Pakistan:
Iran: * 2 Super cobras shot down Total killed: 80,775–95,775+ , casualties3 = Civilian casualties (Afghan): , campaignbox = , units1 = Patch of the Soviet Armed Forces

Soviet Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), were the armed forces of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republi ...

** OKSVA ** Spetsnaz emblem

Spetsnaz SpetsnazThe term is borrowed from rus, спецназ, p=spʲɪtsˈnas; abbreviation for or 'Special Purpose Military Units'; or () are special forces in many post-Soviet states. Historically, this term referred to the Soviet Union's Spet ...

VDV **

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

Afghan Armed Forces The Afghan Armed Forces, officially the Armed Forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (, ) and also referred to as the Islamic Emirate Armed Forces, is the military of Afghanistan, commanded by the Taliban government from 1997 to 2001 and a ...

Afghan Army The Islamic National Army (, ), also referred to as the Islamic Emirate Army and the Afghan Army, is the land force branch of the Afghan Armed Forces. The roots of an army in Afghanistan can be traced back to the early 18th century when the Ho ...

** Afghan Commando Forces ** Afghan Air Force , units2 = Sunni Mujahideen Shia Mujahideen Maoist Other Pakistani The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, later known as the Republic of Afghanistan, was the Afghan state between History of Afghanistan (1978–1992), 1978 and 1992. It was bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, by Iran to the west, by the ...

from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long

Afghan conflict The Afghan conflict (; ) is a term that refers to the series of events that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. Early instability followed the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the large ...

, it saw the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and the Afghan military fight against the rebelling

Afghan mujahideen The Afghan ''mujahideen'' (; ; ) were Islamist militant groups that fought against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent Afghan Civil War (1989–1992), First Afghan Ci ...

, aided by

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. While they were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of the mujahideen's support came from Pakistan, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

(as part of

Operation Cyclone Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in support ...

), the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, and the

Arab states of the Persian Gulf The Arab states of the Persian Gulf, also known as the Gulf Arab states (), refers to a group of Arab states bordering the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi ...

, 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 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 unt ...

, ending a short period of relaxed

Soviet Union–United States relations Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were fully established in 1933 as the succeeding bilateral ties to those between the Russian Empire–United States relations, Russian Empire and the United States, which lasted from 1809 ...

. 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 deaths of one to three million Afghans, while millions more fled from the country as refugees; most externally displaced Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and in Iran. Between 6.5 and 11.5% of Afghanistan's erstwhile population of 13.5 million people (per the 1979 census) is estimated to have been killed over the course of the Soviet–Afghan War. The decade-long confrontation between the mujahideen and the Soviet and Afghan militaries inflicted grave destruction throughout Afghanistan and has also been cited by scholars as a significant factor that contributed to the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

in 1991; it is for this reason that the conflict is sometimes referred to as "the Soviet Union's

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

" in retrospective analyses. A violent uprising broke out in Herat in March 1979, in which a number of Soviet military advisers were executed. The ruling

People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), known as the Homeland Party ( Dari: , ) from June 1990, was a Marxist–Leninist political party in Afghanistan established on 1 January 1965. Four members of the party won seats in the 1965 ...

(PDPA), having determined that it could not subdue the uprising by itself, requested urgent Soviet military assistance; in 1979, over 20 requests were sent. Soviet premier

Alexei Kosygin Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin (–18 December 1980) was a Soviet people, Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1980 and, alongside General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, was one of its most ...

, declining to send troops, advised in one call to Afghan prime minister Nur Muhammad Taraki to use local industrial workers in the province. This was apparently on the belief that these workers would be supporters of the Afghan government. This was discussed further in the Soviet Union with a wide range of views, mainly split between those who wanted to ensure that Afghanistan remained a

socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. This article is about states that refer to themselves as socialist states, and not specifically ...

and those who were concerned that the unrest would escalate. Eventually, a compromise was reached to send military aid, but not troops. The conflict began when the Soviet military, under the command of

Leonid Brezhnev Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until Death and state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, his death in 1982 as w ...

, moved into Afghanistan to support the Afghan administration that had been installed during Operation Storm-333. Debate over their presence in the country soon ensued in international channels, with the

Muslim world The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...

and the

Western Bloc The Western Bloc, also known as the Capitalist Bloc, the Freedom Bloc, the Free Bloc, and the American Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of countries that were officially allied with the United States during the Cold War (1947–1991). While ...

classifying it as an invasion, while the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

asserted that it was a legal intervention. Nevertheless, numerous sanctions and embargoes were imposed on the Soviet Union by the international community shortly after the beginning of the conflict. Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan's major cities and all main arteries of communication, whereas the mujahideen waged guerrilla warfare in small groups across the 80% of the country that was not subject to uncontested Soviet control—almost exclusively comprising the rugged, mountainous terrain of the countryside. In addition to laying millions of landmines across Afghanistan, the Soviets used their aerial power to deal harshly with both Afghan resistance and civilians, levelling villages to deny safe haven to the mujahideen, destroying vital irrigation ditches and other infrastructure through tactics of

scorched earth A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...

. The Soviet government had initially planned to swiftly secure Afghanistan's towns and road networks, stabilize the PDPA, and withdraw all of their military forces in a span of six months to one year. However, they were met with fierce resistance from Afghan guerrillas and experienced great operational difficulties on the rugged mountainous terrain. By the mid-1980s, the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan had increased to approximately 115,000 troops and fighting across the country intensified; the complication of the war effort gradually inflicted a high cost on the Soviet Union as military, economic, and political resources became increasingly exhausted. By mid-1987, reformist Soviet leader

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

announced that the Soviet military would begin a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. The final wave of disengagement was initiated on 15 May 1988, and on 15 February 1989, the last Soviet military column occupying Afghanistan crossed into the

Uzbek SSR The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (, ), also known as Soviet Uzbekistan, the Uzbek SSR, UzSSR, or simply Uzbekistan and rarely Uzbekia, was a union republic of the Soviet Union. It was governed by the Uzbek branch of the Soviet Communist P ...

. With continued external Soviet backing, the PDPA government pursued a solo war effort against the mujahideen, and the conflict evolved into the Afghan Civil War. However, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, all support to the Democratic Republic was pulled, leading to the toppling of the government at the hands of the mujahideen in 1992 and the start of a second Afghan Civil War shortly thereafter.

Naming

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

, the war is usually called the Soviet war in Afghanistan (; ). In Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, it is usually called the Afghan war (; ; ; ); it is sometimes simply referred to as "Afgan" (), with the understanding that this refers to the war (just as the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

is often called "Vietnam" or just Nam" in the

). It is also known as the Afghan jihad, especially by the non-Afghan volunteers of the Mujahideen.

Background

Russian interest in Central Asia

In the 19th century, the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

was fearful that the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

would invade Afghanistan and use it to threaten the large British colonies in India. This regional rivalry was called the "

Great Game The Great Game was a rivalry between the 19th-century British Empire, British and Russian Empire, Russian empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Emirate of Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Qajar Iran, Persia, and Tibet. The two colonia ...

". In 1885, Russian forces seized a disputed oasis south of the Oxus River from Afghan forces, which became known as the Panjdeh Incident. The border was agreed by the joint Anglo-Russian

Afghan Boundary Commission The Afghan Boundary Commission (or Joint Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission) was a joint effort by the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire to determine the northern border of Afghanistan. The Boundary Commission traveled and documented the northern ...

of 1885–1887. The Russian interest in Afghanistan continued through the Soviet era, with billions in economic and military aid sent to Afghanistan between 1955 and 1978. Following

Amanullah Khan Ghazi (warrior), Ghazi Amanullah Khan (Pashto/Dari: ; 1 June 1892 – 26 April 1960) was the head of state, sovereign of Afghanistan from 1919, first as Emirate of Afghanistan, Emir and after 1926 as Kingdom of Afghanistan, King, until his abdic ...

's ascent to the throne in 1919 and the subsequent

Third Anglo-Afghan War The Third Anglo-Afghan War was a short war which began on 3 May and ended on 8 August 1919. The new Amir of the Emirate of Afghanistan Amanullah Khan declared a Jihad against the British in the hope to proclaim full independence, as well as ...

, the British conceded Afghanistan's full independence. King Amanullah afterwards wrote to

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

(now under

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

control) desiring for permanent friendly relations.

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

replied by congratulating the Afghans for their defence against the British, and a treaty of friendship between Afghanistan and Russia was finalized in 1921. The Soviets saw possibilities in an alliance with Afghanistan against the United Kingdom, such as using it as a base for a revolutionary advance towards British-controlled India. The

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

intervened in Afghanistan to suppress the Islamic

Basmachi movement The Basmachi movement (, derived from ) was an uprising against Imperial Russian and Soviet rule in Central Asia by rebel groups inspired by Islamic beliefs. It has been called "probably the most important movement of opposition to Soviet rul ...

in 1929 and

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be on J ...

, supporting the ousted king Amanullah, as part of the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929). The Basmachi movement had originated in a 1916 revolt against Russian conscription during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, bolstered by Turkish general

Enver Pasha İsmâil Enver (; ; 23 November 1881 – 4 August 1922), better known as Enver Pasha, was an Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish people, Turkish military officer, revolutionary, and Istanbul trials of 1919–1920, convicted war criminal who was a p ...

during the

Caucasus campaign The Caucasus campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, later including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, the German Empire, the Central Caspian Dict ...

. Afterwards, the Soviet Army deployed around 120,000–160,000 troops in Central Asia, a force similar to the peak strength of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in size. By 1926–1928, the Basmachis were mostly defeated by the Soviets, and Central Asia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. In 1929, the Basmachi rebellion reignited, associated with anti- forced collectivization riots. Basmachis crossed over into Afghanistan under Ibrahim Bek, which gave a pretext for the Red Army interventions in 1929 and 1930.

