Picking from a fistful of sugar-coated almonds, Fahad Mohammad sat near the crest of a hill overlooking the Kabul River. A bright moon hung over the gorge, but even without its light he could navigate down the slopes that dropped sharply to the river. Cradled in between the hills, like a giant concrete mouth, was the Sarobi Dam. It providing a significant portion of the capital’s electricity, and its strategic importance to the occupation could not be underestimated. The access road had been fortified with checkpoints and barbed-wire barriers. Two tanks were stationed at the top of the dam, one facing north, one south – guns angled high as if they feared that the mountains would rise up and smash the precious structure. Impressive as these defences might seem to Soviet planners they were of little concern to Fahad. No attack by the mujahedin was ever going to travel up the road. He liked to tell his men:

The Soviets worry about controlling roads. This is not a country of roads. Let them keep our roads. We will keep the rest of Afghanistan.

There were perhaps fifty soldiers in total protecting the facility, a mix of Afghan army recruits commanded by the occupiers. The notion that this was a coalition of equals was insultng – the Afghans were under orders, subservient, slaves in their own country and an abomination in Fahad’s eyes. Though the troop numbers were significant, their cautious deployment underscored their belief that mines scattered across the gorge would prevent any attack.

As Fahad chewed on the last of his almonds, he could see one of the mines, a bulbous shape not more than ten metres away. A person might mistake it for a rock, for these mines were not dug in by a specialist team but dropped by enemy planes, scattered from the sky. Specially designed wings spun them through the air to slow their descent, grotesquely copying nature’s design of a seedpod, to land softly. They were the most innocuous looking of weapons. Children mistook them as toys since the colour of the plastic case varied according to where they were dropped, whether the reds or yellows of the mountain soil, or the greens of vegetated areas. Though they could be seen by a vigilant naked eye they were almost invisible to metal detectors, containing only a thin aluminium detonator. Fahad estimated there were several thousand spotted through these hills, none of them intended to kill. An examination revealed that they did not have enough explosives to guarantee death. They were designed to maim. An injured mujahedin was far more valuable to the occupation than a dead man. A wounded soldier could result in an entire operation being called off as the survivors carried him home. The dead presented no such problem: they were left where they lay.

Fahad returned to his team.

—Allahu Akbar.