Detail Afghan War Rug No. 2453-4. This is the only representation of a Soviet tank we have ever seen on war aksi. Many vehicles that look like tanks appear, but they are lighter Soviet fighting vehicles or armored personnel carriers.
This T-54 has a Sagger ATG missile attached to its cannon

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Shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan smaller rugs bearing images of Soviet weaponry began showing up in the world's markets. They came in a range of sizes and were woven by many of the different groups who had traditionally woven rugs in Afghanistan. Within the overall classification af Afghan war rugs are a discrete type (war aksi) which measure roughly 2'x3,' have a border 2" to 3" wide and a field dominated by a representation of an AK-47 (Kalishnikov) Russian assault rifle, as well as AK-74s, 2' to 2.5' long. Images of a wide range of other Soviet war material appear as filler designs. These include hand grenades, armored fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers (very seldom tanks), officers' sidearms,

Rukha, Panjshir Valley, 1987, home of the 4th Armored Division

airplanes, helicopters, trucks, staff cars, rocket propelled grenade launchers (RPGs), and land mines. Our collection includes a rug with a representation of a three story building flying Afghan government flags, which we interpret as a military headquarters. It has been assumed in rug circles that most of these rugs that originated in Afghanistan were woven in the northern, central and eastern parts of the country and found their way to northern Pakistan bazaars, principally that of Peshawar. It has been further assumed that, after a while, most war rugs where woven by Afghan refugees in the huge camps that were established along the northern Pakistani border with Afghanistan. This assumption ignores the fact that the weaponry images are rendered in extreme, accurate detail, so much so that one can distinguish between a Hind M-24 attack helicopter and a Hip 8 troop carrying helicopter. Another subtlety is that some of the automatic rifles pictured have orange-red and red ammunition magazines. This detail tells us that the subject rifle is an AK-74, a more advanced and sophisticated weapon supplied to elite troops rather than the usual AK-47. These weapons come from the factory with an orange-red plastic (non-corrosive) clip. This kind of revealing detail suggests that the weaver had actually seen the objects she was weaving into her rugs. Because the Soviets deployed different units equipped with different weapons in different parts of Afghanistan, we can, with a reasonable degree of certainty tell where many of these rugs originated (or, at least, where the weavers came from). Therein hangs a tale.

This is a beautiful vegetable (natural) dyed rug made with hand-spun wool. It was made in Northern Pakistan by Ersari Turkoman refugees from Northern Afghanistan. The lovely ivory field bears very skillfully drawn alternating ranks of RPG-7s, rocket propelled grenade launchers, fragmentation hand grenades, Hind M-24 attack helicopters, Markarov officers' side arms, and Hip-8 troop carrying helicopters. On the Indigo blue border are BMD-2 armored personnel carriers that are flying red pennants from their communications antennas. The weaver has drawn the helicopters' rotors to give the illusion of rotation.

Afghanistan and "The Great Game" Afghanistan has had the historical misfortune to be a buffer between Russia (later the Soviet Union) and India under the British Raj (later independent India and Pakistan). In the 19th century "The Great Game" was in full play between the Russians and the British, with Afghanistan the playing field. In the 20th century Muslim fundimentalism in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan made the Soviets very nervous about the allegiance of the populations of her southern (mainly Muslim) republics. The Soviets countered this threat by promoting and installing a socialist Afghan government in Kabul. The Pakistanis and, to a lesser degree, the Iranians played in to these Soviet concerns by encouraging parties and tribal units unfriendly to the Afghan government. The Pakistanis played politics with the various factions in Afghanistan going back to the 1960s, aiding some while withholding aid from others. ISI, which is the Pakistani equivalent to our CIA, supplied weapons and other supplies, along with training to the favored anti-government groups. This aid began well before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, was dramatically stepped up after the war began and culminated with the supply of stinger shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles which, once fully deployed throughout Afghanistan rendered the country untenable to the

Mujihadeen unit commander using walkie-talkie with paratroop version of AK-47 slung on his back (See war rug #2419-9)

