Arms and the rebels of Afghanistan

Press, 29 March 1980, Page 14

Arms and the rebels of Afghanistan

By

IAN MATHER

in Pakistan

The rebels fighting the Soviet and Government forces in Afghanistan have two main sources of arms, the first being the Afghan Army itself from which hundreds of soldiers have deserted. The second source is the tribal “Krupps” at Darra. a township in the Frontier Province near the Pakistani border, whose gunsmiths have for years beaten out by hand exact, and sometimes reliable, facsimiles of massproduced European and American small arms,

The colonial legacy has made their favourite copy, the old British .303 Lee-En-field bolt-action rifle, usually with a preference for the slightly stubbier World War One model as carried by the stone sentinels on British war memorials.

They sell for about $6O a piece and are not to be despised as a sniper’s weapon since a good shot can pick a man off from half a mile away — providing his Darra-mads ammunition is correctly, charged. There are also copies of Stem guns for $l5O , pineapple grenades for $2O, and a few contemporary Darra automatic rifles, modelled on ,the German G 3, which cost about $4OO and are therefore not very popular. For secret agents there are ballpoint pens which, in about the time it takes to load a musket, can be adapted to fire a .22 bullet.

But Darra’s most ambitious project was the world’s first bolt-action antiaircraft gun, basically -an outsize rifle firing a heavy 20mm round mounted on a bi-pod with a seat for the gunner.

It had a winding mechanism to raise or lower the barrel, whose cover was built of pieces that fitted together telescopically, so that it looked like the part-time product of some crazed plumber. It was painted bright green, and written on its 10-shot magazine was “Asmad (sic) in USA.” It was a weapon that could have wrought havoc among, say, the balloon traffic of the Franco-Prussian war, but pitted against a Soviet MiG-24 helicopter gunship of even a Sopwith Camel, makes about as much sense as a crossbow. The sight of this Heath Robinson device would be laughable if the intent were not so tragically serious. For its existence is a measure of the determination of a poor and primitive people to continue, in their muddled way, a “holy war’’ against the world’s most powerful army. Afghan guerrilla leaders living in Peshawar insist that, so far, the only encouragement they have received from the Arabs and the West is their warm wishes. They are particularly mystified by a recent announcement, by the United States

State Department that the C.I.A. has given military assistance to guerrilla groups. “We are surprised by this statement,” said Pir Sayed Ahmed Gailani, an hereditary Muslim saint with connections to the Saudi royal family, who heads the National Islamic Front for Afghanistan. “What was their objective in making it? When you give arms to people, you don’t usually announce what you’re ’ doing.”

Gailani — an urbane, moderate man who prefers wellcut leather jackets and cavalry twill to traditional dress — is not alone in thinking that the State Department’s real target might have more to do with the forthcoming United States elections than events in Central Asia.

His chief rival is Engineer (Afghanis have a Germanic regard for professional titles) Gulbiddin Hekmatayar, a stern-looking man with a spade-like beard and a lambswool hat, who has taken his Hezb-i-Islami Party out of the newly formed Islamic Alliance for the Liberation of Afghanistan because he would not tolerate smaller parties having an equal say. Hekmatayar, a fundamentalist who admires the Iranian way of doing things, expressed ■ equal bewilderment about the State Department’s announcement. He said he found American claims about assistance “confusing”.

There is not much love lost.

A Soviet-built helicopter of the Afghan Air Force flying over Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, recently. The column of Afghan rebels goes by on horseback and foot in mountains north-west of Herat. The man on the horse at the right carries a modem assault rifle, while the man walking in the lead carries a vintage turning-bolt repeater.

between the Hekmatayar and Gailani factions, both loud in their accusations that the other does more talking and looting than fighting. The American announcement has made for even more divisiveness. The main guerrilla groups in Peshawar are now looking at each other accusingly and saying: “We haven’t received this American assistance, so who has?”

According to Hezb-i-Islami there are 14 separate Afghani resistance groups in Pakistan alone and another 12 based in Iran. One leader, better known for his patronage of the card tables at London’s Clermont Club than for his generalship, is reputed to have promised the Saudis that for $1 billion he would drive the Russians out of his homeland. The Saudis are supposed to have replied that for that much it would be simpler to bribe Brezhnev. The main reason the Arabs have been slow in providing material assistance, apart from humanitarian aid such as medical supplies, is the Afghans’ dismal failure to unite. Hezb-i-Islami’s withdrawal from the alliance, set up mainly at the instigation of the Saudis at the emergency meeting of 36 Muslim nations in Islamabad last January, has dashed hopes for a common front on the battlefield.

So in Darra the gunshop proprietors continue to demonstrate their wares for their Afghan customers with frequent shots in the air while small boys wrestle in the mud for spent cartridges. Behind the shops squatting men and child labourers forge barrels in brick fur-

naces, carve stocks, and prime cartridges by tapping detonators gently horns with small hammers.

In the villas they have rented round Peshawar, the leaders of the resistance talk of a forthcoming Russian offensive that will make previous Soviet incursions into their mountains seem like a quiet stroll. They talk wryly of the necessity to hit Russian soldiers below the belt because they are now wearing body armour and admit that, although the historical precedents regarding invaders are encouraging, neither Genghis Khan nor the British had helicopter gunships. “We do hope the West and the Arabs are not blind,” said Pir Gailani, “and that they realise that this is a symbolic war. If we lose here, the Arabs are next”

Copyright, London Observer Service.