Before my second trip to Afghanistan in 1986, "grandfather" Starinov * [* Professor Ilya Grigorievich Starinov - born in 1900, veteran of four wars, legendary saboteur, "grandfather" of Soviet special forces] showed me a Yugoslav magazine with an article about the underground war in Vietnam. Immediately a thought flashed through: why, something similar exists in Afghanistan! The fact is that, perhaps, since the time of Alexander the Great, Afghans have been digging underground tunnels-water conduits, or, as they are called, kanats. In this sultry, sun-dried country, you can only survive on groundwater. And therefore, from generation to generation, peasants dig wells, sometimes up to 50 meters deep, connecting them with each other by underground passages. Almost every village has around a wide-ramified network of qanats, through which life-giving moisture oozes, merging into thin streams and going out to the surface somewhere hundreds of meters away to give life to gardens and vineyards.
But kanats at all times and in all wars served as a reliable refuge from a stronger enemy. From the very beginning of hostilities in Afghanistan, the Soviet Army also faced the problem of “underground partisans”. True, our sappers did not stand on ceremony in response, using explosives and gasoline to the place and out of place, leaving behind huge craters at the sites of the blown-up wells. Water, of course, stopped flowing to the fields, and the peasants, left without food, also naturally went to the mujahideen.
According to intelligence reports, the spooks were constantly improving the systems of underground communications. However, we had few concrete schemes of underground structures at our disposal. However, it could not be otherwise. After all, scattered self-defense detachments, often fighting not only with us, but also among themselves, built these passages and shelters as they pleased and strictly kept their secret from enemies and from "friends".
My job in Afghanistan was to create a school for the training of special units of the Ministry of State Security of the DRA. The school was located on the territory of the operational regiment of the 5th Directorate of the MGB DRA in the province of Paghman, 14 kilometers north-west of Kabul. The huge apple orchard where we were accommodated was permeated with a network of unexplored qanats. This made me think to include the topic of "underground war" in the training plan of the Afghan special forces.
In the first set, we had only 28 cadets. All of them are brave Mujahideen fighters, with combat experience from two to six years, including against the Soviet Army. One of my cadets even completed a six-month training course in Pakistan under the guidance of Western instructors. But even these hardened fighters were not eager to go underground. I was even more so, since more than any booby traps or a dagger strike from around the corner I was afraid of snakes, scorpions and other wickedness that is teeming with any Afghan well.
Our "lessons" consisted of two parts: brief theoretical training and field exercises using military equipment.
In the field, we began with engineering reconnaissance of approaches to the wells and with the deployment of two cover groups. Before using explosives, the cadets had to shout loudly into the well (taking all precautions so as not to get a bullet from below) the demand to go to the surface for everyone who was there. Then two grenades of the RGD-5 type should have been thrown - fragmentation F-1 underground is not so effective. After that, it was supposed to repeat the order for voluntary surrender and warn that the kyariz would now be undermined.
The depth of the well was determined either by the sound of a thrown stone falling, or with the help of a solar "spot" directed downward by a mirror. If unseen zones were found, a grenade was thrown on a rope of the required length. And only after that, an explosive charge was lowered on the detonating cord.
As a charge, the abundant trophy Italian anti-vehicle mines of the TS-2, 5 or TS-6, 1 types were usually used. As soon as the mine reached the bottom, a second 800-gram charge was dropped on another 3-4 meter long detonating cord. Both cords at the top were connected together, and the UZRGM fuse from an ordinary hand grenade was attached to them. To prevent this structure from accidentally falling into the well, it was simply crushed by a stone or caught by a hammered peg.
A trained crew of two people took about three minutes to prepare to blow up a 20-meter well. After that, it was enough to pull out the ring and release the grenade fuse bracket - and after four seconds an explosion was heard. Demolitionists, who only had to bounce off the charge by 5-6 meters, had only to dodge the facing stones, like from a volcano, flying out of a well.
The trick of this method of detonation was that the upper charge exploded a fraction of a second earlier than the lower one and tightly plugged the well with gases. The bottom charge exploded behind him. Its shock wave, reflected from the upper cloud of gases, rushed back down and into the side passages and tunnels. The space between the two charges was in a zone of lethal excess pressure: we called this technique the "stereophonic effect."
Once we almost on ourselves experienced the impact of such a "stereophony", when during a training detonation just a dozen meters away from us, a blast wave knocked out and carried the plug of a camouflaged manhole into the kyariz. We would be good if this cork were under us! In the discovered hole and blown up well, we already lower two exactly the same paired explosive devices - a total of four charges. We connect it on top with a detonating cord and detonate it again with one grenade fuse. The effect is fantastic - it immediately gets the name "quadrophony".
Then a smoke bomb flies into each well. They are not poisonous and are only needed in order to determine the moment when it is time to go down to the search party. The ventilation in the kariz is good, and as soon as the smoke, which is warmer than the rest of the air, dissipates, it becomes a signal that it is already possible to breathe below without respirators.
They descend into the kyariz in three or four. Two go on reconnaissance ahead, one or two cover from a possible stab in the back. A long strong rope was tied to the leg of the first scout for pulling out trophies or the scout himself if he was suddenly injured or killed. The search group was armed with knives, shovels, hand grenades, pistols and machine guns. A flashlight was attached to the forend of the machine gun. Cartridges - with tracer bullets. In addition, we were the first to use signal mines in confined spaces and underground. They could be thrown like hand grenades by simply pulling out the pin. But the most amazing effect was achieved when 3-6 signal mines were tied into one beam and then “fired” from them, holding them in front of you. A bright sheaf of fire, a terrible howl for nine seconds, and then another nine seconds - a fountain of "tracers" flying 15-20 meters and randomly bouncing off the walls. I don’t remember a case when even trained fighters could withstand such a “psychic weapon”. As a rule, everyone fell on their faces and instinctively covered their heads with their hands, although "tracers" are dangerous if they only get into the eye or by the collar.
My first group of cadets of the special forces school soon had to put into practice what they had learned. It so happened that a convoy of Soviet vehicles carrying gravel for construction was ambushed late in the evening in the heart of Paghman province. Nineteen unarmed soldiers and one warrant officer, who had only a pistol with two clips, were missing. At night, paratroopers of the 103rd Division landed from helicopters on the mountain peaks and blocked the area. In the morning, an operation to sweep the area began. The commander of the 40th Army said: "Whoever finds them dead or alive will get a hero!"
Sensing prey, the Soviet special forces company, which had been dozing in our garden for three days, briskly rushed off in search of its armored vehicles. However, the buried corpses of the tortured soldiers were found in a few hours by the "green", that is, the Afghans of the operational regiment of the MGB DRA.
The Mujahideen themselves fell through the ground. The command was received to blow up the kyariz. The Afghan regiment advisor Stae raised my cadets "into the gun". They took away almost all the "teaching aids" that the school had for the operation. In half an hour explosions rumbled in Pagman. The SA sappers acted according to their own scheme, laying TNT boxes into the wells. My cadets - as we did the day before.
According to intelligence information and interviews with local residents, who later cleared the qanats for almost a month, more than 250 Mujahideen found death underground during that operation in Paghman.
