|
Soviet–Afghan War
The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Afghan military fight against the rebelling Afghan mujahideen, aided by Pakistan. While they were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of the mujahideen's support came from Pakistan, the United States (as part of Operation Cyclone), the United Kingdom, China, Iran, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, in addition to a large influx of foreign fighters known as the Afghan Arabs. American and British involvement on the side of the mujahideen escalated the Cold War, ending a short period of relaxed Soviet Union–United States relations. Combat took place throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside, as most of the country's cities remained under Soviet control. The conflict resulted in the de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term ''Cold war (term), cold war'' is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and Nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, Economic sanctions, embargoes, and sports diplomacy. After the end of World War II in 1945, during which the US and USSR had been allies, the USSR installed satellite state, satellite governments in its occupied territories in Eastern Europe and N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yuri Drozdov (general)
Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov (; 19 September 1925 – 21 June 2017) was a Soviet security official. In 1979, he led Operation Storm-333, formally triggering the Soviet–Afghan War. Later, as a high-level agent of the KGB, he oversaw the execution of the "Illegals Program" in the United States from 1979 until 1991. Drozdov was a recipient of the Order of Lenin, which was conferred to him in 1981. Early life Yuri Ivanovich was born in Minsk to the former Anastasia Kuzminichna Pankevich (1898-1987) from Lepel, Belarus, and Ivan Dmitrievich Drozdov (1894-1978). His mother, Anastasia Kuzminichna, was a Belarusian typist with the English paper factory in Pereslavl-Zalessky, and then, after the Russian Civil War, in the secretariat of the then NKVD of Byelorussia. Her father, Kuzma Pankevich, fought as a partisan during the Great Patriotic War falling ill and dying at over 90 years old in 1943 near his home next to the Lepel Cemetery where he had been a guard since the Revolution. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ismail Khan
Mohammad Ismail Khan (Dari/Pashto: محمد اسماعیل خان; born 1946), better known as Ismail Khan, is an Afghan former military officer, warlord and politician who served as Minister of Energy and Water from 2005 to 2013 and before that served as the governor of Herat Province. Originally a captain in the Afghan Army, he is widely known as a former warlord who controlled a large Afghan mujahideen force, mainly his fellow Tajiks from western Afghanistan, during the Soviet–Afghan War. His reputation gained him the nickname ''Lion of Herat''. Ismail Khan was a key member of the now exiled political party Jamiat-e Islami and of the now defunct United National Front party. In 2021, Ismail Khan returned to arms to help defend Herat from the Taliban's offensive, which he and the Afghan Army lost. He was captured by the Taliban forces and then reportedly fled to Iran on 16 August 2021. Early life and rise to power Khan was born in 1946 in the Shindand District of Herat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mullah Naqib
Mullah Naqib Alikozai, sometimes called Naqibullah ( 1950 – 11 October 2007), was an Afghan mujahideen commander and politician from the Kandahar area of southern Afghanistan. He was the leader of the Alikozai Pashtun tribe. Mujahideen commander Mullah Naqib gained respect as a military leader during the Soviet–Afghan War, when he fought against Soviet and Afghan communist forces. In 1984, he became affiliated with the Jamiat-e Islami party of Burhanuddin Rabbani. The Jamiat was often perceived as having a constituency limited to the Tajik community, so Rabbani was especially careful to cultivate his relations with the few Pashtun commanders willing to join him, such as Mullah Naqib. Naqib's forces built a fortified base in the Arghandab district, that the government troops repeatedly, and unsuccessfully tried to destroy. In June 1987, a large force of government troops, spearheaded by tanks and supported by Soviet artillery attacked into Arghandab. After a week of hard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burhanuddin Rabbani
Burhānuddīn Rabbānī (; 20 September 1940 – 20 September 2011) was an Afghanistan, Afghan politician and teacher who served as the sixth president of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996, and again from November to December 2001 (in exile from 1996 to 2001). Born in the Badakhshan Province, Rabbani studied at Kabul University and worked there as a professor of Islamic theology. He formed the Jamiat-e Islami (''Islamic Society'') at the university which attracted then-students Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmad Shah Massoud, both would eventually become the two leading commanders of the Afghan mujahideen in the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979. Rabbani was chosen to be the President of Afghanistan after the end of the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, communist regime in 1992. Rabbani and his Islamic State of Afghanistan government was later forced into exile by the Taliban, and he then served as the political head of the Northern Alliance, an alliance of various political groups w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahmad Shah Massoud
Ahmad Shāh Massoud (2 September 19539 September 2001) was an Afghan militant leader and politician. He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militia, and actively fought against the Taliban, from the time the regime rose to power in 1996, and until his assassination in 2001. Massoud came from an ethnic Tajik people, Tajik of Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslims, Muslim background in the Panjshir Valley in Northern Afghanistan. He began studying engineering at Polytechnical University of Kabul in the 1970s, where he became involved with religious anti-communist movements around Burhanuddin Rabbani, a leading Islamism, Islamist. He participated in a failed uprising against Mohammed Daoud Khan's government. He later joined Rabbani's Jamiat-e Islami party. During the Soviet–Afghan War, his role as an insurgent leader of the Afghan mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abdul Jabar Qahraman