Mujihadeen Field Commanders Killed in Action

Soviets and the Soviet phase of the war in Afghanistan ended. The main suppliers of Pakistan in this venture were Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, The Sultan of Brunei and China through the CIA. All of this was, largely, financed by the CIA. The aim was to destabilize the Afghan government and, by extension, hinder the Soviet efforts to strengthen their client, the socialist Afghan government. Almost no one could have predicted the scale of the eventual success of this covert supply operation, nor the terrible civil war that followed that success and continues today. We have an Afghan friend who told us that, "every Afghan male has two AK-47s, one to turn in when the war was over and the other to bury by the garden wall, for the future. The future is today. The People of Herat The Pakistani practice of favoring some factions while shorting others had a dramatic effect on whether or not certain peoples and the areas they lived in had a good or bad war. The Pashtuns, Sunni Moslems got better arms, quicker, than, say, the Hazaras, Uzbeks, Tadjiks and Farsi-wan, Shia Moslems, who had to rely on captured weapons or those they could buy in the marketplace. When the war came the people in the Herat area, in western Afghanistan, were among the unfavored and were forced to depend on Iran, her neighbor to the west, who was in very poor straits herself because of the various U.S. policies to weaken her and the later, debilitating war with Iraq. The people of the Herat region rose early in the war and massacred the resident Afghan government troops along with their Soviet advisors. The Soviets regrouped and retaliated in a most savage manner. The Heratis fought very aggressively and suffered very terribly. Even their terrain was against them, it being relatively flat and ideal ground for Soviet armor operations.

Many of the noncombatants, over 2 million, refugeed across the border with Iran and settled in the Mashad and Sabzevar areas of Khorassan Province in Northeastern Iran. Iran could not afford to establisha network of camps in the style of the Pakistanis, so an attempt was made to disperse the refugees and settle them throughout Khorassan. Iran was as good and generous a host as she could possibly be to her Afghan brothers and sisters, but her means were extremely limited and the refugees had to accept any work they could get, even the most menial.

Herat, Afghanistan is to the lower right, Mashad and Sabsevar, Iran are to the upper left, Russia is to the upper right. Some of these refugees were absorbed into the weaving trade. They may or may not have been weavers in Afghanistan, but they adopted the Iranian weaving method, more specifically, the weaving method of the Mashad area, use of the asymmetric knot, open to the right, and warps on two levels (depressed). Afghan weaving is usually characterised by use of the asymmetric knot, open to the left, and very limited use of depressed warps). An exception to this rule is the weaving of the Turkomans in northern Afghanistan who employ the asymetric knot open right. The wool used in Meshad, while good wool, was often dirty, i.e, carrying little bits of plant debris, nettle fragments, and even little bits of nylon from the rice bags in which it was stored.

Later in the war, Iran repatriated many of the refugees back to the Herat area, probably to further destabilize the Afghan goverment but also because of her own dire economic straits. We have every reason to believe that those among the returnees who had woven in Mashad, would continue to weave on their return to Herat.

We have identified a sub-group of Afghan war aksi woven in the Persian manner, depressed warps, asymmetric knot open to the right. We have further broken this sub-group into two further sub-groups, those rugs woven with dirty wool (wool containing plant debris, such as nettles and tiny bits of nylon from the rice storage bags) and those woven in the same technique, but having been made of clean, high-quality wool, such as that found in the Herat bazaars in Afghanistan. So, we have two distinct groups of the type. Afghan war rugs woven in Iran with Iranian materials in the Iranian weaving technique and rugs woven in Afghanistan of Afghan materials, but also in the Iranian weaving technique.

Hind M-21 Attack helicopters, a water-color by Konstantin Zubrilin

You will see a variety of weapons displayed on these rugs, but the constant is the Russian assault rifle, usually the Kalashnikov AK-47, and, rarely, the more advanced Kalikov AK-74 which is distinguished by its rusty red ammunition magazine which, when depicted on a rug will be colored in a range of reds, bright red to orange/red.

Everything was supplied to these Mujihadeen troops by the CIA/ISI except for their hats

Afghan War Rug No. 942a, featuring the AK-47
Ersari Turkoman (SOLD)

1'7"x3'3". The draftsmanship on this rug is elegant with generous spacing and a minimum of war iconography. On the light charcoal gray field is a well drawn AK-47, a fragmentation grenade and a Hind M-21 assault helicopter with its characteristic ferret-like nose.

Click here for an enlarged image of half this rug

Click here for a direct scan on the face of the rug

Click here for a direct scan on the face of the rug

Click here for a direct scan on the back of the rug

This rug has an exquisite minor border, an adaptation of the Ersari Judar border design made up of a three petal blossom repeat.

