located in front of the Afghan training ground and was engaged in the repair of Afghan equipment; in fact, there were two repair battalions. They had their own internal security around the perimeter, but external security at extended posts was carried out by motorized riflemen. There was also barbed wire, cobwebs and minefields. At the time of the incident, I was on duty and, sitting on the armored personnel carrier, conducted observation, because. it had a better view. There was a rembat behind us and we only had to look towards the warehouses and our other units, located at a distance of 1-1.5 km. I saw and heard the first fairly strong explosion in the area of ​​the warehouses immediately, because at that moment I was looking there. It was quiet for some time, then shells began to explode, scatter to the sides and, the further, the stronger. We have increased our vigilance just in case. The shell explosions began to get closer, but the warehouses were not close and they were protected by mountains, so not all the ammunition flew beyond them. However, several shells exploded at a distance of 500 m, and one 300 m from us.
Now my thoughts. I have a very big doubt that spooks or the Afghan military are to blame for the explosion of warehouses. As I already said, they could not get close to the warehouses, especially during the day. From a long distance and with one mine, it is extremely difficult to immediately hit a target hidden in a ravine. In addition, the mortar is not an accurate weapon. I did not see any flying mine (the flight of the mine can be traced). If we assume that the Afghan military was shooting from the firing range, then I did not hear the shot, and the firing range was located behind the rembat behind my back.
I cannot completely rule out the version of the shelling, but there are no facts to confirm it. A version of the explosion in the warehouse as a result of careless handling of weapons spread among the soldiers. It was based on the stories of those who were in the warehouses or near them. I listened to different fighters many times, and they said approximately the same thing. The storekeepers, out of curiosity or some other consideration, began to dismantle the NURS (Unguided Rocket Projectile), which led to an explosion, which in turn caused detonation and a fire. The heated ammunition began to explode. The disaster was aggravated by the fact that almost all the warehouses were located together: with ammunition, provisions, and things, and there was also a regimental hospital there. It was convenient to protect and use the warehouses, but it also burned down all at once. Subsequently, the warehouses were located separately. I was later at the scene of the explosion, walked on the scorched earth and saw a burnt tank. Indeed, the tanker tried to prevent the fire that had started, but did not have time.
If the regiment commander had reported the destruction of warehouses as a result of ordinary negligence and violation of discipline, he could have been punished, which is why they attributed everything to the dushmans. If you deal with all sorts of emergency situations in Afghanistan, it will be revealed that the dushmans performed many “feats” unknown to them. In war, it is convenient to attribute any incidents to combat losses. A soldier drowned - they reported that he was killed by a sniper, a car fell into an abyss due to a drunk driver - shelling from a grenade launcher from an ambush. One of our Uzbeks, having nothing better to do, began to sharpen an electric detonator with a file and caused a spark, and two of his fingers were torn off and both himself and the person sitting next to him were cut with fragments. The wounds were given out as the result of a mortar attack, otherwise it could have been classified as a crossbow. Physics should have been taught better at school. I looked through the “Book of Memory of Soviet Soldiers Who Died in Afghanistan” and became convinced that the death of many, whose deaths I know for sure, was described completely differently from what actually happened. In the posthumous award submission, it was required to state the circumstances of the feat, so the staff composed it. Moreover, even in those cases where death occurred in battle, it is described in a completely different way.
In battle, most often they did not think about death and wounds, otherwise fear would bind all movements and then trouble would not be avoided. They thought about possible death only when there were losses and shortly before transfer to the reserve. There was no fear of the commanders; we were not sent on obviously disastrous missions. There were, of course, officers who thought more about awards than about soldiers. For example, when another company of our battalion destroyed a group of dushmans in a gorge, the chief of staff, Captain Aliyev, examined the weapons near the dead through binoculars and began to say: “Let’s go down, they have mortars there, let’s collect weapons.” The presence of captured weapons clearly demonstrated success, and one could count on rewards. To this, battalion commander Zimbolevsky told him: “You need it, you go down,” and did not give the order to go down into the gorge. In the mountains, those on the crest always have a huge advantage over those below in the hollows. We rarely went down into the ravines, and if we did, it was only with cover. They almost always moved along mountain ridges.