Soviet–Afghan relations post-1920s

The

(USSR) had been a major power broker and influential mentor in Afghan politics, its involvement ranging from civil-military infrastructure to Afghan society. Since 1947, Afghanistan had been under the influence of the Soviet government and received large amounts of aid, economic assistance, military equipment training and military hardware from the Soviet Union. Economic assistance and aid had been provided to Afghanistan as early as 1919, shortly after the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

and when the regime was facing the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

. Provisions were given in the form of

small arms A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originate ...

, ammunition, a few aircraft, and (according to debated Soviet sources) a million gold

ruble The ruble or rouble (; rus, рубль, p=rublʲ) is a currency unit. Currently, currencies named ''ruble'' in circulation include the Russian ruble (RUB, ₽) in Russia and the Belarusian ruble (BYN, Rbl) in Belarus. These currencies are s ...

s to support the resistance during the

in 1919. In 1942, the USSR again moved to strengthen the

by providing small arms and aircraft and establishing training centers in

Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...

. Soviet-Afghan military cooperation began on a regular basis in 1956, and further agreements were made in the 1970s, which saw the USSR send advisers and specialists. The Soviets also had interests in the energy resources of Afghanistan, including oil and natural gas exploration from the 1950s and 1960s. The USSR began to import Afghan gas from 1968 onwards. Between 1954 and 1977, the Soviet Union provided Afghanistan with economic aid worth of about 1 billion rubles.

Afghanistan–Pakistan border

In the 19th century, with the Czarist Russian forces moving closer to the

Pamir Mountains The Pamir Mountains are a Mountain range, range of mountains between Central Asia and South Asia. They are located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun Mountains, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya ...

, near the border with British India, civil servant

Mortimer Durand Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, (14 February 1850 – 8 June 1924) was a British diplomat and member of the Indian Civil Service. He is best-known as the namesake for the Durand Line, which serves as the international border between Afghanistan an ...

was sent to outline a border, likely in order to control the

Khyber Pass The Khyber Pass (Urdu: درۂ خیبر; ) is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by tr ...

. The demarcation of the mountainous region resulted in an agreement, signed with the Afghan Emir,

Abdur Rahman Khan Abdur Rahman Khan (Pashto: ) (between 1840 and 1844 – 1 October 1901) also known by his epithet, The Iron Amir, was Amir of Afghanistan from 1880 to his death in 1901. He is known for perpetrating the Hazara genocide, but also uniting the ...

, in 1893. It became known as the

Durand Line The Durand Line (; ; ), also known as the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, is a international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan in South Asia. The western end runs to the border with Iran and the eastern end to the border with China. The D ...

. In 1947, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Afghanistan,

Mohammad Daoud Khan Mohammad Daoud Khan (Dari/) also romanized as Daud Khan or Dawood Khan; 18July 190928April 1978) was an Afghan head of state, military officer and politician who served as prime minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963 and, as leader of the 1973 ...

, rejected the Durand Line, which had been accepted as an international border by successive Afghan governments for over half a century. The

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

also came to an end, and the

Dominion of Pakistan The Dominion of Pakistan, officially Pakistan, was an independent federal dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations, which existed from 14 August 1947 to Pakistan Day, 23 March 1956. It was created by the passing of the Indian Independence ...

gained independence from British India and inherited the Durand Line as its frontier with Afghanistan. Under the regime of Daoud Khan, Afghanistan had hostile relations with both Pakistan and Iran. Like all previous Afghan rulers since 1901, Daoud Khan also wanted to emulate Emir

and unite his divided country. To do that, he needed a popular cause to unite the Afghan people divided along tribal lines, and a modern, well equipped Afghan army which would be used to suppress anyone who would oppose the Afghan government. His Pashtunistan policy was to annex Pashtun areas of Pakistan, and he used this policy for his own benefit. Daoud Khan's

irredentist Irredentism () is one state's desire to annex the territory of another state. This desire can be motivated by ethnic reasons because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to or the same as the population of the parent state. Hist ...

foreign policy to reunite the

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...

homeland caused much tension with Pakistan, a state that allied itself with the United States. The policy had also angered the non-Pashtun population of Afghanistan, and similarly, the Pashtun population in Pakistan were also not interested in having their areas being annexed by Afghanistan. In 1951, the U.S. State Department urged Afghanistan to drop its claim against Pakistan and accept the Durand Line.Rubin, Barnett R. ''The Fragmentation of Afghanistan''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. p. 65.

1960s–1970s: Proxy war

In 1954, the United States began selling arms to its ally Pakistan, while refusing an Afghan request to buy arms, out of fear that the Afghans would use the weapons against Pakistan. As a consequence, Afghanistan, though officially neutral in the Cold War, drew closer to India and the Soviet Union, which were willing to sell them weapons. In 1962, China defeated India in a border war, and as a result, China formed an alliance with Pakistan against their common enemy, India, pushing Afghanistan even closer to India and the Soviet Union. In 1960 and 1961, the Afghan Army, on the orders of Daoud Khan following his policy of Pashtun irredentism, made two unsuccessful incursions into Pakistan's

Bajaur District Bajaur District (, ), formerly Bajaur Agency, is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. Prior to 2018, Bajaur Agency was the northernmost component of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a semi-a ...

. In both cases, the Afghan army was

rout A rout is a Panic, panicked, disorderly and Military discipline, undisciplined withdrawal (military), retreat of troops from a battlefield, following a collapse in a given unit's discipline, command authority, unit cohesion and combat morale ...

ed, suffering heavy casualties. In response, Pakistan closed its consulate in Afghanistan and blocked all trade routes through the Pakistan–Afghanistan border. This damaged Afghanistan's economy and Daoud's regime was pushed towards closer alliance with the Soviet Union for trade. However, these stopgap measures were not enough to compensate the loss suffered by Afghanistan's economy because of the border closure. As a result of continued resentment against Daoud's autocratic rule, close ties with the Soviet Union and economic downturn, Daoud Khan was forced to resign by the King of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Following his resignation, the crisis between Pakistan and Afghanistan was resolved and Pakistan re-opened the trade routes. After the removal of Daoud Khan, the King installed a new prime minister and started creating a balance in Afghanistan's relation with the West and the Soviet Union, which angered the Soviet Union.

1973 coup d'état

In 1973, Daoud Khan, supported by Soviet-trained Afghan Army officers and a large base of the Afghan Commando Forces, seized power from the King in a bloodless coup, and established the first Afghan

republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

. Following his return to power, Daoud revived his Pashtunistan policy and for the first time started

proxy war In political science, a proxy war is an armed conflict where at least one of the belligerents is directed or supported by an external third-party power. In the term ''proxy war'', a belligerent with external support is the ''proxy''; both bel ...

ring against Pakistan by supporting anti-Pakistani groups and providing them with arms, training and sanctuaries. The Pakistani government of prime minister

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) was a Pakistani barrister and politician who served as the fourth president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and later as the ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime minister of Pakistan from 19 ...

was alarmed by this.''Pakistan's Support of Afghan Islamists, 1975–79'' – Library of congress country studies
Retrieved 4 February 2007) The Soviet Union also supported Daoud Khan's militancy against Pakistan as they wanted to weaken Pakistan, which was an ally of both the United States and China. However, it did not openly try to create problems for Pakistan as that would damage the Soviet Union's relations with other Islamic countries, hence it relied on Daoud Khan to weaken Pakistan. They had the same thought regarding Iran, another major U.S. ally. The Soviet Union also believed that the hostile behaviour of Afghanistan against Pakistan and Iran could alienate Afghanistan from the west, and Afghanistan would be forced into a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. The pro-Soviet Afghans (such as the

(PDPA)) also supported Daoud Khan's hostility towards Pakistan, as they believed that a conflict with Pakistan would induce Afghanistan to seek aid from the Soviet Union. As a result, the pro-Soviet Afghans would be able to establish their influence over Afghanistan. In response to Afghanistan's proxy war, Pakistan started supporting Afghans who were critical of Daoud Khan's policies. Bhutto authorized a covert operation under MI's Major-General Naseerullah Babar. In 1974, Bhutto authorized another secret operation in

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

where the

Inter-Services Intelligence The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the premier Pakistani Intelligence community, intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant t ...

(ISI) and the

Air Intelligence of Pakistan An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere ...

(AI) extradited

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 199 ...

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (born 1 August 1949) is an Afghan politician, and former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party, so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis spl ...

and

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 19 ...

Peshawar Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district p ...

, amid fear that Rabbani, Hekmatyar and Massoud might be assassinated by Daoud. According to Baber, Bhutto's operation was an excellent idea and it had hard-hitting impact on Daoud and his government, which forced Daoud to increase his desire to make peace with Bhutto. Pakistan's goal was to overthrow Daoud's regime and establish an Islamist theocracy in its place. The first ever ISI operation in Afghanistan took place in 1975, supporting militants from the Jamiat-e Islami party, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, attempting to overthrow the government. They started their rebellion in the Panjshir valley, but lack of support along with government forces easily defeating them made it a failure, and a sizable portion of the insurgents sought refuge in Pakistan where they enjoyed the support of Bhutto's government. The 1975 rebellion, though unsuccessful, shook President Daoud Khan and made him realize that a friendly Pakistan was in his best interests. He started improving relations with Pakistan and made state visits there in 1976 and 1978. During the 1978 visit, he agreed to stop supporting anti-Pakistan militants and to expel any remaining militants in Afghanistan. In 1975, Daoud Khan established his own party, the

National Revolutionary Party of Afghanistan The National Revolutionary Party (NRP; ; ), or National Revolution Party, was a political party in Afghanistan. The party was founded in 1974 by President Mohammad Daoud Khan, who had seized control of Afghanistan from his first cousin, King Moham ...

and outlawed all other parties. He then started removing members of its

Parcham Parcham (Pashto/ Dari: پرچم, ) was the more moderate socialist faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led by Afghan communist politician Babrak Karmal. It was later turned into the Watan (Homeland) Party with a mor ...

wing from government positions, including the ones who had supported his coup, and started replacing them with familiar faces from Kabul's traditional government elites. Daoud also started reducing his dependence on the Soviet Union. As a consequence of Daoud's actions, Afghanistan's relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated. In 1978, after witnessing India's nuclear test, ''

Smiling Buddha Smiling Buddha (Ministry of External Affairs (India), MEA designation: Pokhran-I) was the code name of India's first successful Nuclear weapons testing, nuclear weapon test on 18 May 1974. The nuclear fission bomb was detonated in the Pokhran#P ...