The Kalashnikov AK-47 Assault Rifle

Early in the war Mujihadeen set up an ambush. They are armed with old British Enfield .303s.

The AK-47 assault rifle was the standard weapon of the Soviet Bloc, and its clients. At the beginning of the war the Mujihadeen supplied themselves from fallen Afghan government soldiers, from government arsenals, ambushed convoys, and, occasionally from Soviet advisors and troops. Later in the war a massive CIA-led supply of AK-47s occurred. One major route began in Egypt where the Egyptians traded their Soviet supplied AK-47s for U.S. weapons. The CIA then funneled the AK-47s to the Afghan fighters through Pakistan. Prior to the widespread availability of the AK-47, the ubiquitous arm in Afghanistan was the British Enfield 303. The 303 was rugged, accurate, and ammunition was plentiful. They and all their parts were available in nearly any bazaar town. Indeed, parts for the 303 were handmade in crude forges. An Afghan friend of ours recalls men sitting in circles, drinking tea and filing away with heavy rasps on chunks of metal. They were making spare parts for British Enfield 303s, more than likely ejector springs, the weak link in the otherwise rugged .303. The argument could be made that in many respects the Afghan fighters would have been better off sticking to the 303. The average Afghan male grew up with the 303 and a placed shot very seldom missed. It is fact that with the advent of the AK-47 into Mujihadeen ranks, kill rates went down and ammunition expenditure rose alarmingly.

It could be further argued that the Soviets would have scored a net gain had they supplied the Mujihadeen with AK-47s. That the AK-47 rifle is the major design icon on war rugs is due to the perception that it was the chief working tool of the Afghan male, at least for the duration of the war. Since the rifle in the hands of the Afghan fighter, earlier in the war, ostensibly came from the dead hands of his enemy, that made the rifle a sort of talisman.

Early in the war the Soviets began replacing the AK-47 with the more advanced AK-74. The AK-74 is easily distinguished from the AK-47 by its rusty-red banana-shaped ammunition clip. The clips were made of corrosion proof plastic. These were better weapons issued, initially, to elite Spetsnaz troops, the Soviet equivalent of our Special Forces. They operated as both paratroop formations and as rifle companies. For an Afghan fighter to have taken an AK-74 from the dead body of an elite Spetsnaz trooper was considered quite an achievement, certainly one worthy of being celebrated on a rug. Later, the AK-74 displaced the AK-47 as the standard Soviet arm. The AK-74 was lighter and had a larger flash suppressor. Most importantly, it was with the AK-74 that the Soviets joined the "fast, light round" school of thought on ammunition, moving away from the "slow, heavy round" school, a move made by the U.S armed forces during the Vietnam war when they adopted the M-16 to replace the M-14. The theory is that a soldier is less burdened with a lighter weapon and he can carry more ammunition with smaller, lighter ammunition and, most importantly, it is thought that while the slow, heavy round can make a bigger hole and certainly do horrendous damage, the faster, lighter round creates a sort of sonic wave on impact that does collateral damage to that caused by the bullet itself.

Afghan War Rug No. c35, Paratroop version, Ak-74 - (SOLD)

2'2"x3"1". On the creamy ivory field, natural (undyed) sheep's wool we have a very dominant AK-74 in the paratroop version. Note the folding metal composition stock just forward of the hand grip. It is accompanied by two BMD-2 armored troop carriers, a HIP-8 troop carrying helicopter, and a Hind M-21 assault helicopter displaying its characteristic ferret-face. Smaller weapon imagery on the field include two shaped RPG-7 rocket grenades, two AK-47 rifles, cartridges, and three hand grenades. Also on the field are a quadruped, probably a dog, and a bird. They appear to be conversing.

Àõìàä Øàõ Ìàñóä, "Ëåâ Ïàíäæøåðà".

The magnificent Ahmad Shah Masoud, "The Lion of the Panjshir (Valley)" commands the only remaining organized armed resistance to the Talaban in Afghanistan. Note the rusty red clip on his weapon. It indicates that it is the more advanced AK-74 rather than an AK-47.

[Editor's Note: On September 9, 2001, two days before the attack on the World Trade Towers, Ahmad Shah Masoud was grieviously wounded by a suicide bomber. He never regained consciousness and died September 14, 2001. Most observers of events in Afghanistan believe he was assassinated by the Al Qaeda/Taliban.