In June-July 1980 we fought in the Gardez area. Then the first close meeting with the dushman took place. Most often, the enemy was invisible - he would shoot from a distant line or from a vineyard and retreat. If you saw it, it was out of reach of small arms, 1.5-3 km away - in the mountains visibility is good due to the clean thin air. There were cases when dushmans could not withstand the approach of significant forces and, like hares from under the bushes, ran away from ambushes, throwing away their weapons. Most often it was not possible to shoot such “hares”; several mines were sent after them. We were then on the first raid and unsuccessfully pursued the gang. We climb one mountain, they are already on another, we are on that one, and they are already on the third. “And the eye sees, but the tooth numbs.” In the vanguard there were only light small arms, the mortars were behind. When they drove out the dushmans, they themselves descended from the mountains into the valley. As always, we walked along the path in a chain. I was fourth from the bottom in the platoon. Suddenly an unexpected shot sounded, and the bullet hit very close to the feet of the last soldier. He thought that one of our people had fired an accidental shot and began asking loudly. Everyone stopped and began to look at each other in bewilderment - no one shot. These are spirits, we decided, and we began to examine the rocks above. So, they probably would have left without finding anyone, but the shooting dushman miscalculated. The fact is that they often attacked the latter, and those walking in front, not seeing where the shot came from, could not understand who was shooting. In our case, the last one was not the last; another platoon followed us with a small gap, and the soldier who came out from behind the rock managed to notice where the shot was fired from. Dushman was not sitting on the mountain, as we thought, but under our feet in a small cave near the path. The soldier who saw him opened fire and began throwing grenades. Everyone immediately lay down. I found myself in the line of fire above the cave and, sprawled among the stones, watched as fragments clicked around the stones and bullets ricocheted off; I didn’t want to die from my own people. Dushman managed to fire another unsuccessful shot and was killed. The corpse was pulled out of the cave. Grenade fragments tore his body and knocked out his eye. It was a boy of about 17 years old with a large-caliber old Winchester. He was a brave fighter, but he was unlucky.
In August, he had to participate in the second Panjshir operation against the formations of Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Afghan company and I approached the mountain to the right of the entrance to the Panjshir Gorge. Very close we saw a man quickly climbing the mountain. They started shouting at him to stop, but he didn’t pay attention and quickly got up. He could have been shot, but no one shot. They opened fire only when he began to hide behind the rocks, but it was too late; the mines fired in his wake did not hit him either. It was a messenger with a message about our advance, and he managed to warn his people.
There were no people in the nearest villages and no weapons were found either. Before sunset they fired at us from rifles. We saw a group of dushmans moving on a nearby mountain and even aimed a helicopter at them. The bomb exploded spectacularly at the very top. We calmed down and acted very carefree. The soldiers basked in the rays of the setting sun on the western illuminated side of the ridge. When a sniper bullet hit near one soldier, everyone was blown away by the wind - we ran to the eastern shadowy slope and opened fire back. The night in the mountains was cool. In the morning they shot at us from a house on the slope. We aimed helicopters at him and they dropped a bomb. It exploded 100 meters to the left of the dushmans’ position. The aircraft controller corrected and the next bomb fell... another 100 meters closer to us. The officer explained once again where to throw the bomb and it flew... towards us. The soldiers from the affected area ran incredibly fast, hearing the approaching howl of the bomb, then lay down. No one was injured from the explosion, but they did not explain the target location to the helicopter pilots any further. This was the only case in my memory of such inept interaction between helicopter pilots and aircraft controller; usually the helicopters helped us out a lot.
Occasionally engaging in skirmishes, we went to the river in the gorge and crossed it. Then for several days they advanced deeper into the valley. Sometimes they sat on the mountains, insuring the advancing units, and monitored the progress of the battle, then changed roles. When we passed through occupied villages, we saw killed dushmans and residents who just happened to turn up, smoking houses and other traces of recent battles.
Then came the order to leave. This often happened - they came in, crushed or drove out the rebels, then they left and the dushmans returned there again. The soldiers joked: "People's power has been established - expel the people." If Afghan troops remained in the occupied territory, they could not hold out for long without our help. Our troops could not stand as garrisons throughout the country - the contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was indeed limited.
