The Bear Descends on the Lion

By Pico Iyer

Soviets mount their harshest attack yet against tenacious rebels

Ever since Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan on a cold day more than four years ago, the treacherous terrain of the Panjshir Valley has served local rebels as both sanctuary and symbol. The determined Mujahedin guerrillas have been nurtured by grain from its verdant hills, water from its mountain streams and shelter within caves in the shadow of its snow-capped peaks. Above all, the 70-mile-long valley has been the hideout and headquarters of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic 30-year-old Mujahedin leader who has united more than 5,000 squabbling resistance fighters under his shrewd and well-organized leadership.

Known as the Lion of Panjshir, Massoud has established a local political and judicial system, organized his own tax system, instituted classes in the use of rocket launchers and heavy artillery, and even set up schools and bus services throughout the valley. His Mujahedin have also hounded their Soviet invaders. Recently they captured and reportedly killed 23 Soviet agents disguised as Mujahedin. By persistently ambushing military convoys traveling between Kabul and the Soviet border, they have caused a severe fuel problem in the capital, a mere 40 miles to the south. Only two weeks ago they compounded that shortage by blowing up four strategically vital bridges. Small wonder, then, that the Soviets have shattered their 13-month truce with Massoud and mounted their fiercest attack since the invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979.

The Panjshir Valley has already survived six punishing assaults, but never has it faced more men or heavier air strikes. As many as 100 Soviet Tu-16 Badger bombers and Su-24 Fencer fighters saturated the area with high-altitude carpet bombing. In their wake came some 80 Mi-24 Hind assault helicopters, more than 500 tanks and armored personnel carriers and, according to Western diplomats, more than 20,000 troops, almost a fifth of the entire Soviet force in Afghanistan. The target of this unprecedented show of force was not so much the rebels as the civilians, who have apparently been lending them support. "The Soviets," charged Karen McKay, director of the Washington-based Committee for a Free Afghanistan, "have launched a genocidal program that Genghis Khan would have admired."

Government-run Radio Kabul was soon trumpeting victory, and the official Soviet news agency TASS implied that Massoud's men had been routed and their leader captured or killed. Noted one Western diplomat in Moscow: "They would hardly claim anything that specific unless it were at least partly true." Others were not convinced. Afghan resistance spokesmen in Paris acknowledged that two attempts had been made upon the Lion's life, including one by an undercover agent who took aim from only 30 feet away. But they also insisted that rumors of Massoud's downfall were as overblown as those put about by Kabul two years ago. "There are no casualty figures, no reports of capture of arms and no description of clashes," said a Mujahedin official in New Delhi. "That makes me very doubtful of the claims."

Shortly after Yuri Andropov succeeded Leonid Brezhnev as Soviet leader in November 1982, there was talk in Moscow of a face-saving pullout from the costly war of attrition. But Konstantin Chernenko, who replaced Andropov after that leader's death last February, seems uninterested in the notion. "We detected a hardening once Chernenko came to power," says Abdullah Osman, head of the Mujahedin-run Union of Afghan Doctors. Sure enough, Soviet troops recently stepped up patrols along both the southeastern border with Pakistan and the western border with Iran. "If the enemies of the motherland do not surrender," warned TASS, "the state will crush them, no matter where they are and on what reactionary and imperialist forces they rely."

But all that is easier said than done. What the guerrillas lack in modern equipment and medicine they make up for in fierce patriotism and fiery Islamic zeal. British authorities estimate that the 100,000 rebels have taken as many as 12,000 Soviet lives during the 52-month campaign. TIME has also learned that U.S. officials received reports last week that the insurgents managed to shoot down at least one enemy bomber. Meanwhile, they remain in control of nearly all of the countryside. In the Panjshir Valley, Massoud's men had reportedly sustained a healthy economy through a clandestine trade in semiprecious stones, while keeping their strongholds well stocked with munitions and food.

By the time the Soviet troops arrived last week, the Mujahedin had evacuated all civilians and were hunkering down in the relative safety of their mountain redoubts. "If the Soviets really want to dominate Afghanistan," said a Pentagon official, "it will take a million men." In the absence of such forces, foreign observers suspect that this year's annual spring offensive may last through the summer, then peter out in the usual stalemate. Says a defense analyst in Washington: "The Soviets will kill a lot of people and get even more Afghans enraged with them. But in the end, the situation will remain pretty much the way it is."

--By Pico Iyer. Reported by Mohammad Aftab/lslamabad and Bruce van Voorst/Washington

With reporting by Mohammad Aftab, BRUCE VAN VOORST