196 ISLAM AT WAR
children died, if a Soviet soldier could be killed. Vovsi perceived that the
Afghans saw it as an obligation imposed on them by a higher authority,
be it Allah or their mullahs, to kill every Soviet possible. Soviet prisoners
were savagely tortured. If a Soviet woman was taken, Vovsi reported that
she was brutalized such that she “would never bear another Christian
child.”
The anti-Soviet military struggle was the defense of a Muslim state
against an infidel invader. The Afghan warriors frequently carried Korans
into battle, wore religious necklaces or even had verses from the Koran
tattooed on their bodies. In the early days of the war the mujahedin often
wore the white robes of the martyr. Their military leaders were their re-
ligious leaders. It was a holy war, pure and simple. As such, it drew
volunteers from all across the Muslim world, including the notorious
Osama bin Laden. These men saw a struggle between Dar ul Islam and
Dar ul Harib, the World of Islam and the World of War. The “Harib”
(residents of the Dar ul Harib) were infidels, be they Soviet atheists or
twelfth-century Frankish Crusaders. The ancient Arabic saying, “My en-
emy’s enemy is my friend,” in an incredible twist of irony, allowed them
to accept American military support with a glad hand. Thirteen years later,
in an act of cold calculation, they would bite that same American hand
simply because it was an infidel hand.
As Vovsi noted, Afghans knew nothing of the world outside of their
villages and what their religious leaders told them. The mullah is the voice
of Allah on earth and the hand of Allah that guides them on this earth.
Their entire existence, their demeanor in war, and their death were insep-
arable from their religion.
The Soviets attempted to fight as much of the war as they could with
a theoretically loyal Afghan army formed from draftees. The young and
capable generally escaped the press gangs, leaving the old and less alert
to be swept up and armed. Those conscripts who were physically fit gen-
erally stayed only to be equipped and armed by the Soviets before they
defected to the mujahedin. This conscript army failed miserably for many
reasons; a major consideration was their total lack of commitment to the
communist cause.
A second cause can be illustrated by an interesting quotation dating
from 1882. A Victorian military writer, in speaking of the individualism
of the Afghan warrior said, “once he [the Afghan soldier] is asked to sink
his identity and become merely a unit in a battalion he loses all self-
confidence and is likely to think more of getting away than of stubbornly
holding his ground as he would have done with his own friends led by
his own chief.” This comment clearly indicates that the tribal associations