While leaving the gorge they fired at us, we responded with hurricane fire. The dushmans were mining the road, but a tank with a trawl was ahead of us and cleared the way. However, the ambulance UAZ still blew up - its bridge width was narrow, it did not fall into the rut and, in the end, ran over a mine. The wounded driver was pulled out, and the doctor and the orderly were burned to death. By evening everything had calmed down and there were only a few kilometers left before leaving Panjshir. We were about to go to bed in the armored personnel carriers, but then the column stopped. Dushmans blew up the road. There were rocks on the right, a raging mountain river on the left, and a failure tens of meters ahead. The only good thing was that it was night and the dushmans could not shoot. On the radio we heard a short order from battalion commander Zimbalevsky: “Soldiers, to the mountains.” I really didn’t want to get out of the cozy armored personnel carriers and climb these boring mountains. It was very dark and only the silhouettes of the mountains could be distinguished against the background of the starry sky. For every peak they strived for, a new one opened up, and so on. It had rained since evening and the stones were slippery. Someone said that climbers are prohibited from climbing at night, especially after rain, but that’s for climbers. In my group, I crawled first and kept peering into the stones, waiting for the flash of a shot from the entrenched dushmans. At dawn we occupied the ridge of the surrounding mountains, built shelters from stones and began to wait. They knew that the dushmans would come to fire at the stuck column. In the morning a flock of sheep with three shepherds came towards us. They did not expect to meet Russians there, they tried to escape, but several bursts of fire left them on the rocks. Using shepherds for reconnaissance was a well-known enemy technique. Unfortunately, we were not able to fully enjoy the joy of victory. A group of 20 dushmans was noticed through binoculars as soon as it began to rise. The officers called helicopters from the nearby Bagram airfield, and they shot them in the middle of the slope, when they had nowhere to hide. However, the dushmans walked without weapons. The officers concluded that it was somewhere near us on the mountains. We tried to search, but to no avail. Only on the third day was the order to descend when the sappers restored the road. The battalion immediately left the ridge and ran down, loaded onto the vehicles and safely drove out of the gorge. We worked then clearly and successfully; Ahmad Shah’s plan to lock us in the gorge and cause damage did not come true.
The Afghan historian Abd al-Hafiz Mansur in his book “Panjshir in the Age of Jihad” writes that Russian and government troops were defeated and lost more than 500 people in this operation, while the Mujahideen allegedly lost only 25 soldiers, but this is a very strong distortion. Our company had no losses at all during the Second Panjshir, and I also did not observe any significant damage in other units.
We had no cases of betrayal or capture. People died and disappeared without a trace - it happened. In Panjshir, a tall, thin Russian guy from the commandant's platoon from Tbilisi went missing. He had poor eyesight, and after the regiment was attacked and retreated into the gorge under the cover of artillery from the mountains, he was missing. For several days they took the villages and surrounding mountains in battle, searched through the ravines, lost several people dead and wounded, but this soldier was never found.
One incident of crossing a ravine must be related. In September 1980, we fought in the Tsaukai Gorge area in Kunar province, not far from Pakistan. The retreating dushmans were pursued along the ridge, and there were short skirmishes. We spent the night on the slope. In the morning, helicopters arrived and dropped us food and, for some reason, ammunition. We had more than enough of our own; these were extra, but we had to take them. When the company had already set out, a soldier came up to me and said that he had found zinc and ammunition in the bushes. We carried him up the mountain. It was a heavy and awkward to carry rectangular box containing a 1080 5.45 mm AK-74 round. Several times we wanted to throw away this zinc, because of which we were considerably behind our company and were already in the rearguard of the battalion. But every time, after a short rest, they grabbed him and carried him up the mountain. We knew that dushmans were following us, and even if we hid the zinc, they could find it and these bullets would fly at us and our comrades. So, sweating profusely, we brought the cartridges to the top, where the battalion was gathering. There the company soldiers dismantled the cartridges.
