Battles of Ramadan (3) – The battle of Jaji

Shaykh Usamah gathered a group of Arabs scattered here and there during the anti Soviet Jihad period in the Jaji region. And there occurred a battle in that area against 200 members of the Soviet Special Forces, which means they were the strongest of all the Soviet military forces..!

The Soviets who had defeated Germany and ended the legend of the Third Reich, and who had all of Europe and America in fear! They met face to face with the Arabs in the Jaji region..!

The battle lasted for almost 3 weeks from the 26th of Ramadan to 17 of Shawwal.

Shaykh Usama said "We had only medium size machine guns against the huge arsenal of the Soviet special forces. And we started the action on the 26th and we began to strike them while they would strike us back. And with all the strikes by planes, mortars and rocket launchers they did not even leave us a single rocket launcher or cannon without attacking by it."

The strategy of the Russians was to carry out heavy bombardment to make the Arabs engaged with their injured ones, and then to surround them and capture them all. To thwart this plan, 10 secondary school students from the Land of the two holy places - as Shaykh Usama said - went out to face the 200 men..!

Shaykh Usama says "Allah is a witness that not one of them wavered due to the extent of the tranquility that descended upon them, and not one of them retreated nor uttered a word seeking retreat. Rather, all of them took his weapon and remembered Allah.

And we fought the Kuffar outside in the middle between the two camps. A battle took place which was so intense that there was only a gap of one-tenth of a second between each shell being fired such that I could speak only two words if anyone wanted to talk to me between two firings. Allah is a witness that I did not think that me or any of the brothers would be saved.

The trench was bombed with a mortar about one meter away from me while I was in the trench. Allah is a witness that I slept despite the intensity of the bombings by mortars and aircrafts, and I slept because of the tranquility which enfolded the brothers, thanks to Allah the Exalted.

Nine Mujahideen came down from behind into the forest to put cover on the Russian commandos. Nine brothers went down amidst 200...! Who is the one who kept them firm and removed from their hearts fear of those Kuffar? It is Allah the most high. So they entered amidst the Russians. I tried to contact them and they did not respond and we lost contact with them, and this increased our anxiety greatly as we did not know whether they have been captured or dead or alive. And shortly before noon or about noon, the secondary school students who did not study in military colleges contacted us. If this is what is needed then what did they do?

They contacted us: "Do you hear us....? Answer..."

I said "yes, I hear you".

He said "I give you glad tidings by the grace of Allah, we have now killed the Russian commandos and they lay dead under our feet."

Secondary school students treading upon the Kuffar and the strongest power within the Russian army....! Yes, it is because Imaan (faith) had reverence in their hearts and their actions proved them truthful, and this is what Imaan is.

- Refer to the following lectures of Shaykh Usama – ‘Lessons and insights in Afghanistan’, ‘The Lion’s den of the Arab Ansar in Afghanistan’, ‘The battle of Ramadan’, and ‘Imaan and Jihad’.

Lessons from this story:

It is that these states magnify themselves so that their enemies would feel themselves weak. But part of Imaan becoming complete is that fear should not be of the enemies, regardless of how powerful they really are, but fear should only be of Allah. Allah says in the Quran speaking to the companions: “Do you fear them? Allah has greater right that you fear Him, if you are believers”. (Tawbah:13) So when fear of men was removed from their hearts, the companions were able to destroy the two most powerful empires of the world, the Roman and the Persian empires, despite there being no match at all materially between them and those empires..!!

– By Ahmed Al Hamdan