'', Daoud Khan initiated a military buildup to counter Pakistan's

armed forces A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a ...

and Iranian military influence in Afghan politics.

Saur Revolution of 1978

The

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

's strength grew considerably after its foundation. In 1967, the PDPA split into two rival factions, the

Khalq Khalq (Dari/, ) was a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Its historical ''de facto'' leaders were Nur Muhammad Taraki (1967–1979), Hafizullah Amin (1979) It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by ...

(Masses) faction headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and the

(Flag) faction led by

Babrak Karmal Babrak Kārmal (Dari/Pashto: ; born Sultan Hussein; 6 January 1929 – 1 or 3 December 1996) was an Afghan communist revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Afghanistan, serving in the post of general secretary of the People's Demo ...

. Symbolic of the different backgrounds of the two factions were the fact that Taraki's father was a poor Pashtun herdsman while Karmal's father was a Tajik general in the Royal Afghan Army. More importantly, the radical Khalq faction believed in rapidly transforming Afghanistan, if necessary even using violence, from a

feudal system Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring socie ...

into a Communist society, while the moderate Parcham faction favored a more gradualist and gentler approach, arguing that Afghanistan was simply not ready for Communism and would not be for some time. The Parcham faction favored building up the PDPA as a mass party in support of the Daoud Khan government, while the Khalq faction were organized in the Leninist style as a small, tightly organized elite group, allowing the latter to enjoy ascendancy over the former. In 1971, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul reported that there had been increasing leftist activity in the country, attributed to disillusionment of social and economic conditions, and the poor response from the Kingdom's leadership. It added that the PDPA was "perhaps the most disgruntled and organized of the country's leftist groups." Saur Revolution stamp 1979

Intense opposition from factions of the PDPA was sparked by the repression imposed on them by Daoud's regime and the death of a leading PDPA member, Mir Akbar Khyber. The mysterious circumstances of Khyber's death sparked massive anti-Daoud demonstrations in

, which resulted in the arrest of several prominent PDPA leaders. On 27 April 1978, the

, which had been sympathetic to the PDPA cause, overthrew and executed Daoud along with members of his family. The Finnish scholar Raimo Väyrynen wrote about the so-called "Saur Revolution": "There is a multitude of speculations on the real nature of this coup. The reality appears to be that it was inspired first of all by domestic economic and political concerns and that the Soviet Union did not play any role in the Saur Revolution". After this the

(DRA) was formed. Nur Muhammad Taraki, General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, became Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. On 5 December 1978, a treaty of friendship was signed between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan.

"Red Terror" of the revolutionary government

After the revolution, Taraki assumed the leadership, prime ministership and general secretaryship of the PDPA. As before in the party, the government never referred to itself as "

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

". The government was divided along factional lines, with Taraki and Deputy Prime Minister

Hafizullah Amin Hafizullah Amin (Dari/; 1 August 192927 December 1979) was an Afghan communist head of state, who served in that position for a little over three months, from September 1979 until his assassination. He organized the Saur Revolution of 1978 and ...

of the Khalq faction pitted against Parcham leaders such as Babrak Karmal. Though the new regime promptly allied itself to the Soviet Union, many Soviet diplomats believed that the Khalqi plans to transform Afghanistan would provoke a rebellion from the general population, which was socially and religiously conservative. Immediately after coming to power, the Khalqis began to persecute the Parchamis, not the least because the Soviet Union favored the Parchami faction whose "go slow" plans were felt to be better suited for Afghanistan, thereby leading the Khalqis to eliminate their rivals so the Soviets would have no other choice but to back them. Within the PDPA, conflicts resulted in

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertaking such an ...

s and executions of Parcham members.''The April 1978 Coup d'état and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan'' – Library of congress country studies
Retrieved 4 February 2007) The Khalq state executed between 10,000 and 27,000 people, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison, prior to the Soviet intervention. Political scientist Olivier Roy estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 people disappeared during the Taraki–Amin period: During its first 18 months of rule, the PDPA applied a Soviet-style program of modernizing reforms, many of which were viewed by conservatives as opposing Islam. Decrees setting forth changes in marriage customs and

land reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...

were not received well by a population deeply immersed in tradition and Islam, particularly by the powerful landowners harmed economically by the abolition of

usury Usury () is the practice of making loans that are seen as unfairly enriching the lender. The term may be used in a moral sense—condemning taking advantage of others' misfortunes—or in a legal sense, where an interest rate is charged in e ...

(although usury is prohibited in Islam) and the cancellation of farmers' debts. The new government also enhanced women's rights, sought a rapid eradication of

illiteracy Literacy is the ability to read and write, while illiteracy refers to an inability to read and write. Some researchers suggest that the study of "literacy" as a concept can be divided into two periods: the period before 1950, when literacy was ...

and promoted Afghanistan's ethnic minorities, although these programs appear to have had an effect only in the urban areas. By mid-1978, a rebellion started, with rebels attacking the local military

garrison A garrison is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a military base or fortified military headquarters. A garrison is usually in a city ...

in the

Nuristan Nuristan, also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan (Pashto: ; Katë: ), is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province, with a ...

region of eastern Afghanistan and soon civil war spread throughout the country. In September 1979, Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin seized power, arresting and killing Taraki. More than two months of instability overwhelmed Amin's regime as he moved against his opponents in the PDPA and the growing rebellion.

Affairs with the USSR after the revolution

Even before the revolutionaries came to power, Afghanistan was "a militarily and politically neutral nation, effectively dependent on the Soviet Union." A treaty, signed in December 1978, allowed the Democratic Republic to call upon the Soviet Union for military support. Following the Herat uprising, the first major sign of anti-regime resistance, General Secretary Taraki contacted

chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

of the

USSR Council of Ministers The Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Совет министров СССР, r=Sovet Ministrov SSSR, p=sɐˈvʲet mʲɪˈnʲistrəf ˌɛsˌɛsˌɛsˈɛr), sometimes abbreviated as Sovmin or referred to as the ...

and asked for "practical and technical assistance with men and armament". Kosygin was unfavorable to the proposal on the basis of the negative political repercussions such an action would have for his country, and he rejected all further attempts by Taraki to solicit Soviet military aid in Afghanistan. Following Kosygin's rejection, Taraki requested aid from

, the

general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. was the Party leader, leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, country's dissoluti ...

and Soviet head of state, who warned Taraki that full Soviet intervention "would only play into the hands of our enemies – both yours and ours". Brezhnev also advised Taraki to ease up on the drastic social reforms and to seek broader support for his regime. In 1979, Taraki attended a conference of the

Non-Aligned Movement The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 121 countries that Non-belligerent, are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. It was founded with the view to advancing interests of developing countries in the context of Cold W ...

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Soviet Foreign Minister

Andrei Gromyko Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko ( – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served as Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Soviet Union), Minister of Foreign Affairs (1957–1985) and as List of heads of state of the So ...

and other Soviet officials. It was rumoured that Karmal was present at the meeting in an attempt to reconcile Taraki's Khalq faction and the Parcham against Amin and his followers. At the meeting, Taraki was successful in negotiating some Soviet support, including the redeployment of two Soviet armed divisions at the Soviet-Afghan border, the sending of 500 military and civilian advisers and specialists and the immediate delivery of Soviet armed equipment sold at 25 percent below the original price; however, the Soviets were not pleased about the developments in Afghanistan and Brezhnev impressed upon Taraki the need for party unity. Despite reaching this agreement with Taraki, the Soviets continued to be reluctant to intervene further in Afghanistan and repeatedly refused Soviet military intervention within Afghan borders during Taraki's rule as well as later during Amin's short rule. Taraki and Amin's regime even attempted to eliminate Parcham's leader Babrak Karmal. After being relieved of his duties as ambassador, he remained in

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

in exile, fearing for his life if he returned as the regime requested. He and his family were protected by the Czechoslovak

StB State Security (, ), or StB / ŠtB, was the secret police force in communist Czechoslovakia from 1945 to its dissolution in 1990. Serving as an intelligence and counter-intelligence agency, it dealt with any activity that was considered oppositio ...

; files from January 1979 revealed information that Afghanistan sent AGSA spies to Czechoslovakia to find and assassinate Karmal.

Initiation of the rebellion

In 1978, the Taraki government initiated a series of reforms, including a radical modernization of the traditional Islamic civil law, especially marriage law, aimed at "uprooting

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

" in Afghan society.Bennett Andrew(1999); ''A bitter harvest: Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and its effects on Afghan political movements''
Retrieved February 4, 2007) The government brooked no opposition to the reforms and responded with violence to unrest. Between April 1978 and the Soviet Intervention of December 1979, thousands of prisoners, perhaps as many as 27,000, were executed at the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, including many village

mullah Mullah () is an honorific title for Islam, Muslim clergy and mosque Imam, leaders. The term is widely used in Iran and Afghanistan and is also used for a person who has higher education in Islamic theology and Sharia, sharia law. The title h ...

s and headmen. Other members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment and

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...

fled the country. Large parts of the country went into open rebellion. The Parcham Government claimed that 11,000 were executed during the Amin/Taraki period in response to the revolts. The revolt began in October among the Nuristani tribes of the

Kunar Valley Kunar Valley is a valley in Afghanistan and Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a popul ...

in the northeastern part of the country near the border with Pakistan, and rapidly spread among the other ethnic groups. By the spring of 1979, 24 of the 28 provinces had suffered outbreaks of violence."The Rise and Fall of the Taliban", by Neamatollah Nojumi, published in ''The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan'', ed by Robert D Crews and Amin Tarzi, pub by Harvard University Press, 2008 The rebellion began to take hold in the cities: in March 1979 in

Herat Herāt (; Dari/Pashto: هرات) is an oasis city and the third-largest city in Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Se ...