By evening we found ourselves in front of a ravine. It would have taken at least a day to get around it; we needed to go to the opposite ridge. The climate in the Kunar and Jalalabad area is subtropical and the mountains are covered with forests, which made operations even more difficult. The battalion commander risked crossing the ravine in a straight line. The battalion moved in parts. When the first company was already on the opposite ridge, the Afghan company was below, and our third was still on this side. The problems started when we went down and started getting water. They started shooting from the slope we had just left. We quickly began to climb the opposite slope. At first they fired back, then they stopped - it was still impossible to see where to shoot. It was getting dark quickly, the nights were dark in the south. Among the trees and in the twilight we were almost invisible. Our uniform was new and therefore dark, it did not have time to fade. The Afghan soldiers, whose company acted with us, wore faded, almost white uniforms. Our people started shouting: “Don’t get close to the Afghans, they are clearly visible. Indeed, only one soldier was wounded among us; there were three soldiers among the Afghans. Our soldier’s wound was not serious, but unpleasant - he was shot in the buttocks. They carried him in their arms, and everyone wanted to help. With the onset of darkness, the dushmans also stopped shooting. When we were already in the middle of the slope, night fell, and lights were lit on the opposite slope, where the dushmans were. We had just passed there and knew for sure that there were no buildings there and there was nowhere for the lights to come from. This was done to put psychological pressure on us - look, Russians and be afraid, we, your enemies, are nearby. But there was also a practical purpose. Dushman put a flashlight on the stone, took a position to the side and watched for the flashes of gunfire. If an inexperienced Soviet soldier starts shooting at the flashlight, the Dushman sniper will have the opportunity to hit him. We knew this trick and didn’t shoot, because even if you hit a cheap Chinese lantern, the spook sitting on the side won’t get hurt. Sometimes the lights moved; most likely, the dushmans, wanting to tease the Russians, hung lanterns on the donkeys and let them go down the slope. A year later, when we were on duty and we were tired of these wandering lights on the top of the mountain, we extinguished them with a shell from a tank, the lights no longer appeared there.
Having crossed the ravine, we safely occupied the ridge and stopped for the night. On a dark southern night it is impossible to move through the forest in the mountains. The Afghan company commander approached and asked Captain Zimbalevsky to order his soldiers to go down and pick up his three wounded soldiers. Surprisingly, the dushmans, with rare exceptions, always carried away not only their wounded, but also their dead, but these ones left theirs. The Afghan company acted somehow uncertainly, sluggishly, slowly trailing behind, lagging behind. When our battalion commander made a remark to the Afghan company commander, their officer replied that Russian soldiers walked very quickly. It was surprising for us to hear this; there were few mountaineers among us; lowlanders predominated. Even the Armenians, of whom there were several, said that although they lived in the Caucasus, they had not climbed the mountains that much. Most likely, the Afghan company did not really want to fight and was serving its military service.
The battalion commander refused the Afghan's request and told him to send soldiers of his company for his wounded and promise only fire cover. None of the Afghans ever went down to collect the wounded. In the morning the exit was delayed, Zimbolevsky harshly told the Afghan officer that if they did not bring their wounded by such and such a time, then our battalion would leave. The Afghans dejectedly went down and by the appointed time they lifted the wounded up the mountain, we moved further along the ridge. From the wounded they learned that the dushmans were approaching them and wanted to finish them off, but they said that they were mobilized and also Muslims. The dushmans just took their weapons and left. This happened, but if they found wounded Afghan officers, they did not spare them. At night they approached our military outpost, but did not dare to attack; we were waiting for an attack and were ready to fight back, setting up positions of stones along the slope.
