Khader Khan’s crossing into Afghanistan is a month-long wartime passage in which distance is measured not by the road but by what the terrain, secrecy, and danger will allow. The caravan carries concealed supplies toward the Shar-i-Safa Mountains, moving over more than a hundred mountain passes where horses must be dragged and guided as carefully as the people. Its arrival at a hidden camp marks the end of the crossing and a new risk: the men waiting there cannot yet be confirmed as allies.

Route and purpose

The ordinary road from Chaman crossed a tributary of the Dhari River and continued toward Spin Baldak, Dabrai, and Melkaarez on the highway to Kandahar. The journey was less than two hundred kilometres and took only a few hours by car. Khader Khan’s group did not use that route. It had no cars, and its passage by horseback over more than a hundred mountain passes took more than a month. The contrast sets the scale of the undertaking: a short trip on a map became a prolonged crossing through terrain that offered concealment but little ease.

The cargo was being smuggled into Afghanistan. On the first day, the group camped beneath trees, while the goods and personal supplies were spread across a nearby pasture and covered with sheepskins and goatskins to resemble livestock when seen from the air. A few actual goats were tethered among the bundles. The disguise was practical, but it also governed the journey’s larger method: the caravan had to move without drawing notice from above, and Khader Khan enforced a blackout on the march, forbidding cigarettes, torches, and lamps.

The caravan and the mountain crossing

At dusk, the riding horses arrived: twenty mounts and fifteen pack animals. The animals carried the concealed load, while ten men walked and twenty rode; a herd of ten goats accompanied them. Ahmed Zadeh assigned a horse to Lin, and Nazeer led another. Lin noticed that Nazeer, an accomplished horseman, was walking while he rode. He eventually persuaded Nazeer to take turns on his horse, though Nazeer accepted the arrangement reluctantly and seemed most content when their positions were reversed.

The caravan’s progress was not simply a matter of riding uphill. In the Chaman range, which divides southwestern Afghanistan from Pakistan, horses and people had to be pushed, dragged, and at times helped over the mountain. What first appeared to be an impassable wall of bare rock resolved into ravines, tiered crevices, and narrow ledges. Some paths were broad and level enough to resemble roads; others were so jagged and constricted that each step demanded care. Much of the passage through this barrier took place in darkness. In narrow defiles, the rock walls blocked even the faint light of the quarter moon, leaving the column to inch forward with men, horses, and goats pressed against stone and against one another.

Habib Abdur Rahman was expected to lead the group through the mountains. At first, Lin accepted this with uneasy humour, but as the weeks passed, the others watched Habib more anxiously. They gradually understood why other Afghan resistance fighters had expelled him from their units. The route nevertheless depended on his knowledge: the caravan traveled by night and sometimes by day, moving north along the mountainous border toward Pathaan Khel before turning northwest into deserted terrain threaded with cold-water streams. Habib’s route avoided the main arteries and kept the group at roughly equal distances from towns and larger villages. They crossed between named settlements and forded rivers rather than following the more exposed roads.

Threats and hospitality on the way

The route did not keep the caravan clear of armed opposition. Local pirates stopped it three times, first appearing at high vantage points with guns trained on the travelers, then sending armed men from hiding to block the way forward and prevent retreat. Each time, Khader Khan raised a green-and-white mujaheddin flag bearing a Koranic phrase. The repeated stops show the group’s vulnerability even away from the main roads: secrecy reduced exposure, but it could not remove the danger of armed men controlling the terrain.

The journey also brought encounters with village leaders whose authority had to be negotiated rather than bypassed. Hajji Mohammed liked Lin’s answer to him and invited the group to celebrate the wedding of his youngest son. Khader Khan accepted, concerned that refusing the elderly leader might cause offence and genuinely moved by the invitation. The welcome did not make the encounter cost-free: after driving a hard bargain over tribute, Hajji Mohammed demanded and received Khader Khan’s own horse as an additional personal gift. Khader Khan, Nazeer, and Lin then accompanied him toward his khel, while the rest of the column camped in a well-watered valley.

The pause allowed the men to groom and rest the horses. With the cargo secured in a protected cave, the pack animals could roam, and the village contributed four roasting sheep, Indian rice, and green-leaf tea for the travelers. The village elders recognized the group as fighters in their cause and offered help. After twenty-three days of travel, the singing and laughter from the camp were the first signs of such lightness among the men. The welcome thus stands in contrast to the armed tolls: the same passage through Afghanistan required both forceful caution and negotiated hospitality.

Arrival at Shar-i-Safa

Near the end of the journey, the caravan made a steep but short climb in thin air and cold that penetrated Lin’s clothes. When Lin fell behind, two Afghan fighters gave up the ground they had gained, came back to help him drag a horse up the slope, and then hurried onward to assist the men ahead. Their uncomplaining help made the group’s endurance visible not as an abstract quality but as an action repeatedly offered to others.

After five hours of climbing, the caravan reached its destination in the Shar-i-Safa Mountains. A great ledge sheltered the camp from the air; below it, excavated ground opened into a vast cave connected to other caves. Smaller camouflaged bunkers formed a surrounding ring that reached toward the edge of the rugged plateau. Habib, serving as scout, had alerted the camp to the group’s arrival, and the fighters there were waiting for the supplies.

The approach remained uncertain even at the destination. The men inside stayed behind cover, and Khader Khan did not know exactly who was in the camp. The attack at Shahbad Pass had led him to suspect that Asmatullah Achakzai had changed sides again and joined the Russians. Although Habib reported that the camp was friendly, Khader Khan asked Lin to ride near the front, behind him, impersonating an American. The crossing therefore ends not with uncomplicated safety but with a final test of trust: the supplies have reached the camp, yet the identity of those waiting must still be judged.