General officer, General Abdul Jabar Qahraman (; 1959 – October 17, 2018) was an Afghan Officer (armed forces), military officer, warlord and politician who came to prominence for his ability to mobilize large amounts of men to join his pro-government militias. Qahraman played a significant role in Afghan politics in the late 1980s and early 90s. He transitioned from a militia leader to a party leader in the 2010s. Qahraman was assassinated by the Taliban on October 18, 2018. Early career and military background Abdul Jabar Qahraman was born to a Noorzai Durrani Pashtuns, Pashtun family in Kandahar province. His family had a modest background, with his father being a shopkeeper. However, Qahraman's exceptional talents were recognized early on when he was talent-spotted by the national military commission during his time at the Ghazi Abdullah Khan Lycee in Kandahar. In 1976, he was sent to Kabul to join the military high school. However, the Saur Revolution in Afghanistan in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mohammad Aslam Watanjar
Mohammad Aslam Watanjar (Dari/, 1946 – November 2000) was an Afghanistan, Afghan Officer (armed forces), military officer and politician. He played a significant role in the Saur Revolution, coup in 1978 that killed the Afghan President Mohammad Daoud Khan, starting the Saur Revolution. Watanjar later became a member of the politburo in the Soviet Union, Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Early life An ethnic Ghilji, Ghilzai Pashtuns, Pashtun, Aslam Watanjar was born in 1946, in Zurmula, in Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktia Province. He trained as a tank commander in the Soviet Union following his graduation from the Military Academy in Kabul in 1967, being part of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Afghan Army’s 4th Tank Brigade. Saur Revolution Watanjar's role in the communist coup of 1978 was important. Instructed by Hafizullah Amin, he initiated the march of tank forces from the 4th and 15th Tank Brigades near Pul-e-Charkhi prison, Pul-e- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ismatullah Muslim
Ismatullah Muslim (died 1991), also called Ismatullah Achakzai or just Ismat, was an Afghan militia leader, who in 1979 joined the mujahideen opposed to the communist PDPA and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, before coming over to the side of the government in 1984. Despite his military successes, Ismatullah Muslim was known for the many abuses he committed against civilians, made him a much hated figure throughout Afghanistan, except within his own tribe. Mujahideen commander Ismatullah, an Achakzai Pashtun, was born in 1943 in southern Kandahar, rose to the rank of major in the Afghan army, after having undergone training in the Soviet Union. In 1979 he led his tribe to join the mujahideen resistance against the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and due to his important tribal following, became one of the principal mujahideen commanders in the Kandahar area. As well as military operations, he also perpetuated the tribal tradition of smuggling various goods acro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mohammed Rafie
Major General Mohammed Rafie (Dari/Pashto: محمد رفیع; born 1946) is an Afghan former military officer and politician who served as Afghanistan's minister of defence during the Soviet-Afghan War. Rafie was born around 1946 in the Paghman area of Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. He is an ethnic Pashtun, and was an army officer in the Afghan Army's tank corps. He was appointed as the minister of public affairs following the Saur Revolution. In August 1978, he was ousted from his public offices by the Khalqi government. Rafie was a member of the Politburo, Deputy Prime Minister, and Defense Minister. He served twice as Minister of Defense of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1984 and from 1986 to 1988. Rafie also served as vice president A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shahnawaz Tanai
Lieutenant General Shahnawaz Tanai (Russian: Шахнаваз Танай, 1950 – 7 March 2022) was an Afghan military officer and politician who served as the Chief of General Staff of the Afghan Army during the Soviet-Afghan War until his defection to neighbouring Pakistan following a failed coup d'état in 1990. Besides commanding the Afghan Army during the Soviet-Afghan War, his command assignments included the command of the artillery and as director of military intelligence as well as serving as minister of defense under President Mohammad Najibullah. He was a hardline member of the Khalq faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), and leader of at least the majority of the Khalqist faction since its former leader Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy was exiled as Ambassador to the Soviet Union as part of the political preparation of the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in September 1988. A pillar of the communist regime, Tanai later attempted a coup against hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abdul Qadir (Afghan Communist)
Colonel General Abdul Kadir Dagarwal (; Dari/Pashto: ; 1944 – April 22, 2014), commonly known as Abdul Qadir, was an Islamic nationalist Afghan military officer and politician. He was a participant of the 1973 Afghan coup d'état that created the Republic of Afghanistan under President Daoud Khan, and later directed the Afghan Air Force squadrons that attacked the RTA station during the Saur Revolution. He served as the acting head of state for three days when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power and declared the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, before handing over power to PDPA leader Nur Muhammad Taraki. He later served two terms as Minister of Defense, the first as part of the Taraki government from April to August 1978, and the latter as part of the Babrak Karmal government from 1982 to 1986. Qadir's second term took place during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Early life and military career Abdul Qadi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