There weren't many cowards. We had one such soldier. During the shelling, he was seized with panic, he lay down among the stones, and no amount of persuasion could force him to move. The fighters had to run to him through the bullet-ridden terrain and drag him by the arms under the bullets. Fortunately, there was only one such person. But among officers, manifestations of cowardice were observed more often. The commander of the mortar battery, senior lieutenant, was often in battle and upon his return talked a lot about his exploits. I thought with envy and delight: “What a hero, I wish I could do that.” In mid-October 1980, we fought in the Togap Gorge. The battalion moved through the village along the stream, while dushmans walked parallel along the other bank. We were the first to notice them, but did not pay attention - they were in civilian clothes with red bands on both sleeves - this is how “populists” usually identified themselves. These were self-defense units, i.e. people's militia who fought on the side of government troops, usually near their places of residence. We realized that these were dushmans only after their nerves gave way and they started running. Several soldiers opened fire belatedly and killed or wounded someone - blood was found on the stones. During the shooting, I lay down in the ditch and looked out, looking for the target. At this time, the mentioned senior lieutenant kept crawling and crawling towards me, his eyes stunned with fear. So he crawled back somewhere, and not at all in order to organize the actions of his battery. Belarusian Nikolai Kandybovich made everyone laugh. When they stopped shooting, he came out from somewhere in the rear and began asking loudly: “Well, did you take anyone prisoner, did you capture the weapon?”
I can explain the courageous behavior of most soldiers not so much by courage, but by the disbelief of 19-year-old boys in death and confidence in their own strength. For a long time, Afghanistan was more of a war game for us than a real brutal war. Awareness of the seriousness of what was happening came over time with the losses and injuries of comrades.
In the same Togap Gorge we cleared villages, and from time to time there were skirmishes. When we were on guard duty, we met a group of ours and Afghan sappers who were blowing up the houses of gang leaders. Then I thought: “Why blow up houses, will this make their owners stop fighting?”
In the villages, the Mujahideen would jump out from somewhere, fire a few shots and quickly disappear. When checking houses, a soldier was always left at the entrance. When a section of our company entered the next house, two dushmans with knives immediately jumped from behind the fence on the soldier Ildar Garayev from Kazan who remained at the door. They knocked the machine gun away from him and tried to stab him, he fought back with his bare hands, which were already covered in cuts. Then they managed to throw Ildar into the ditch, and they began to drown him in the water, without shooting, for fear of attracting attention. At the last minute he was saved by soldier Bikmaev, who saw what was happening from the window. The fighters jumped out into the street and shot the Mujahideen. Then I approached them and saw that their faces had been blown away by an abundant flow of lead. Ildar, bloodied and in a state of shock, was brought to the village square. There, at that moment, three elders of the village diligently proved to the commander of our company, Peshekhonov, that there were no dushmans in the village. As soon as Ildar saw them, he immediately shot everyone, miraculously not hitting any of his own; our platoon commander Alexander Vorobyov, who was passing near the Afghans at that moment, almost fell under the bullets. We later condemned Ildar among ourselves, but not for killing old people, of course, but for dangerous shooting.
It was scary to go on the attack when they didn’t shoot at us, because you don’t know where the enemy is and how many there are, what kind of weapons they have, whether a machine gun is going to hit you at point-blank range. When they started shooting, it was already possible to decide how to act.
I had to see the enemy alive often, almost every day. Guerrilla warfare lies in the fact that the enemy is everywhere and nowhere. Eastern mentality is special. The people there are so friendly and welcoming that it seems that there is no one better for him than you, and they will treat him, and give him a gift, and say good words. If you believe and relax, then trouble will creep up unnoticed. "They lay down softly - sleep hard." The same person with whom you recently had a nice conversation can poison you, shoot you, or stab you to death, or commit another hostile act.
To turn into a peaceful peasant, Dushman only had to get rid of his weapons. For example, they are shooting from a village. We burst in there, and local residents, when asked: “Dushman ast?”, always invariably answered: “Dushman nest.” I think that even without translation the meaning of the dialogue is clear. Experience sometimes made it possible to identify dushmans among the peasants. For example, traces of powder gases, a dirty mark from a butt on the shoulder, they did not always have time or forgot to get rid of cartridges in their pockets, etc. One day we were checking out villages along the road to Kabul near Jalalabad. A young man of about 16 was captured in the village with cartridges in his pocket. They brought him onto the road. An old mother followed him, sobbing, and tearfully asked to let her son go. The officers did not know what to do and released the young dushman. The soldiers were unhappy, because he had recently fired at us. The major reproachfully said that there was no need to take him to the road. When an Afghan boy passed near us, one of the soldiers pushed him in the side with his butt. He stopped and looked carefully at the departing soldiers, trying to figure out who hit him. Behind him, sobbing, walked his mother, a simple old Afghan woman who had fulfilled her maternal duty and saved her son from death. The young Afghan man went into the village, not paying attention to the crying woman trailing behind. Our soldiers were also unpleasantly surprised by this.