, rebels led by Ismail Khan revolted. Between 3,000 and 5,000 people were killed and wounded during the Herat revolt. Some 100 Soviet citizens and their families were killed. By August 1979, up to 165,000 Afghans had fled across the border to Pakistan. The main reason the revolt spread so widely was the disintegration of the Afghan army in a series of insurrections. The numbers of the Afghan army fell from 110,000 men in 1978 to 25,000 by 1980. The U.S. embassy in Kabul cabled to Washington the army was melting away "like an ice floe in a tropical sea". According to scholar Gilles Dorronsoro, it was the violence of the state rather than its reforms that caused the uprisings.

Pakistan–U.S. relations and rebel aid

Pakistani intelligence officials began privately lobbying the U.S. and its allies to send materiel assistance to the Islamist rebels. Pakistani President

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (12 August 192417 August 1988) was a Pakistani military officer and statesman who served as the sixth president of Pakistan from 1978 until Death of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, his death in an airplane crash in 1988. He also se ...

's ties with the U.S. had been strained during

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified b ...

due to Pakistan's nuclear program and the execution of

in April 1979, but Carter told National Security Adviser

Zbigniew Brzezinski Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński (, ; March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017), known as Zbig, was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was Jimmy Carter's National Securi ...

and Secretary of State

Cyrus Vance Cyrus Roberts Vance (March 27, 1917January 12, 2002) was an American lawyer and diplomat who served as the 57th United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. Prior to serving in that position, he was the United ...

as early as January 1979 that it was vital to "repair our relationships with Pakistan" in light of the unrest in Iran. According to former

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

(CIA) official

Robert Gates Robert Michael Gates (born September 25, 1943) is an American intelligence analyst and university president who served as the 22nd United States secretary of defense from 2006 to 2011. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and retained b ...

, "the Carter administration turned to CIA ... to counter Soviet and Cuban aggression in the Third World, particularly beginning in mid-1979." In March 1979, "CIA sent several covert action options relating to Afghanistan to the SCC Special Coordination Committee">Oversight of United States covert operations#NSC Special Coordination Committee">Special Coordination Committee/nowiki>" of the

United States National Security Council The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the national security council used by the president of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and Foreign relations of the United States, foreign policy matter ...

. At a 30 March meeting, U.S.

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

representative Walter B. Slocombe "asked if there was value in keeping the Afghan insurgency going, 'sucking the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire? When asked to clarify this remark, Slocombe explained: "Well, the whole idea was that if the Soviets decided to strike at this tar baby fghanistanwe had every interest in making sure that they got stuck." Yet a 5 April memo from National Intelligence Officer Arnold Horelick warned: "Covert action would raise the costs to the Soviets and inflame Moslem opinion against them in many countries. The risk was that a substantial U.S. covert aid program could raise the stakes and induce the Soviets to intervene more directly and vigorously than otherwise intended." In May 1979, U.S. officials secretly began meeting with rebel leaders through Pakistani government contacts. After additional meetings Carter signed two presidential findings in July 1979 permitting the CIA to spend $695,000 on non-military assistance (e.g., "cash, medical equipment, and radio transmitters") and on a propaganda campaign targeting the Soviet-backed leadership of the DRA, which (in the words of Steve Coll) "seemed at the time a small beginning."

Soviet deployment, 1979

Evstafiev-40th army HQ-Amin-palace-Kabul

The Amin government, having secured a treaty in December 1978 that allowed them to call on Soviet forces, repeatedly requested the introduction of troops in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979. They requested Soviet troops to provide security and to assist in the fight against the mujahideen ("Those engaged in

jihad ''Jihad'' (; ) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God in Islam, God ...

") rebels. After the killing of Soviet technicians in Herat by rioting mobs, the Soviet government sold several Mi-24 helicopters to the Afghan military. On 14 April 1979, the Afghan government requested that the USSR send 15 to 20 helicopters with their crews to Afghanistan, and on 16 June, the Soviet government responded and sent a detachment of tanks, BMPs, and crews to guard the government in Kabul and to secure the

Bagram Bagram (; Pashto/) is a town and seat in Bagram District in Parwan Province of Afghanistan, about 60 kilometers north of the capital Kabul. It is the site of an ancient city located at the junction of the Ghorband and Panjshir Valley, near t ...

and Shindand air bases. In response to this request, an airborne battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel A. Lomakin, arrived at Bagram on 7 July. They arrived without their combat gear, disguised as technical specialists. They were the personal bodyguards for General Secretary Taraki. The paratroopers were directly subordinate to the senior Soviet military advisor and did not interfere in Afghan politics. Several leading politicians at the time such as

and

were against intervention. After a month, the Afghan requests were no longer for individual crews and subunits, but for regiments and larger units. In July, the Afghan government requested that two motorized rifle divisions be sent to Afghanistan. The following day, they requested an airborne division in addition to the earlier requests. They repeated these requests and variants to these requests over the following months right up to December 1979. However, the Soviet government was in no hurry to grant them. Based on information from the

, Soviet leaders felt that Prime Minister

's actions had destabilized the situation in Afghanistan. Following his initial coup against and killing of Taraki, the KGB station in Kabul warned Moscow that Amin's leadership would lead to "harsh repressions, and as a result, the activation and consolidation of the opposition." The Soviets established a special commission on Afghanistan, comprising the KGB chairman

Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov ( – 9 February 1984) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from late 1982 until his death in 1984. He previously served as the List of Chairmen of t ...

Boris Ponomarev Boris Nikolayevich Ponomarev (; 17 January 1905 – 21 December 1995) was a Soviet politician, ideologist, historian and member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His patron in his rise to the Politburo was Mikhail ...

from the Central Committee and

Dmitry Ustinov Dmitriy Fyodorovich Ustinov (; 30 October 1908 – 20 December 1984) was a Soviet politician and a Marshal of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. He served as a Central Committee secretary in charge of the Soviet military–industrial comple ...

, the

Minister of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divid ...

. In late April 1979, the committee reported that Amin was purging his opponents, including Soviet loyalists, that his loyalty to Moscow was in question and that he was seeking diplomatic links with Pakistan and possibly the People's Republic of China (which at the time had poor relations with the Soviet Union). Of specific concern were Amin's supposed meetings with the U.S. chargé d'affaires, J. Bruce Amstutz, which were used as a justification for the invasion by the

Kremlin The Moscow Kremlin (also the Kremlin) is a fortified complex in Moscow, Russia. Located in the centre of the country's capital city, the Moscow Kremlin (fortification), Kremlin comprises five palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Mosco ...

Information forged by the KGB from its agents in Kabul provided the last arguments to eliminate Amin. Supposedly, two of Amin's guards killed the former General Secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki with a pillow, and Amin himself was portrayed as a CIA agent. The latter is widely discredited, with Amin repeatedly demonstrating friendliness toward the various delegates of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and maintaining the pro-Soviet line.: "Frustrated and hoping to discredit him, the KGB initially planted false stories that Amin was a CIA agent. In the autumn these rumors rebounded on the KGB in a strange case of " blowback," the term used by spies to describe planted propaganda that filters back to confuse the country that first set the story loose." Soviet General Vasily Zaplatin, a political advisor of

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of govern ...

Brezhnev at the time, claimed that four of General Secretary Taraki's ministers were responsible for the destabilization. However, Zaplatin failed to emphasize this in discussions and was not heard. During meetings between General Secretary Taraki and Soviet leaders in March 1979, the Soviets promised political support and to send military equipment and technical specialists, but upon repeated requests by Taraki for direct Soviet intervention, the leadership adamantly opposed him; reasons included that they would be met with "bitter resentment" from the Afghan people, that intervening in another country's civil war would hand a propaganda victory to their opponents, and Afghanistan's overall inconsequential weight in international affairs, in essence realizing they had little to gain by taking over a country with a poor economy, unstable government, and population hostile to outsiders. However, as the situation continued to deteriorate from May–December 1979, Moscow changed its mind on dispatching Soviet troops. The reasons for this complete turnabout are not entirely clear, and several speculative arguments include: the grave internal situation and inability for the Afghan government to retain power much longer; the effects of the

Iranian Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Impe ...

that brought an Islamic theocracy into power, leading to fears that religious fanaticism would spread through Afghanistan and into Soviet Muslim Central Asian republics; Taraki's murder and replacement by Amin, who the Soviet leadership believed had secret contacts within the American embassy in Kabul and "was capable of reaching an agreement with the

"; however, allegations of Amin colluding with the Americans have been widely discredited and it was revealed in the 1990s that the

actually planted the story; and the deteriorating ties with the United States after NATO's two-track missile deployment decision in response to Soviet nuclear presence in Eastern Europe and the failure of Congress to ratify the

SALT II The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of ...

treaty, creating the impression that

détente ''Détente'' ( , ; for, fr, , relaxation, paren=left, ) is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsucces ...

was "already effectively dead." The British journalist Patrick Brogan wrote in 1989: "The simplest explanation is probably the best. They got sucked into Afghanistan much as the United States got sucked into Vietnam, without clearly thinking through the consequences, and wildly underestimating the hostility they would arouse". By the fall of 1979, the Amin regime was collapsing with morale in the Afghan Army having fallen to rock-bottom levels, while the mujahideen had taken control of much of the countryside. The general consensus amongst Afghan experts at the time was that it was not a question of if, but when the mujahideen would take Kabul. In October 1979, a KGB Spetsnaz force ''Zenith'' covertly dispatched a group of specialists to determine the potential reaction from local Afghans to a presence of Soviet troops there. They concluded that deploying troops would be unwise and could lead to war, but this was reportedly ignored by the KGB chairman

. A Spetsnaz battalion of Central Asian troops, dressed in Afghan Army uniforms, was covertly deployed to Kabul between 9 and 12 November 1979. They moved a few days later to the Tajbeg Palace, where Amin was moving to. In Moscow,

was indecisive and waffled as he usually did when faced with a difficult decision. The three decision-makers in Moscow who pressed the hardest for an invasion in the fall of 1979 were the troika consisting of Foreign Minister

