To most people, the public face of Sandy Gall is as an ITN newscaster. But he is equally a veteran war correspondent, having covered Vietnam, the Congo and Amin’s Uganda. And recently he returned from a perilous two months dodging Russian patrols in Afghanistan in search of the guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Masud.

This was Gall’s third trip to Afghanistan and his second filming of Masud. He has also recorded how the Pashtuns, the majority tribe, were faring. This time, he wanted to see how Masud was progressing. ‘I wanted to go back because it is a disgrace that the fighting is still not being reported properly. After all, it is their Vietnam’, he says.

After waiting a month in Islamabad – ‘I hadn’t realised the high passes were snowbound and we physically couldn’t get across’ – Gall, along with an ex-army man and a cameraman, were smuggled over the Pakistani border with the help of the Mujahiden guerrillas. They were disguised in local shalwar (baggy trousers) and kameez (long shirts).

The trio entered Afghanistan in the north and spent two weeks trekking through Nuristan to the Panjsher Valley. They then went up to Takhar Province and northwards to Farkhar. For a country still at war, it was a remarkably incident-free trip.

The team twice drove in a captured Russian jeep. Otherwise they rode or walked across mountainous terrain in uninterrupted stints of 10 to 12 hours. Food was scarce and they survived on vast quantities of rice and tough goat – supplemented with their own supplies of bully beef, tinned sardines and tinned cheese.

When they found Masud in Farkhar, Gall discovered a remarkably able and well-organized commander who is still full of confidence. ‘He was half-way to becoming a Tito-type overall partisan leader and running the war very well in his own northeastern constituency. ‘

Masud was planning an attack on an Afghan army garrison of about 300 people, just north of Farkhar. It was heavily defended, with machine-gun posts on the surrounding hills.

On August 17, Masud attacked with heavy weaponry, including machine-guns and devastating BM12 multi-rocket launchers. The cameraman went into the thick of the action, and the battle footage should be spectacular. Masud claimed a major victory, finally overrunning the last post in a new attack 36 hours later.

Gall feels that Masud is making headway, but that he is an exception. There have been huge changes since his last visit. ‘The balance of power has shifted in favour of the Soviets and Afghan governmen,’ he says. The Russians have improved their tactics in the past two years and adapted conventional tank-fighting methods to guerrilla warfare in the mountainous country, employing more special Spetnaz forces to carry out strike operations.

‘In many areas the Mujahideen have been put under extreme pressure and some are very dispirited. But there is no suggestion they will give up, even if they are beaten to their knees. ‘

However, Gall is wary of generalization, pointing out that covering and assessing the war is almost impossible. ‘You have to walk or go on horseback, so you only get to see one area. You rely on other people’s reports. ‘ Still, he will attempt an assessment in a one-hour documentary on ITV in November – after considering the plight of the Afghan nation and profiling Masud.

Their ‘plight’ he says, is that one-third of the population (5 million people) are refugees in Pakistan and Iran. There are also swarms of internal refugees living with relatives in shanty towns or caves in the hills.

‘Guerrillas are a very elusive target, and so every day, Russians are carrying out atrocities and killing civilians. It is not reported because there is nobody there to do so.

In December it will be seven years since the Russians invaded. ‘It must rank as one of the great tragedies of the century, one of the most vicious wars and the biggest since the Second World War’, says Gall. ‘It shows no sign of letting up. ‘

Nor does Gall. The proceeds of the Boisdale Ball for Afghanistan on September 25 will be divided between Afghan Aid and the Sandy Gall Appeal, which supplies Afghans with artificial limbs.