One more episode. When moving through the village, Tajik Sergeant Murtazo (Name is not in the printed version - approx. Author) Alimov drew attention to a woman in a burqa sitting on her haunches and watching us. The woman was unusually broad-shouldered, which aroused suspicion. Perhaps it was a man hiding under a burqa - a Dushman intelligence officer. Alimov told the Afghan lieutenant about this. The conversation was conducted in Farsi, but I understood that the Afghan refused to check the “woman”. The Soviet sergeant and the Afghan lieutenant first argued, the further, the more furiously, and then they began to fight. We immediately separated them, otherwise we would have had to beat up half the Afghan company to the delight of the Dushman scout. Our officers were not nearby and, in order not to aggravate relations with the allies, we did not check the broad-shouldered “woman” in a burqa.
The fate of the captured dushmans was different. It depended on the orders of the commanders and the general mood of the soldiers. If it was ordered to take a “tongue,” if the unit’s actions proceeded successfully and without losses, the prisoners were treated quite humanely and were often handed over to the Afghan official authorities. If there were no clear orders regarding prisoners, and the raid group suffered losses in killed and wounded, then nothing good awaited the prisoners. Prisoners were usually forced to carry our heavy load, and were killed on the way to the deployment site. It all looked creepy. A group of soldiers surrounded the unfortunate man and beat him to death with their hands, feet, rifle butts, and knives, then a control shot. There was no shortage of performers. I didn’t like all this, and tried to get away so as not to hear the inhuman howl of the man being killed. Horrors of war. The American writer Ernest Hemingway, who fought a lot, said well about the war: “Do not think that war, no matter how necessary and just it may be, may not be criminal.”
In addition, I was not always sure that the captured people were really dushmans. But the dushmans, as the officers explained to us, were rebels, and they were not subject to the status of prisoners of war, therefore such actions towards them were justified. Even when they executed obvious spooks who killed and wounded our soldiers, it still looked disgusting. Maybe we should have shown more respect for the enemy and shot without cruelty. Cruelty begets cruelty, they dealt with our prisoners more sophisticatedly, where can we Europeans compare with Asians - they knew sophisticated methods of torture and execution and were inventive.
I witnessed how the regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel V.N., interrogated prisoners in the Togap Gorge. Makhmudov. At first he spoke to them, then he began to beat them with his own hands, since they were silent. In general, Afghan prisoners, as a rule, endured interrogations, torture and execution steadfastly, as befits partisans. Success in interrogating prisoners was achieved not so much through torture as through basic knowledge of the mentality of the Muslim and Afghan people. The Afghan is not afraid of death, since he is on the path of Allah - the holy war with the infidels “jihad” and after death he goes to heaven. But he must shed blood at the same time, and the threat of hanging terrified the prisoners, and they could give out information.
Dead dushmans and already beginning to decompose were also found, although Muslims rarely left their own, only when they could not bear it, and if the entire detachment died.
In the Tsaukai Gorge outside Jelelabad, one was captured. He sat on a rock with two old broken guns behind his back and offered no resistance. We got the impression that this was some kind of village fool, whom the spirits had deliberately left on the way to delay our progress. They succeeded. The prisoner said that he was not a spook and did not kill anyone. Perhaps this was so. We were in a good mood and fought successfully, so there was no bitterness, this eccentric was not killed or beaten, and the gun was not even removed, and in this form he was presented to the regiment commander to the general laughter of the battalion.
In early October they passed along the Pakistani border beyond Kunar. We spent the night near one large village. The residents showed extreme excitement, and it seemed to us that they were ready to attack us. We waited all night; noise was heard in the village, but no attack occurred. All the small villages along the border were empty, the population had fled to Pakistan. October 2 (the printed version erroneously printed “August” - approx.. Author) in one place we met a small detachment, actually not even a detachment, but a family. The Afghan military negotiated with them, but they were the first to start shooting with a sniper rifle and a hunting rifle. Then we lost one Kazakh soldier from the 1st company and from our company sniper Alexander Ivanovich Palagin from Cheboksary. The death of our fighters predetermined the fate of the Afghans. In the end, they were asked to surrender.