; the Chairman of KGB,

, and the Defense Minister Marshal

. The principal reasons for the invasion were the belief in Moscow that Amin was a leader both incompetent and fanatical who had lost control of the situation, together with the belief that it was the United States via Pakistan who was sponsoring the Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan. Andropov, Gromyko and Ustinov all argued that if a radical Islamist regime came to power in Kabul, it would attempt to sponsor radical Islam in Soviet Central Asia, thereby requiring a preemptive strike. What was envisioned in the fall of 1979 was a short intervention under which Moscow would replace radical Khalqi Communist Amin with the moderate Parchami Communist

to stabilize the situation. Contrary to the contemporary view of Brzezinski and the regional powers, access to the Persian Gulf played no role in the decision to intervene on the Soviet side. The concerns raised by the Chief of the Soviet Army General Staff, Marshal

Nikolai Ogarkov Nikolai Vasilyevich Ogarkov (; 30 October 1917 – 23 January 1994) was a prominent Soviet military personality. He was promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1977. Between 1977 and 1984, he was Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Union, ...

who warned about the possibility of a protracted guerrilla war, were dismissed by the troika who insisted that any occupation of Afghanistan would be short and relatively painless. Most notably, though the diplomats of the

Narkomindel The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics () was founded on 6 July 1923. It had three names during its existence: People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (1923–1946), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1946–1991) ...

at the Embassy in Kabul and the KGB officers stationed in Afghanistan were well informed about the developments in that country, such information rarely filtered through to the decision-makers in Moscow who viewed Afghanistan more in the context of the Cold War rather than understanding Afghanistan as a subject in its own right. The viewpoint that it was the United States that was fomenting the Islamic insurgency in Afghanistan with the aim of destabilizing Soviet-dominated Central Asia tended to downplay the effects of an unpopular Communist government pursuing policies that the majority of Afghans violently disliked as a generator of the insurgency and strengthened those who argued some sort of Soviet response was required to a supposed "outrageous American provocation." It was assumed in Moscow that because Pakistan (an ally of both the United States and China) was supporting the ''mujahideen'' that therefore it was ultimately the United States and China who were behind the rebellion in Afghanistan. Amin's revolutionary government had lost credibility with virtually all of the Afghan population. A combination of chaotic administration, excessive brutality from the secret police, unpopular domestic reforms, and a deteriorating economy, along with public perceptions that the state was atheistic and anti-Islamic, all added to the government's unpopularity. After 20 months of Khalqist rule, the country deteriorated in almost every facet of life. The Soviet Union believed that without intervention, Amin's government would have been disintegrated by the resistance and the country would have been "lost" to a regime most likely hostile to the USSR.

Soviet invasion and palace coup

On 31 October 1979, Soviet informants under orders from the inner circle of advisors around

Soviet General Secretary The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. was the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the country's dissolution in 1991, the officeholder was the recognize ...

relayed information to the

for them to undergo maintenance cycles for their tanks and other crucial equipment. Meanwhile, telecommunications links to areas outside of Kabul were severed, isolating the capital. The Soviet 40th Army launched its initial incursion into Afghanistan on 25 December under the pretext of extending "international aid" to its puppet

. On 25 December, Soviet Defence Minister

issued an official order, stating that " e state frontier of the

is to be crossed on the ground and in the air by forces of the 40th Army and the Air Force at 15:00 hrs on 25 December". This was the formal beginning of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Subsequently, on 27 December, Soviet troops arrived at Kabul International Airport, causing a stir among the city's residents. Simultaneously, Amin moved the offices of the General Secretary to the Tajbeg Palace, believing this location to be more secure from possible threats. According to Colonel General Tukharinov and Merimsky, Amin was fully informed of the military movements, having requested Soviet military assistance to northern Afghanistan on 17 December. His brother and General Dmitry Chiangov met with the commander of the 40th Army before Soviet troops entered the country, to work out initial routes and locations for Soviet troops. BMD-1 in Afghanistan

On 27 December 1979, 700 Soviet troops dressed in Afghan uniforms, including

and

GRU Gru is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Despicable Me'' film series. Gru or GRU may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Gru (rapper), Serbian rapper * Gru, an antagonist in '' The Kine Saga'' Organizations Georgia (c ...

special forces Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...

officers from the '' Alpha Group'' and ''Zenith Group'', occupied major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul, including their primary target, the Tajbeg Palace. The operation began at 19:00, when the KGB-led Soviet ''Zenith Group'' destroyed Kabul's communications hub, paralyzing Afghan military command. At 19:15, Operation Storm-333, the assault on Tajbeg Palace began; as planned, General Secretary Hafizullah Amin was assassinated. Simultaneously, other key buildings were occupied (e.g., the Ministry of Interior Affairs at 19:15). The operation was fully complete by the morning of 28 December 1979. The Soviet military command at Termez,

, announced on Radio Kabul that Afghanistan had been "liberated" from Amin's rule. According to the Soviet Politburo, they were complying with the 1978 ''Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighborliness'', and Amin had been "executed by a tribunal for his crimes" by the Afghan Revolutionary Central Committee. That committee then installed former Deputy Prime Minister

as head of government, who had been demoted to the relatively insignificant post of ambassador to Czechoslovakia following the Khalq takeover and announced that it had requested Soviet military assistance. Soviet ground forces, under the command of Marshal Sergey Sokolov, entered Afghanistan from the north on 27 December. In the morning, the 103rd Guards 'Vitebsk' Airborne Division landed at the airport at Bagram and the deployment of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was underway. The force that entered Afghanistan, in addition to the 103rd Guards Airborne Division, was under command of the 40th Army and consisted of the 108th and 5th Guards Motor Rifle Divisions, the 860th Separate Motor Rifle Regiment, the 56th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade, and the 36th Mixed Air Corps. Later on, the 201st and 68th Motor Rifle Divisions also entered the country, along with other smaller units. In all, the initial Soviet force was around 1,800

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...

s, 80,000 soldiers and 2,000 AFVs. In the second week alone, Soviet aircraft had made a total of 4,000 flights into Kabul. With the arrival of the two later divisions, the total Soviet force rose to over 100,000 personnel. As part of Baikal-79, a larger operation aimed at taking 20 key strongholds in and around

, the Soviet 105th Airborne Division secured the city and disarmed Afghan Army units without facing opposition. On 1 January 1980, Soviet paratroopers ordered the 26th Airborne Regiment in Bala Hissar to disarm, only for them to refuse and fire upon the

Soviets The Soviet people () were the citizens and nationals of the Soviet Union. This demonym was presented in the ideology of the country as the "new historical unity of peoples of different nationalities" (). Nationality policy in the Soviet Union ...

as a firefight ensued. The Soviet paratroopers annihilated most of the regiment, with 700 Afghan paratroopers being killed or captured. In the aftermath of the battle, 26th Airborne Regiment was disbanded and later reorganized into the 37th Commando Brigade, led by Col. Shahnawaz Tanai, being the largest commando formation at a strength of three battalions. As a result of the battle with the 26th Airborne Regiment, the Soviet 357th Guards Airborne Regiment were permanently stationed in Bala Hissar fortress, meaning this new brigade was stationed as Rishkhor Garrison In the same year, the 81st Artillery Brigade was given airborne training and converted into the 38th Commando Brigade, stationed in Mahtab Qala (lit. Moonlit Fortress) garrison southwest of

under the command of Brig. Tawab Khan.

International positions on Soviet invasion

The Christmas-time invasion of a practically defenseless country was shocking for the international community, and caused a sense of alarm for its neighbor Pakistan. On 2 January 1980 President Carter withdrew the SALT-II treaty from consideration before the Senate, and on 3 January he recalled US Ambassador Thomas J. Watson from Moscow. On 9 January the

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

passed Resolution 462. Following the resolution, the Sixth emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly took place. Soviet military activities were met with strong criticism internationally, including some of its allies at the

UN General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 79th session, its powers, ...

(UNGA), but the Soviet machine scored a victory when, in the words of political scientist William Maley, "the General Assembly accepted the credentials of the delegation of the Soviet-installed puppet regime in Kabul which duly voted against the resolution." The UNGA passed a resolution on 15 January by a vote of 104–18 protesting the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. On 29 January foreign ministers from 34 Muslim-majority countries adopted at the

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC; ; ), formerly the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, is an intergovernmental organisation founded in 1969. It consists of Member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, 57 member s ...

a resolution which condemned the Soviet intervention and demanded "the immediate, urgent and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops" from the Muslim nation of Afghanistan. According to political scientist

Gilles Kepel Gilles Kepel, (born June 30, 1955) is a French political scientist and Arabist, specialized in the contemporary Middle East and Muslims in the West. He was Professor at Sciences Po Paris, the Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) and direc ...

, the Soviet intervention or invasion was viewed with "horror" in the West, considered to be a fresh twist on the geo-political "

" of the 19th century in which Britain feared that Russia sought access to the Indian Ocean, and posed a threat to Western security, explicitly violating the world balance of power agreed upon at

Yalta Yalta (: ) is a resort town, resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea. It serves as the administrative center of Yalta Municipality, one of the regions within Crimea. Yalta, along with the rest of Crime ...

in 1945. The general feeling in the United States was that inaction against the Soviet Union could encourage Moscow to go further in its international ambitions. President Carter placed a trade embargo against the Soviet Union on shipments of commodities such as grain, while also leading a 66-nation

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...

of the

1980 Summer Olympics The 1980 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad () and officially branded as Moscow 1980 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1980 in Moscow, Soviet Union, in present-day Russ ...

in Moscow. Carter later suspended high-technology exports to the Soviet Union. The invasion, along with other concurrent events such as the

and the hostage stand-off that accompanied it showed the volatility of the wider region for U.S. foreign policy. This was identified on 4 January during President Carter's Address to the Nation: China condemned the Soviet coup and its military buildup, calling it a threat to Chinese security (both the Soviet Union and Afghanistan shared borders with China), that it marked the worst escalation of Soviet expansionism in over a decade, and that it was a warning to other Third World leaders with close relations to the Soviet Union. Vice Premier

Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping also Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Teng Hsiao-p'ing; born Xiansheng (). (22 August 190419 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's R ...

warmly praised the "heroic resistance" of the Afghan people. Beijing also stated that the lacklustre worldwide reaction against Vietnam (in the

Sino-Vietnamese War The Sino-Vietnamese War (also known by other names) was a brief conflict that occurred in early 1979 between China and Vietnam. China launched an offensive ostensibly in response to Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978, whi ...

earlier in 1979) encouraged the Soviets to feel free invading Afghanistan.

