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The 75-mile-long valley is a monument to his efforts. Around it are strewn the remains of 17 Soviet tanks, 29 trucks, a dozen helicopters and planes and, guerrillas claim, 1,000 Soviet soldiers. Green Islamic flags mark the graves of 180 slain rebels. In March, however, Massoud unexpectedly reached a private, temporary cease-fire with the Soviet military command in Kabul. Soviet troops withdrew from Rokha in the central Panjshir; they were allowed to maintain a base in Anawa provided they did not come into contact with locals. The agreement alarmed even some of Massoud's admirers. Says Mohammed Anwar: "If there is no fighting in the Panjshir, it is bad for all Afghanistan. It means that there are more Soviet soldiers to go elsewhere."
Such dissension is the last thing that the already faction-ridden guerrilla forces need. As it is, a bitter vendetta separates the two most powerful guerrilla groups, the Hizbe-Islami (Islamic Party) and the Jamiat-I-Islami (Islamic Association). Both are composed of fundamentalist Sunni Muslims, yet neither will join with the other. Thus, while the rebels guarantee safe passage to most captured government defectors (10,000 a year by one estimate), they continue to foil one another. Last fall, for example, the Hizbe troops confiscated ammunition belonging to the Jamiat forces. Each side also accuses the other of harboring collaborators, and both may be right. Western intelligence analysts claim that the brightest graduates of the Afghan military academy are sometimes sent to infiltrate guerrilla-held villages disguised as deserters.
Meanwhile, the flood of refugees continues, even though the monthly rate has shrunk from a high of 120,000 during the war's early stages, to 8,000 this year. Most of those who have fled the country live in squalid Pakistani camps, but find that their basic needs are met. Cushioned by international aid totaling $1.5 million a day, they are assured of steady food, shelter, medicine and a monthly cash stipend of around $3.80 per person. In addition there are schools for children, a rare luxury in Afghanistan.
Pakistani President Mohammed Zia al-Haq has repeatedly declared that the camps are only a temporary haven. Repatriation, however, would require a negotiated political settlement, and that possibility seems remote. Meanwhile, to millions of Afghans, subsistence in the camps seems preferable to misery at home. In that sense the cause of the mujahedin has weakened, though not decisively. "The Soviets would have to double or triple their forces to crush the rebels," says one Western analyst with access to intelligence reports. So the war drags on, making the determination of the insurgents seem as forlorn as it is fierce. Back in Jakdalag, Shababubu, the judge's wife, innocently looks forward to seeing her departed friends. "After Afghanistan's liberation," she says, "all the people will come back." She will have a long wait.