D84. Afghan War Rug, featuring the standard AK-47 with
standard wooden stock, Ersari Turkoman

3'1"x4'9". This is a beautiful vegetable (natural) dyed rug made with hand-spun wool. It was made in Northern Pakistan by Ersari Turkoman refugees from Northern Afghanistan. Dominating the beautiful madder root red grounded field is a Soviet Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle. This weapon is pictured with a full standard stock. Illogically it is also pictured with a folding metal stock (starting just above the hand grips and extending down to the magazine) such as you would see on the paratroop version of this weapon with its stock cut back. Also pictured are two HIP-8 troop carrying helicopters, There are also BMD-2 armored troop carriers. Pictured also is an RPG7 rocket propelled grenade launcher and an RPG grenade. Filling in on the field are fragmentation hand grenades, a Markorov officer's sidearm and cartridges. It is seldom that we can describe an Afghan war rug as beautiful, but such is the case here.

Members of elite paratroop formations and Spetsnaz troops - SPETSialnoe NAZnachenie - special purpose, analogous to our Special Forces, had the option of carrying the conventional rifle with full wooden stock or the stockless "paratroop" version which had a detachable, folding metal stock. CNN has been running some file footage of Osami bin Ladin in Afghanistan and in it there is often pictured a paratroop version of the AK-74 (hanging on a wall over his head), recognizable by its rusty red banana magazine. I had always thought the size of the ammo clip on these rugs were exaggerated, but seeing the actual clip in the CNN footage convinces that the weaver was portraying true.

D91 Vegetable Dye Afghan/Soviet War Rug

2'1"x3'3". This is a beautiful vegetable (natural) dyed rug made with hand-spun wool. It was made in Northern Pakistan by Ersari Turkoman refugees from Northern Afghanistan. The dominating design element on this rug is an AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle in its cut-down paratroop adaptation. It was issued to paratroopers, armor troops (because of the close close confines of their vehicles) and Soviet Spetsnaz troops - SPETSialnoe NAZnachenie - special purpose, analogous to our Special Forces. The lovely madder root red field bears very skillfully drawn fragmentation hand grenades, a BMD-2 armored personnel carrier anRPG, rocket propelled grenade launcher, a Markarov officers' side arm, and a Hip-8 troop carrying helicopter. On the deep indigo blue border are more fragmentation grenades. The weaver has drawn the helicopters' rotors to give the illusion of rotation.

Afghan War Rug No. 2419-9 (SOLD)

This rug features the AK-74 assault rifle in its paratroop configuration. It also displays 9 Armored Personnel Carriers, all with Sagger ATG missiles. Hip 8 troop carrying helicopters and MI-24 Hind attack helicopters. Fighting vehicles and helicopters are often depicted in close proximity to one another because helicopters often flew cover for motorized columns. Bluish field, unusual number of top colors including some very attractive blues and greens. Asymmetric knot, open right. Size, 2'x3', pile area (approx.) Origin, Herat, Afghanistan

Afghan War Rug No. 950, featuring the AK-74 ,Turkoman

1'8"x3'2". This AK-74 is accompanied by four BMD-2 armored personnel carriers and six fragmentation hand grenades. A Russian veteran of the war has told us that standard procedure if one was surrounded was to use hand grenades if you thought the enemy did not know your exact position. If they did you were to use your rifle until your ammunition was exhausted and then use your grenades. "Save a bullet for yourself," he added wryly.

Click here for an enlarged image of half this rug

Click here for a direct scan on the face of the rug

Click here for a direct scan on the face of the rug

Click here for a direct scan on the back of the rug

Rare Afghan War Rug No. 952a, (SOLD)

1'8"x3'2". This unusual war rug is from the group cited above, made in the Persian manner, asymmetric knot, open right, woven by a woman who was a refugee in Iran, was repatriated to western Afghanistan and wove this rug in the vicinity of Herat. The main war icon is the AK-47 rifle. It is accompanied by a BMD-2 armored personnel carrier, a Hind M-24 attack helicopter, a truck, a Markarov semi-automatic officer's sidearm, and a Soviet 82 mm M-1937 mortar.

Ron O'Callaghan
Asian Trade
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New Hampton, NH 03256
(603) 744-9191
ronocal@lr.net
http://www.rugreview.com