Ba'athist Syria Ba'athist Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR), was the Syrian state between 1963 and 2024 under the One-party state, one-party rule of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region, Syrian regional branch of the Ba'ath Party (Syri ...

, led by

Hafez al-Assad Hafez al-Assad (6 October 193010 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who was the president of Syria from 1971 until Death and state funeral of Hafez al-Assad, his death in 2000. He was previously the Prime Minister of Syria ...

, was one of the few states outside the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...

that publicly favoured the invasion. Soviet Union expanded its military support to the Syrian government in return. The

Soviet satellites (excluding Romania) publicly supported the intervention; however, a press account in June 1980 showed that

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

and Romania privately informed the Soviet Union that the invasion was a damaging mistake. In his 2009 book, Maley excoriated "the West", which "allowed the issues for these negotiations to be determined substantially by the USSR—a classic weakness of Western negotiating style. On 14 May 1980, the Kabul regime issued at Moscow's behest a statement directed at Iran and Pakistan, outlining a program for a 'political solution' to the 'tension that has come about in this region'. Its program was to be precisely mirrored in the agenda of the subsequent negotiations conducted under UN auspices, which dealt with the withdrawal of the foreign troops, non-interference in the internal affairs of states, international guarantees, and the voluntary return of the refugees to their homes. This was a notable victory for the Soviet Union: the issue of self-determination for the Afghan people, also mentioned by the General Assembly, of course did not figure in Kabul's program, and its exclusion effectively subordinated the General Assembly's conditions for an acceptable settlement to those specified by the Soviet leadership."

Military aid

Weapons supplies were made available through numerous countries. Before the Soviet intervention, the insurgents received support from the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and Kuwait, albeit on a limited scale. After the intervention, aid was substantially increased. The US clandestinely purchased all of Israel's captured Soviet weapons, and then funnelled the weapons to the Mujahideen, while Egypt upgraded its army's weapons and sent the older weapons to the militants. Turkey sold their

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

stockpiles to the warlords, and the British and Swiss provided Blowpipe missiles and Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns respectively, after they were found to be poor models for their own forces.Kinsella, Warren. "Unholy Alliances", Lester Publishing, 1992 China provided the most relevant weapons, likely due to their own experience with

guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrori ...

, and kept meticulous record of all the shipments. The US, Saudi and Chinese aid combined totaled between $6 billion and $12 billion.

State of the Cold War

In the wider

, drastic changes were taking place in Southwestern Asia concurrent with the 1978–1979 upheavals in Afghanistan that changed the nature of the two superpowers. In February 1979, the

ousted the American-backed

Shah Shāh (; ) is a royal title meaning "king" in the Persian language.Yarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII, no. 1 (1989) Though chiefly associated with the monarchs of Iran, it was also used to refer to the leaders of numerous Per ...

from Iran, losing the United States as one of its most powerful allies. The United States then deployed twenty ships in the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

and the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

including two aircraft carriers, and there were constant threats of war between the U.S. and Iran. American observers argued that the global balance of power had shifted to the Soviet Union following the emergence of several pro-Soviet regimes in the Third World in the latter half of the 1970s (such as in Nicaragua and Ethiopia), and the action in Afghanistan demonstrated the Soviet Union's expansionism. March 1979 marked the signing of the U.S.-backed peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The Soviet leadership saw the agreement as giving a major advantage to the United States. A Soviet newspaper stated that Egypt and Israel were now " gendarmes of

the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The building was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As ...

". The Soviets viewed the treaty not only as a peace agreement between their erstwhile allies in Egypt and the US-supported Israelis but also as a military pact. In addition, the US sold more than 5,000

missiles A missile is an airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight aided usually by a propellant, jet engine or rocket motor. Historically, 'missile' referred to any projectile that is thrown, shot or propelled towards a target; this u ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

, and the USSR's previously strong relations with

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

had recently soured, as in June 1978 it began entering into friendlier relations with the Western world and buying French and Italian-made weapons, though the vast majority still came from the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact satellites, and China. The Soviet invasion has also been analyzed with the model of the resource curse. The 1979

Islamic Revolution The Iranian Revolution (, ), also known as the 1979 Revolution, or the Islamic Revolution of 1979 (, ) was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. The revolution led to the replacement of the Im ...

in Iran saw a massive increase in the scarcity and price of oil, adding tens of billions of dollars to the Soviet economy, as it was the major source of revenue for the USSR that spent 40–60% of its entire federal budget (15% of the GDP) on the military. The oil boom may have overinflated national confidence, serving as a catalyst for the invasion. The Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Politburo was temporarily relieved of financial constraints and sought to fulfill a long-term geopolitical goal of seizing the lead in the region between Central Asia and the Gulf.

December 1979 – February 1980: Occupation and national unrest

The first phase of the war began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and first battles with various opposition groups. Soviet troops entered Afghanistan along two ground routes and one air corridor, quickly taking control of the major urban centers, military bases and strategic installations. However, the presence of Soviet troops did not have the desired effect of pacifying the country. On the contrary, it exacerbated Nationalism, nationalistic sentiment, causing the rebellion to spread further.

, Afghanistan's new leader, charged the Soviets with causing an increase in the unrest, and demanded that the 40th Army step in and quell the rebellion, as his own army had proved untrustworthy. Thus, Soviet troops found themselves drawn into fighting against urban uprisings, tribal armies (called ''lashkar''), and sometimes against mutinying Afghan Army units. These forces mostly fought in the open, and Soviet airpower and artillery made short work of them. The Soviet occupation provoked a great deal of fear and unrest amongst a wide spectrum of the Afghan populace. The Soviets held the view that their presence would be accepted after having rid Afghanistan of the "tyrannical" Khalq regime, but this was not to be. In the first week of January 1980, attacks against Soviet soldiers in Kabul became common, with roaming soldiers often assassinated in the city in broad daylight by civilians. In the summer of that year, numerous members of the ruling party would be assassinated in individual attacks. The Soviet Army quit patrolling Kabul in January 1981 after their losses due to terrorism, handing the responsibility over to the Afghan army. Tensions in Kabul peaked during the 3 Hoot uprising on 22 February 1980, when the Soviet soldiers murdered hundreds of protesters. The city uprising took a dangerous turn once again during the 1980 student protests in Kabul, student demonstrations of April and May 1980, in which scores of students were killed by soldiers and PDPA sympathizers. The opposition to the Soviet presence was great nationally, crossing regional, ethnic, and linguistic lines. Never before in Afghan history had this many people been united in opposition against an invading foreign power. In Kandahar a few days after the invasion, civilians rose up against Soviet soldiers, killing a number of them, causing the soldiers to withdraw to their garrison. In this city, 130 Khalqists were murdered between January and February 1980. According to the Mitrokhin Archive, the Soviet Union deployed numerous active measures at the beginning of the intervention, spreading disinformation relating to both diplomatic status and military intelligence. These efforts focused on most countries bordering Afghanistan, on several international powers, the Soviet's main adversary, the United States, and neutral countries. The disinformation was deployed primarily by "leaking" forged documents, distributing leaflets, publishing nominally independent articles in Soviet-aligned press, and conveying reports to embassies through KGB residencies. Among the active measures pursued in 1980–1982 were both pro- and anti-separatist documents disseminated in Pakistan, a forged letter implying a Pakistani-Iranian alliance, alleged reports of U.S. bases on the Iranian border, information regarding Pakistan's military intentions filtered through the List of diplomatic missions of Pakistan, Pakistan embassy in Bangkok to the Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Carter Administration, and various disinformation about armed interference by India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, Jordan, Italy, and France, among others.

Soviet occupation, 1980–1985

Soviet military operations against Afghan guerrillas

The war now developed into a new pattern: the Soviets occupied the cities and main axis of communication, while the

