-Caveat Lector- Russian Military Veterans Warn US - 'Don't Go Into Afghanistan' By Richard Balmforth 9-20-1 "Despite the fact that the Soviet force had hundreds of thousands of men, powerful weaponry and held the main transport arteries, it had to deal with a well-prepared and well-trained enemy," said Gromov. And while U.S. society was "sensitive to loss of life", human losses in Muslim Afghanistan were viewed differently. "What Allah has given, so Allah takes, they believe. A person who is killed in battle for his motherland and faith passes straight to paradise," he said. MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. plans for military operations in Afghanistan have triggered an outpouring of advice from Russia's Afghan veterans who say a full-scale war there would be folly. With painful memories of Moscow's costly 10-year Afghan adventure still etched in their minds, they are issuing a single message to their old Cold War enemy: "Don't do it." "We lost 15,000 men in 10 years of war in Afghanistan -- I don't think the Americans could escape that either," said Boris Gromov, the Soviet general who led the retreat of Moscow's defeated forces from Afghanistan in 1989. "They (the Americans) are getting ready to repeat our mistakes. It is just not possible to conquer or pacify Afghanistan by military means," General Makhmut Gareyev, a former military adviser to the late Afghan President Najibullah, wrote in a newspaper interview on Thursday. The historical irony has not been lost on the Russian military establishment as it now lectures the United States on the dangers of drawn-out involvement in Afghanistan. When the late Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev ordered "a limited military contingent" into Afghanistan in December 1979 it plunged East and West into a new Cold War crisis. The United States led the West in angrily condemning the Soviet intervention and called on the Kremlin to pull its forces out and leave the Afghan people to determine their own fate. As Soviet forces slipped into the quagmire of combat with Afghan mujahideen forces, turning it into Russia's Vietnam, the word from the West was: "We told you so." By the time they left, besides the Soviet losses, an estimated one million Afghans had been killed and another eight million had been exiled or displaced. OLD SOLDIER'S ADVICE Gromov, the last Soviet soldier out of Afghanistan in February 1989, told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that mountain fighting against hardy and elusive guerrillas had proved a bitter experience. "Despite the fact that the Soviet force had hundreds of thousands of men, powerful weaponry and held the main transport arteries, it had to deal with a well-prepared and well-trained enemy," said Gromov, now governor of the Moscow region. "Intelligence of all kinds will play the most important role, especially in the form of intelligence agents. Don't worry about spending money on them, because there can't be success without them." Gareyev, writing in Obshaya Gazeta, said Afghanistan's lack of real infrastructure meant there was little of value to be destroyed by an air campaign. And while U.S. society was "sensitive to loss of life", human losses in Muslim Afghanistan were viewed differently. "What Allah has given, so Allah takes, they believe. A person who is killed in battle for his motherland and faith passes straight to paradise," he said. Communications and supply lines in the rugged, mountainous terrain would be key for any ground operation. "We had 100,000 men and five divisions in Afghanistan. But we could use only 15,000 troops in combat operations. The rest had to guard roads, bases, headquarters, communication junctions and other military infrastructure," said Gareyev. BEWARE TALIBAN'S MILITARY STRENGTH Colonel-General Vladimir Kulakov, deputy chairman of the defence and security committee of Russia's upper house Federation Council, told Interfax that "certain failure awaits the Americans" The United States and its allies must avoid a large-scale war and target clearly defined "terrorist" bases. Referring to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, whom the United States sees as the prime suspect in the U.S. attacks, Kulakov said: "They will have to work out where bin Laden and the leaders of the guerrilla fighters are and seize them in a special services operation." Lieutenant-General Boris Agapov, a former deputy commander of Soviet border forces, said the problem would not end with bin Laden's capture. "We need to wage a strongly-founded and merciless fight against terrorists. Either we finish with this endless evil or it will not only exist but spread," he told the Novaya Gazeta newspaper. 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