1. Alam, “Memoirs of Jehad,” 139.

2. For details, see International Afghanistan Hearing (hereafter IAH), 186-212. The date and the number of casualties in the canal are not the same in all sources. According to Z. G. Alam, between seventy-one and eighty persons perished in the canal (personal communication, San Diego, 1991). The incident occurred in spring 1982, but the precise date is uncertain.

3. Alam, “Memoirs of Jehad,” 178.

4. Quoted in ibid., 186-89.

5. Quoted in ibid., 161.

6. Ibid., 209-19.

7. IAH, 186.

8. Ibid., 198.

9. Ibid., 190.

10. Ibid., 191.

11. Ibid., 187.

12. Ibid., 186.

13. Ibid., 190.

14. Ibid., 195.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., 196.

17. Ibid., 188.

18. Ibid., 189.

19. Ibid., 191.

20. Ibid., 192.

21. Ten miners work in each of the twenty-five mines, using primitive techniques. Around twenty-five miners are killed each year from the collapse of tunnels and gas from the explosives. Annual yield varies from $80 to $90 million. Led by Ahmad Shah Mas’ud, the supervisory council oversees the extraction. The gems have brought prosperity to the region. The houses in Khinj are solidly built, and the latest Japanese vehicles crowd the narrow streets. (Asian Journal [Southern California], 11 September 1992.)

22. IAH, 26.

23. Ibid., 1.

24. From my journal.

25. Laber and Rubin, Helsinki Watch, 173.

26. IAH, 77, 78.

27. Ibid., 106.

28. Cordsman and Wagner, Lessons of Modern War 3:216.

29. For details, see Shultz, Chemical Warfare.

30. IAH, 84.

31. Ibid., 85.

32. Ibid., 100.

33. Ibid., 88.

34. IAH, 65.

35. How many mines the Soviets and (to a much lesser degree) the mujahideen planted throughout the war in Afghanistan will never be known. According to a Soviet engineer, the invading army planted two thousand minefields (Kakar, Geneva Compromise on Afghanistan, 232). Other sources have put the number up to fifteen million mines. The United Nations survey of November 1991 has this to say: “About 10 million mines are thought to have been laid in Afghanistan. They have been dropped randomly from the air, laid in concentrated clusters and minefields, laid singly and as booby-traps. Often they are washed down by floods on to previously cleared land. In some areas, they are everywhere: in villages, gardens, tracks, fields. In others, they may be only on access roads. There are large quantities of unexploded ordinance in almost all the areas where intensive fighting has taken place. Information on locations, concentrations, and types of mines is acquired slowly and often tragically. The problem tends to be worst in provinces bordering Pakistan, and in areas where fighting was heaviest” (Ruiz, Left Out in the Cold, 12). “The consequences of all this mining are only too visible. Two million people, or one in seven or eight, are disabled in Afghanistan. Of these, 20 percent or 400,000 people, have been maimed by mines or unexploded ordinance. A recent U.N. survey found that 10 percent of villagers in Afghanistan, and 60,000 refugees in camps in Pakistan are disabled. In four camps surveyed, 2 percent of all men were amputees. At least 50,000 have been provided with artificial limbs” (Girard, “Afghanistan,” 23).

36. Alam, “Memoirs of Jehad,” 264.

37. Ibid., 180.

38. IAH, 107.