, which the Soviet Army soldiers called 'Dushman,' meaning 'enemy',Schofield, The Russian Elite divided into small groups and waged a guerrilla war in the mountains. Almost 80 percent of the country was outside government control. Soviet troops were deployed in strategic areas in the northeast, especially along the road from Termez to Kabul. In the west, a strong Soviet presence was maintained to counter Iranian influence. Incidentally, special Soviet units would have also performed secret attacks on Iranian territory to destroy suspected Mujahideen bases, and their helicopters then got engaged in shootings with Iranian jets. Conversely, some regions such as Nuristan, in the northeast, and Hazarajat, in the central mountains of Afghanistan, were virtually untouched by the fighting, and lived in almost complete independence. Bashgal, in Nuristan, was additionally a Salafi quasi-state known as the Islamic Revolutionary State of Afghanistan. Parts of Kunar Province, Kunar, Laghman Province, Laghman and Nangarhar Province, Nangarhar were also incorporated into the short-lived Islamic Emirate of Kunar after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Periodically the Soviet Army undertook multi-division (military), divisional offensives into Mujahideen-controlled areas. Between 1980 and 1985, nine Panjshir offensives, offensives were launched into the strategically important Panjshir Valley, but government control in the area did not improve. Heavy fighting also occurred in the provinces neighbouring Pakistan, where cities and government outposts were constantly besieged by the Mujahideen. Massive Soviet operations would regularly break these sieges, but the Mujahideen would return as soon as the Soviets left. In the west and south, fighting was more sporadic, except in the cities of

and Kandahar, which were always partly controlled by the resistance. The Soviets did not initially foresee taking on such an active role in fighting the rebels and attempted to play down their role there as giving light assistance to the Afghan army. However, the arrival of the Soviets had the opposite effect as it incensed instead of pacified the people, causing the Mujahideen to gain in strength and numbers. Originally the Soviets thought that their forces would strengthen the backbone of the Afghan army and provide assistance by securing major cities, lines of communication and transportation. The Afghan army forces had a high desertion rate and were loath to fight, especially since the Soviet forces pushed them into infantry roles while they manned the armored vehicles and artillery. The main reason that the Afghan soldiers were so ineffective, though, was their lack of morale, as many of them were not truly loyal to the communist government but simply wanting a paycheck. Once it became apparent that the Soviets would have to get their hands dirty, they followed three main strategies aimed at quelling the uprising. Intimidation was the first strategy, in which the Soviets would use airborne attacks and armored ground attacks to destroy villages, livestock and crops in trouble areas. The Soviets would bomb villages that were near sites of guerrilla attacks on Soviet convoys or known to support resistance groups. Local peoples were forced to either flee their homes or die as daily Soviet attacks made it impossible to live in these areas. By forcing the people of Afghanistan to flee their homes, the Soviets hoped to deprive the guerrillas of resources and safe havens. The second strategy consisted of subversion, which entailed sending spies to join resistance groups and report information, as well as bribing local tribes or guerrilla leaders into ceasing operations. Finally, the Soviets used military forays into contested territories in an effort to root out the guerrillas and limit their options. Classic search and destroy operations were implemented using Mil Mi-24 helicopter gunships that would provide cover for ground forces in armored vehicles. Once the villages were occupied by Soviet forces, inhabitants who remained were frequently interrogated and tortured for information or killed.Report from Afghanistan
Claude Malhuret To complement their brute force approach to weeding out the insurgency, the Soviets used KHAD (Afghan secret police) to gather intelligence, infiltrate the Mujahideen, spread false information, bribe tribal militias into fighting and organize a government militia. While it is impossible to know exactly how successful KHAD was in infiltrating Mujahideen groups, it is thought that they succeeded in penetrating a good many resistance groups based in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. KHAD is thought to have had particular success in igniting internal rivalries and political divisions amongst the resistance groups, rendering some of them completely useless because of infighting. KHAD had some success in securing tribal loyalties but many of these relationships were fickle and temporary. Often KHAD secured neutrality agreements rather than committed political alignment. The Sarandoy were a centrally-commanded government paramilitary group placed under the control of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, before being placed under the control of the unified Ministry of State Security (KHAD, WAD) in 1986. They had mixed success in the war, as Osama bin Laden and the Mujahideen, Arab mujahideen fought the Sarandoy's 7th Operative Regiment, only to fail and sustain massive casualties. The label “Sarandoy” additionally included traffic police, provincial officers and corrections/labor facility officers. Large salaries and proper weapons attracted a good number of recruits to the cause, even if they were not necessarily "pro-communist". The problem was that many of the recruits they attracted were in fact Mujahideen who would join up to procure arms, ammunition and money while also gathering information about forthcoming military operations. By the end of 1981, there were reports of Bulgarian Armed Forces present in Mazar-i-Sharif, the

and the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces all operating in

. A fighter of the Mujahideen, describing the Cubans in combat, said they were "big and black and shout very loudly when they fight. Unlike the Russians they were not afraid to attack us in the open". In 1985, the size of the LCOSF (Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces) was increased to 108,800 and fighting increased throughout the country, making 1985 the bloodiest year of the war. However, despite suffering heavily, the Mujahideen were able to remain in the field, mostly because they received thousands of new volunteers daily, and continued resisting the Soviets

Reforms of the Karmal administration

, after the invasion, promised reforms to win support from the population alienated by his ousted predecessors. A temporary constitution, the Fundamental Principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, was adopted in April 1980. On paper, it was a Democracy, democratic constitution including "right of free expression" and disallowing "torture, persecution, and punishment, contrary to human dignity". Karmal's government was formed of his fellow Parchamites along with (pro-Taraki) Khalqists, and a number of known non-communists/leftists in various ministries. Karmal called his regime "a new evolutionary phase of the glorious April Revolution", but he failed at uniting the PDPA. In the eyes of many Afghans, he was still seen as a "puppet" of the Soviet Union.

Mujahideen insurrection

In the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance movement, assisted by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, the People's Republic of China and others, contributed to Moscow's high military costs and strained international relations. The U.S. viewed the conflict in Afghanistan as an integral Cold War struggle, and the CIA provided assistance to anti-Soviet forces through the Pakistani intelligence services, in a program called

. Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, North-West Frontier Province became a base for the Afghan resistance fighters and the Deobandi ulama of that province played a significant role in the Afghan 'jihad', with Darul Uloom Haqqania becoming a prominent organisational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan fighters. As well as money, Muslim countries provided thousands of volunteer fighters known as " Afghan Arabs", who wished to wage

against the Atheism, atheist communists. Notable among them was a young Saudi named Osama bin Laden, whose Arab group eventually evolved into al-Qaeda. Despite their numbers,Rashid, Ahmed, ''Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia'' (New Haven, 2000), p. 129. the contribution has been called a "curious sideshow to the real fighting," with only an estimated 2000 of them fighting "at any one time", compared with about 250,000 Afghan fighters and 125,000 Soviet troops. Their efforts were also sometimes counterproductive, as in the March 1989 Battle of Jalalabad (1989), battle for Jalalabad, when they showed the enemy the fate awaiting infidels in the form of a truck filled with dismembered bodies of their comrades chopped to pieces after surrendering to radical non-Afghan salafists. Though demoralized by the abandonment of them by the Soviets, the Afghan Communist government forces rallied to break the siege of Jalalabad and to win the first major government victory in years. "This success reversed the government's demoralization from the withdrawal of Soviet forces, renewed its determination to fight on, and allowed it to survive three more years." Maoist guerrilla groups were also active, to a lesser extent compared to the religious Mujahideen. A notable Maoist group was the Liberation Organization of the People of Afghanistan (SAMA), whose founder and leader Abdul Majid Kalakani was reportedly arrested in 1980. Afghanistan insurgency 1985

Afghanistan's resistance movement was born in chaos, spread and triumphed chaotically, and did not find a way to govern differently. Virtually all of its war was waged locally by regional warlords. As warfare became more sophisticated, outside support and regional coordination grew. Even so, the basic units of Mujahideen organization and action continued to reflect the highly segmented nature of Afghan society.The Path to Victory and Chaos: 1979–92 – Library of Congress country studies
Retrieved Thursday 31, 2007) Olivier Roy (professor), Olivier Roy estimates that after four years of war, there were at least 4,000 bases from which Mujahideen units operated. Most of these were affiliated with the seven expatriate parties headquartered in Pakistan, which served as sources of supply and varying degrees of supervision. Significant commanders typically led 300 or more men, controlled several bases and dominated a district or a sub-division of a province. Hierarchies of organization above the bases were attempted. Their operations varied greatly in scope, the most ambitious being achieved by

of the Panjshir valley north of

. He led at least 10,000 trained troopers at the end of the Soviet war and had expanded his political control of Tajiks, Tajik-dominated areas to Afghanistan's northeastern provinces under the Supervisory Council of the North. August 1985 Muja

Roy also describes regional, ethnic and sectarian variations in Mujahideen organization. In the Pashtun people, Pashtun areas of the east, south and southwest, tribal structure, with its many rival sub-divisions, provided the basis for military organization and leadership. Mobilization could be readily linked to traditional fighting allegiances of the tribal ''lashkar'' (fighting force). In favorable circumstances such formations could quickly reach more than 10,000, as happened when large Soviet assaults were launched in the eastern provinces, or when the Mujahideen besieged towns, such as Khost in Paktia province in July 1983. But in campaigns of the latter type the traditional explosions of manpower—customarily common immediately after the completion of harvest—proved obsolete when confronted by well dug-in defenders with modern weapons. Lashkar durability was notoriously short; few sieges succeeded. Mujahideen mobilization in non-Pashtun regions faced very different obstacles. Prior to the intervention, few non-Pashtuns possessed firearms. Early in the war they were most readily available from army troops or gendarmerie who defected or were ambushed. The international arms market and foreign military support tended to reach the minority areas last. In the northern regions, little military tradition had survived upon which to build an armed resistance. Mobilization mostly came from political leadership closely tied to Islam. Roy contrasts the social leadership of religious figures in the Persian language, Persian- and Turkic languages, Turkic-speaking regions of Afghanistan with that of the Pashtuns. Lacking a strong political representation in a state dominated by Pashtuns, minority communities commonly looked to pious learned or charismatically revered ''pir (Sufism), pirs'' (saints) for leadership. Extensive Sufi and maraboutic networks were spread through the minority communities, readily available as foundations for leadership, organization, communication and indoctrination. These networks also provided for political mobilization, which led to some of the most effective of the resistance operations during the war. The Mujahideen favoured sabotage operations. The more common types of sabotage included damaging electric power transmission, power lines, knocking out Pipeline transport, pipelines and radio stations, blowing up government office buildings, air terminals, hotels, cinemas, and so on. In the border region with Pakistan, the Mujahideen would often launch 800 rockets per day. Between April 1985 and January 1987, they carried out over 23,500 shell (projectile), shelling attacks on government targets. The Mujahideen surveyed firing positions that they normally located near villages within the range of Soviet artillery posts, putting the villagers in danger of death from Soviet retaliation. The Mujahideen used land mines heavily. Often, they would enlist the services of the local inhabitants, even children. They concentrated on both civilian and military targets, knocking out bridges, closing major roads, attacking convoys, disrupting the electric power system and industrial production, and attacking police stations and Soviet military installations and air bases. They assassinated government officials and PDPA members, and laid siege to small rural outposts. In March 1982, a bomb exploded at the Ministry (government department), Ministry of Education, damaging several buildings. In the same month, a widespread power failure darkened Kabul when a pylon on the transmission line from the Naghlu power station was blown up. In June 1982 a column of about 1,000 young communist party members sent out to work in the Panjshir valley were ambushed within 30 km of Kabul, with heavy loss of life. On 4 September 1985, insurgents shot down a domestic Bakhtar Airlines plane as it took off from Kandahar airport, killing all 52 people aboard. Mujahideen groups used for assassination had three to five men in each. After they received their mission to kill certain government officials, they busied themselves with studying his pattern of life and its details and then selecting the method of fulfilling their established mission. They practiced shooting at automobiles, Drive-by, shooting out of automobiles, laying mines in government accommodation or houses, using poison, and rigging explosive charges in transport. In May 1985, the seven principal rebel organizations formed the Seven Party Mujahideen Alliance to coordinate their military operations against the Soviet Army. Late in 1985, the groups were active in and around Kabul, unleashing rocket attacks and conducting operations against the communist government.

