6 July 1986 attack on a huge Soviet convoy near Maimana, coord-
inated actions became more difficult to put together in the north-
west. However, once the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan
began, new opportunities presented themselves. One of the most
dramatic events in northern Afghanistan was the brief fall of the
town of Kunduz to resistance forces in August 1988, which led
Najibullah subsequently to complain of ‘the most disgraceful phe-
nomena, that is flagrant treachery and shameful cowardice’ (BBC
Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/0292/C/1, 26 October 1988).
Kunduz was a city of singular importance. It had a workable air-
field, and straddled a major route from the USSR to Kabul; in the
event that the road from Termez through Mazar-e Sharif to Pul-e
Khumri was cut, the road from Sher Khan Bandar through Kunduz
and Baghlan offered a workable alternative. These road routes
were vital for the provisioning of Kabul, since an air bridge could
not deliver sufficient matérielto sustain the capital if it were oth-
erwise cut off. But in this case, the regime was lucky: some of the
resistance groups which played a role in taking the city behaved
badly and alienated the locals (Liakhovskii and Zabrodin, 1991:
131), allowing the regime to retake the town. The lessons here
were better learned by the regime than by its opponents.
One of the most important developments in the entire war grew
out of the Panjsher Valley: the establishment and the activation of
the Shura-i nazar-e Shomali, or ‘Supervisory Council of the
North’. Massoud was the key instigator of this structure, which
was part of his ‘breakout’ strategy following the conclusion of the
1982–84 ceasefire. As his horizons grew beyond the Panjsher
itself, he embarked upon a process of consultation with other com-
manders, and from 1986 the fruits of this cooperation were felt
more widely. Strikes at Farkhar in August 1986 and Nahrin in
November 1986 (Urban, 1990: 207) were symptomatic of the new
level of coordination which Massoud had achieved. These were
followed by Keran in October 1987 and Burqa in January 1988
(Roy, 1990: 210). However, while the formation of the Supervisory
Council was a very important development, there remained forces
outside its ambit. For example, Commander Najmuddin in
The Najibullah-Gorbachev Period 1986–1989 113