AFGHANISTAN: Brave Struggle for Survival

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The rebels' ferocity is legendary, but starvation could defeat it

Ever since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan last December, one of the most stubborn concentrations of anti-Communist Muslim resistance has been among the clannish Pushtun tribesmen of rugged Kunar province, near the Pakistan border. Six weeks ago, Soviet military commanders made the narrow river valleys and inaccessible mountains the target of their first major field offensive. Seven full combat battalions rolled into the province with the apparent mission of cutting rebel supply lines by sealing the porous border. TIME Correspondent David DeVoss managed to get across the frontier from Peshawar, Pakistan, for five days and linked up with fighting units of mujahidin­the holy warriors, as they call themselves­to assess their campaign and the scope of the Soviet offensive. His report:

High on a ridge overlooking overlooking the provincial capital of Chaghasaray, a small pine grove stands amid a series of fieldstone revetments. The mujahidin use the rocky enclosure to observe Afghan government convoys on the valley floor below; it is also a resting place for the bodies of five Soviet paratroopers killed there last January. Few of the insurgents can resist taking a ritual poke at the skulls. "This is what we do to Russians," Rebel Tribesman Shaler Seyed beams ferociously, hoisting a cranium into the air with a stick. "We will cut them all into little pieces."

With few large bridges or population centers, Kunar does not lend itself to mechanized warfare. But the fact has not deterred the Soviet juggernaut. Few towns lying near the sinuous Kunar River have escaped. Chenar and Dangam, first bombed by MiGs, were later also hit by rocket-firing helicopters. The exodus of 6,000 refugees from Kunar into Pakistan has left the area between the border and the river eerily quiet. But the hills have not been abandoned. No mountain is without its militia. After escorting their women into Pakistan, most men return, climb a few thousand feet higher and join one of the scattered rebel packs.

Kunar's embattled mujahidin clearly are on the defensive. Of the 160 rebels I saw, fewer than 10% had automatic weapons. The village commander at Baralow carries a bolt-action deer rifle. When asked how they could fight a modern army, several of the bearded elders in his 160-man force brandished curved swords. They make the most of what is available. Broken donkey harnesses are restitched into Sam Browne belts.

Tea canisters are reborn as land mines. But resourceful handicraft is limited by backwardness. In a rebel village one evening, during prayers, two dusty field radios were pulled from under a bed; the battery cavity of each was being used as a repository for prayer beads. Inadequate weaponry and supply does not seem to affect the fighting spirit. "It is all in a man's thinking," explains Guerrilla Leader Chandra Khan. "You look in that corner and see 'only three Kalashnikov rifles.' I see three Kalashnikovs and three dead Russians."