Read Online Letters to My Daughters by Fawzia Koofi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Fawzia Koofi
Tags: BIO026000
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dismantling. The Cold War was reaching its final years.
The Mujahideen fighters were seasoned veterans by now. They had fought a war of attrition against the Russian invaders, and in 1989 they succeeded in sending the Soviet army back to Moscow. Crowds cheered and clapped as the Red Army was forced to make a humiliating retreat. The rebelsâ morale had never been higher, and many people saw them as heroes. The most popular of them all was Ahmad Shah Massoud, the man known as the âlion of the Panjshir.â He was seen as the most brilliant of all the Mujahideen leaders and the strategist behind the Russian defeat. His image is still found on posters all over Afghanistan.
Now, with the Red Army gone, the fighters were eager to seize the full power of government. They sent their armies sweeping towards Kabul. The Mujahideen resented what they saw as a Communist puppet government, which still had very close links to Moscow even though there was no longer a Russian military presence. The government at the time was headed by President Najibullah, a leader who did bring some economic progress and development but who would always be unpopular for having allowed the Russian military on Afghan soil. For three years, the Afghan army remained under his control and fought to keep the Mujahideen at bay, but eventually it was overwhelmed and Najibullahâs government collapsed.
People hoped this would bring stability and with it a new, purely Afghan government. But almost immediately after defeating the government, the Mujahideen began to fight among themselves. With the common enemy defeated, simmering ethnic tensions rose to the surface. Although they were all Afghans, these generals spoke different languages and had different cultural beliefs depending on what part of Afghanistan they came from. They could not agree on how to share power. These battles and power struggles between different commanders would eventually turn into the Afghan civil war, a bloody, brutal war that lasted well over a decade.
I WAS sixteen years old when I heard on the radio that President Najibullah had been arrested as he tried to flee Afghanistan. We were all shocked by what was happening and very worried for our country.
We were still living in Kabul, where I went to high school, but the week it happened we had been visiting our home province of Badakhshan, staying with relatives in Faizabad on an extended holiday.
The day after the report of the presidentâs arrest, we heard shooting coming from the mountains above Faizabad. The Afghan army had set up positions on one side of the mountains that encircled the city, while the Mujahideen had dug in on the other. The two sides exchanged fire with rifles and machine guns and occasionally artillery. It seemed to me that the Mujahideen were firing a lot more than the army, which didnât have as many guns or as much ammunition as its enemy.
The army soldiers appeared to be only defending their positions and werenât offering much resistance. Large numbers of Afghan soldiers had already deserted. Many were unwilling to fight their countrymen, and the soldiers knew exactly what the Mujahideen were capable of doing to any Russian soldiers they had caught during earlier battles: torturing and killing them. The torture became more gruesomely creative as time went on. Sometimes they burned people alive. Other times they would ask a prisoner his age and then nail that number of nails into his skull. Still other times they would cut a prisonerâs head off and pour boiling oil into the corpse. When the hot oil encountered the nerve endings, the decapitated body moved around for a few seconds as if it were dancing. This form of torture was aptly called the âdead manâs dance.â
The Afghan army knew that it was the new enemy and couldnât expect any more mercy than the Russians had. Many soldiers simply slipped off their uniforms and returned to normal civilian life.
After
The Mujahideen fighters were seasoned veterans by now. They had fought a war of attrition against the Russian invaders, and in 1989 they succeeded in sending the Soviet army back to Moscow. Crowds cheered and clapped as the Red Army was forced to make a humiliating retreat. The rebelsâ morale had never been higher, and many people saw them as heroes. The most popular of them all was Ahmad Shah Massoud, the man known as the âlion of the Panjshir.â He was seen as the most brilliant of all the Mujahideen leaders and the strategist behind the Russian defeat. His image is still found on posters all over Afghanistan.
Now, with the Red Army gone, the fighters were eager to seize the full power of government. They sent their armies sweeping towards Kabul. The Mujahideen resented what they saw as a Communist puppet government, which still had very close links to Moscow even though there was no longer a Russian military presence. The government at the time was headed by President Najibullah, a leader who did bring some economic progress and development but who would always be unpopular for having allowed the Russian military on Afghan soil. For three years, the Afghan army remained under his control and fought to keep the Mujahideen at bay, but eventually it was overwhelmed and Najibullahâs government collapsed.
People hoped this would bring stability and with it a new, purely Afghan government. But almost immediately after defeating the government, the Mujahideen began to fight among themselves. With the common enemy defeated, simmering ethnic tensions rose to the surface. Although they were all Afghans, these generals spoke different languages and had different cultural beliefs depending on what part of Afghanistan they came from. They could not agree on how to share power. These battles and power struggles between different commanders would eventually turn into the Afghan civil war, a bloody, brutal war that lasted well over a decade.
I WAS sixteen years old when I heard on the radio that President Najibullah had been arrested as he tried to flee Afghanistan. We were all shocked by what was happening and very worried for our country.
We were still living in Kabul, where I went to high school, but the week it happened we had been visiting our home province of Badakhshan, staying with relatives in Faizabad on an extended holiday.
The day after the report of the presidentâs arrest, we heard shooting coming from the mountains above Faizabad. The Afghan army had set up positions on one side of the mountains that encircled the city, while the Mujahideen had dug in on the other. The two sides exchanged fire with rifles and machine guns and occasionally artillery. It seemed to me that the Mujahideen were firing a lot more than the army, which didnât have as many guns or as much ammunition as its enemy.
The army soldiers appeared to be only defending their positions and werenât offering much resistance. Large numbers of Afghan soldiers had already deserted. Many were unwilling to fight their countrymen, and the soldiers knew exactly what the Mujahideen were capable of doing to any Russian soldiers they had caught during earlier battles: torturing and killing them. The torture became more gruesomely creative as time went on. Sometimes they burned people alive. Other times they would ask a prisoner his age and then nail that number of nails into his skull. Still other times they would cut a prisonerâs head off and pour boiling oil into the corpse. When the hot oil encountered the nerve endings, the decapitated body moved around for a few seconds as if it were dancing. This form of torture was aptly called the âdead manâs dance.â
The Afghan army knew that it was the new enemy and couldnât expect any more mercy than the Russians had. Many soldiers simply slipped off their uniforms and returned to normal civilian life.
After
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