The Shar-i-Safa Mountains are the setting for the Afghan mission’s temporary refuge and its collapse into a fight for survival. Their concealed caves initially shelter Abdel Khader Khan’s party from the surrounding war; later, the same remote terrain becomes the site of an attack, a dangerous retreat, and the recovery of survivors and dead companions.

Setting and Strategic Position

After a five-hour climb, Abdel Khader Khan’s column reaches a camp sheltered beneath a large rock ledge. Excavated ground forms a vast cave connected to other caves, while smaller camouflaged bunkers encircle it across the edge of a rugged plateau. The camp’s natural concealment and network of shelters make it a defensible refuge, though not a place beyond the reach of the conflict.

The mountains lie about fifty crow-kilometres from Kandahar, twenty kilometres from the main Kabul highway, and roughly fifty kilometres southeast of the Arghandab Dam. These distances place the camp amid three contested zones. Russian forces hold Kandahar, where the city faces recurring sieges and fighting around its outskirts; armed mujaheddin units control stretches of the highway, forcing Russian convoys to fight through blockades; and Afghan government units protect the dam, which is repeatedly attacked. The Shar-i-Safa range itself offers little strategic advantage to the opposing forces, a circumstance that helps explain why the concealed camp initially avoids direct assault.

For two months, Abdel Khader Khan’s group lives with guerrilla fighters in the cave complex. The refuge remains comparatively safe while the region around it continues to demand men and weapons. Winter makes life harder: snow and freezing mist settle over the mountains, and the ground alternates between mud and frozen earth. The camp’s shelter therefore provides security from immediate attack, not comfort or certainty.

The Camp Under Attack

That relative safety ends after Abdel Khader Khan’s party is drawn into a wider conflict. The group later assumes that an Afghan army unit has regrouped after the battle in which Abdel Khader Khan was killed, perhaps following Nazeer’s trail or acting on information obtained from prisoners. Mortar fire strikes the camp. Suleiman Shahbadi expects further attacks and doubts that a direct ground assault would be worthwhile for the opposing force; if Russian troops support the Afghan army, however, helicopters could attack once the weather clears. The camp’s position has become exposed to forces that can strike from the air as well as from the ground.

With limited options, Suleiman Shahbadi plans counterattacks using the group’s own mortars and seeks reliable information about enemy positions. As he begins briefing Jalalaad for a scouting mission, Habib Abdur Rahman arrives at the cave without being detected by the sentries. His appearance interrupts the preparations and redirects attention to the man the enemy is hunting. Later information establishes that Russian and Afghan soldiers had been operating in the mountains principally to capture and kill Habib Abdur Rahman. Their focus on that pursuit left them unaware of the approach of Ahmed Shah Massoud’s forces.

The fighting around the mountain is shaped by mistaken readings of gunfire. When the group attempts to escape, it acts on Habib Abdur Rahman’s information that many of the enemy soldiers are occupied with laying mines and traps on the far side. Sentries at the deserted position open fire, apparently believing Habib Abdur Rahman is approaching. Ahmed Shah Massoud’s forces interpret the shooting as a Russian pre-emptive attack and begin their own assault. Mortar strikes that hit the group’s line are consequently friendly fire, while other explosions are direct hits on Russian positions. The later account makes the distinction between apparent battlefield glory and its actual cost: the barrage is not a victory for the men caught in it, but an accidental danger within a larger battle.

Retreat and Aftermath

The attack leaves the group unable to remain at the camp. Of the supplies, food, fuel, and medical equipment, much has been destroyed or lost; the remaining food is a single goat. Nine men are left. Suleiman Shahbadi and Khaled Ansari decide that they must move to a cave on another mountain, about twelve hours’ march east, before Russian helicopters or ground forces can reach them. They carry weapons, ammunition, medicines, blankets, fuel, wood, and the goat, while snow is melted for water. The eastward cave is a new refuge, distinct from the original Shar-i-Safa camp, and the group spends four weeks there rationing the goat’s meat.

The group’s survival is only gradually understood. After the fighting, Nazeer and Lin remain on the battlefield until the mujaheddin and surviving members of their unit return. Mahmoud Melbaaf and Ala-ud-Din bring back the bodies of Suleiman Shahbadi and Jalalaad. The account later reveals that Ahmed Shah Massoud’s forces pursued the retreating enemy around the mountain and into a company of soldiers who had been laying mines; the ensuing battle destroyed the force sent to capture Habib Abdur Rahman.

Ahmed Shah Massoud’s men and independent Achakzai fighters then secure the Chaman highway from the pass to the Russian defensive perimeter around Kandahar. The evacuation toward Chaman and onward through the pass into Pakistan proceeds rapidly and without incident. The survivors travel in a truck with their dead companions, leaving behind the mountain route that had taken a month to cross on Abdel Khader Khan’s horses. The mountains thus mark both the mission’s temporary centre and its turning point: concealment gives way to exposure, and the group’s retreat becomes a passage out of the battle zone.