I also had to talk to an Afghan soldier who had previously fought as part of a Mujahideen detachment and then went over to the side of the government forces. He told how he sat on the mountains with the dushmans and smoked hashish, and then they cheerfully shot at Russian and government columns.

Perfume

Question
Tell me, since when and why are the Mujahideen called “Spirits”?
This has been going on since the Afghan war (1979-1989). “Dushman” in their language (Dari?, Pashto?) means BANDIT. At least that's what I remember from my school days. Abbreviated as "Spirit".
Because it takes a long time to pronounce the dushman, and it doesn’t sound. They shortened it, and it turned out to be a spirit. It sounds and fits the fanaticism.
And, since our wars began to call them SPIRITS among themselves, then naturally this name was passed on along the relay race, well, you probably understand.
This is how the spirit appeared.
A small addition. Dushman is a rare dialectical or accented pronunciation of Pashto. Basically the word enemy in Pashto is pronounced dukhman. We remove mana - we get spirit.
That's right, only not a "bandit", but an "enemy".
And Afghan men told me a long time ago that they began to be called “spirits” because they appeared out of nowhere and disappeared into nowhere.

The word "spirit" did not appear immediately. At first the word “Basmachi” was used, by analogy with films and books about the establishment of Soviet power in Turkestan. When you read the memoirs about the entry and the first operations, it sounds not “spirits”, but “Basmachi”, even though when these memoirs were written, the word “spirit” was already on everyone’s lips. After the introduction, our propagandists decided to introduce a new term “dushmans”, more understandable to local residents. Well, then the abbreviation “spirit” appeared, which fit well into our military vocabulary. The spirits were less fortunate; they had to pronounce a longer “shuravi”. By the way, I heard the word “Mujahid” much later, already in the Union.

And one more related question. What were the names of the spirits in the very first notes in the press, award lists and funerals dating back to the beginning of the 80th year? “Basmachi” reigned in the vocabulary at that time, but I’m interested in what was said in official documents.
In the spring and summer of 1981, at least in 783 ORB, the word “darling” was already in full use.
They began to be called “spirits” because they appeared out of nowhere and disappeared into nowhere.
This is a literal quote from E. Kiselev’s film “Afghan Trap-2”. In my opinion, it’s so painful to speak so harshly about perfumes... They don’t deserve such respect....IMHO
At the beginning of the war, the Ikhwans were officially called “bandits”, unofficially “Basmachi” and “Ikhwans”, and “spirits” appeared a little later. Of course, from "dushman"....
P.S. And they began to call them Mujahideen later, when we had practically left there and it became clear that sooner or later the Americans would break in there. Like we fought with “bandit enemies” (seemingly for a just cause), but the amers fought with the Mujahideen (“ideological fighters for the faith” or whatever it is translated there)

Afghan Mujahideen(Arabic: مجاهد‎‎ mujāhid, mujahiddin) - members of irregular armed forces motivated by radical Islamic ideology, organized into a single insurgent force during the civil war in Afghanistan in 1979-1992. Formed since 1979 from the local population with the aim of waging an armed struggle against the military presence of the USSR and the Afghan governments of Babrak Karmal and Najibullah. After the end of the war in the mid-1990s, some of the Afghan Mujahideen joined the ranks of the radical Taliban movement, while others joined the Northern Alliance units.

The word "mujahid" is of Arabic origin ("mujahid", plural "mujahiddin"), literally meaning "fighter for the faith", at the same time being the name of a jihadist or rebel. The Soviet army and the Afghan authorities called them dushmans (Dari دشمن - dušman, dushmon - “enemy”), and the Afghans called Soviet soldiers shuravi (Dari شوروی - šouravî, shuravi - “Soviet”). Soviet soldiers often, in everyday life, used the slang word “spirits” - a derivative of “dushmans” - to designate them.
The Dushmans wore the same traditional Afghan clothes as the local population, without outwardly standing out from them (shirts, black vests, turbans or pakol).