Raids inside Soviet territory

In an effort to foment unrest and rebellion by the Islamic populations of the Soviet Union, starting in late 1984 Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Director of CIA William Casey encouraged Mujahideen militants to mount sabotage raids inside the Soviet Union, according to

, Casey's executive assistant and Mohammed Yousef, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI brigadier general who was the chief for Afghan operations. The rebels began cross-border raids into the Soviet Union in spring 1985. In April 1987, three separate teams of Afghan rebels were directed by the ISI to launch coordinated raids on multiple targets across the Soviet border and extending, in the case of an attack on an Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, Uzbek factory, as deep as over into Soviet territory. In response, the Soviets issued a thinly-veiled threat to invade Pakistan to stop the cross-border attacks, and no further attacks were reported.

Media reaction

International journalistic perception of the war varied. Major American television journalists were sympathetic to the Mujahideen. Most visible was CBS News correspondent Dan Rather, who in 1982 accused the Soviet Union of genocide, comparing them to Hitler. Rather was Embedded journalism, embedded with the Mujahideen for a ''60 Minutes'' report. In 1987, CBS produced a full documentary special on the war. ''Reader's Digest'' took a highly positive view of the Mujahideen, a reversal of their usual view of Islamic fighters. The publication praised their martyrdom and their role in entrapping the Soviets in a Vietnam War-style disaster. Leftist journalist Alexander Cockburn was unsympathetic, criticizing Afghanistan as "an unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers, who have furnished in their leisure hours some of the worst arts and crafts ever to penetrate the occidental world. I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it's Afghanistan." Robert D. Kaplan on the other hand, thought any perception of Mujahideen as "barbaric" was unfair: "Documented accounts of mujahidin savagery were relatively rare and involved enemy troops only. Their cruelty toward civilians was unheard of during the war, while Soviet cruelty toward civilians was common." Lack of interest in the Mujahideen cause, Kaplan believed, was not the lack of intrinsic interest to be found in a war between a small, poor country and a superpower where a million civilians were killed, but the result of the great difficulty and unprofitability of media coverage. Kaplan noted that "none of the American TV networks had a bureau for a war", and television cameramen venturing to follow the Mujahideen "trekked for weeks on little food, only to return ill and half starved". In October 1984, the Soviet ambassador to Pakistan, Vitaly Smirnov, told Agence France Presse "that journalists traveling with the mujahidin 'will be killed. And our units in Afghanistan will help the Afghan forces to do it. Unlike Vietnam and Lebanon, Afghanistan had "absolutely no clash between the strange and the familiar", no "rock-video quality" of "zonked-out GIs in headbands" or "rifle-wielding Shiite terrorists wearing Michael Jackson T-shirts" that provided interesting "visual materials" for newscasts.

Soviet exit and change of Afghan leadership, 1985–1989

Foreign diplomatic efforts

As early as 1983, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry of Pakistan, Foreign Ministry began working with the Soviet Union to provide them an exit from

, initiatives led by Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Foreign Minister Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, Yaqub Ali Khan and Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, Khurshid Kasuri. Despite an active support for Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen, insurgent groups, Pakistanis remained sympathetic to the challenges faced by the Soviets in restoring the peace, eventually exploring the possibility of setting up an interim system of government under former King of Afghanistan, monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah, Zahir Shah, but this was not authorized by President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Zia-ul-Haq due to his stance on the issue of the

. In 1984–85, Foreign Minister Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, Yaqub Ali Khan paid state visits to China,

, Soviet Union, France, United States and the United Kingdom in order to develop a framework. On 20 July 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country was announced.

April 1985 – January 1987: Exit strategy

The first step of the Soviet Union's exit strategy was to transfer the burden of fighting the Mujahideen to the Afghan armed forces, with the aim of preparing them to operate without Soviet help. During this phase, the Soviet contingent was restricted to supporting the DRA forces by providing artillery, air support and technical assistance, though some large-scale operations were still carried out by Soviet troops. Under Soviet guidance, the DRA armed forces were built up to an official strength of 302,000 in 1986. To minimize the risk of a coup d'état, they were divided into different branches, each modeled on its Soviet counterpart. The ministry of defence forces numbered 132,000, the ministry of interior 70,000 and the ministry of state security (KHAD) 80,000. However, these were theoretical figures: in reality each service was plagued with desertions, the army alone suffering over 10% annual losses, or 32,000 per year. The decision to engage primarily Afghan forces was taken by the Soviets, but was resented by the PDPA, who viewed the departure of their protectors without enthusiasm. In May 1987 a DRA force Battle of Arghandab (1987), attacked well-entrenched Mujahideen positions in the Arghandab District, but the Mujahideen managed to hold their ground, and the attackers suffered heavy casualties.Urban, ''War in Afghanistan'', p. 227 Meanwhile, the Mujahideen benefited from expanded foreign military support from the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other Muslim-majority countries. Two The Heritage Foundation, Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts, Michael Johns and James A. Phillips, championed

as the Afghan resistance leader most worthy of US support under the Reagan Doctrine.

May 1986–1988: Najibullah and his reforms

The government of President Karmal, a puppet state, was largely ineffective. It was weakened by divisions within the PDPA and the Parcham faction, and the regime's efforts to expand its base of support proved futile. Moscow came to regard Karmal as a failure and blamed him for the problems. Years later, when Karmal's inability to consolidate his government had become obvious, Mikhail Gorbachev, then General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, said, "The main reason that there has been no national consolidation so far is that Comrade Karmal is hoping to continue sitting in Kabul with our help." Karmal's consolidation plan only involved those who had not raised arms against the regime, and even demanded Soviet troops to seal the border with Pakistan before any negotiations with Mujahideen. Eventually, the Soviet Union decided to dispose of Karmal from the leadership of Afghanistan. RIAN archive 644461 First stage in the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

RIAN archive 644461 First stage in the Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

In May 1986, Mohammad Najibullah, former chief of the Afghan secret police (KHAD), was elected General Secretary and later as President of the Revolutionary Council. The relatively young new leader wasn't known that well to the Afghan population at the time, but he made swift reforms to change the country's situation and win support as devised by experts of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. An eloquent speaker in both the Pashto and Dari languages, Najibullah engaged with elders and presented both himself and the state as Islamic, sometimes backing his speeches with excerpts from the Qur'an. A number of prisoners were released, while the night curfew in Kabul that had been in place since 1980 was finally lifted. He also moved against pro-Karmal Parchamites, who were expelled from the Revolutionary Council and the Politburo. President Najibullah launched the "National Reconciliation (Afghanistan), National Reconciliation" program at the start of 1987, the goal of which was to unite the nation and end the war that had enveloped the nation for seven years. He expressed willingness to negotiate with the Mujahideen resistance, allow parties other than the PDPA to be active, and indicated that exiled King Zahir Shah could be part of the process. A six-month ceasefire also began in December 1986. His administration was also more open to foreign visitors outside the Soviet bloc. In November 1987, Najibullah convened a ''loya jirga'' selected by the authorities which successfully passed a new constitution for Afghanistan, creating a presidential system with an elective bicameral parliament. The constitution declared "the sacred religion of Islam" the official religion, guaranteed the democratic rights of the individual, made it legal to form "political parties", and promoted equality between the various tribes and nationalities. Despite high expectations, the new policy only had limited impact in regaining support from the population and the resistance, partly because of the high distrust and unpopularity of the PDPA and KHAD, as well as Najibullah's loyalty to Moscow. As part of the new structure, national 1988 Afghan parliamentary election, parliamentary elections were held in 1988 to elect members of the new National Assembly, the first such elections in Afghanistan in 19 years.

Negotiations for a coalition

Ex-king Zahir Shah remained a popular figure to most Afghans. Diego Cordovez of the UN also recognized the king as a potential key to a political settlement to the war after the Soviet troops would leave. Polls in 1987 showed that he was a favored figure to lead a potential coalition between the DRA regime and Mujahideen factions, as well as an opposition to the unpopular but powerful guerrilla leader

, who was strongly against the King's return. Pakistan however was against this and refused to grant the ex-king a visa for potential negotiations with Mujahideen. Pakistan's President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Zia-ul-Haq and his supporters in the military were determined to put a conservative Islamic ally in power in Kabul. Negotiations continued and in 1988 through 1989, The Interim Afghan Government was formed in Peshawar, Pekhawar as an alliance of various Mujahadeen groups including Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin, Hezbi Islami and Jamiat-e Islami, Jamiat, and would be involved in Operation Arrow and the siege of Khost.

April 1988: The Geneva Accords

Following lengthy negotiations, the Geneva Accords (1988), Geneva Accords was signed in 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Supported by the Soviet Union and the United States respectively, the two Asian countries agreed to refrain from any form of interference in each other's territory. They also agreed to allow Afghan refugees in Pakistan to voluntarily return. The two superpowers agreed to halt their interference in Afghanistan, which included a Soviet withdrawal. The United Nations set up a special United Nations Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan, mission to oversee the process. In this way, President Najibullah had stabilized his political position enough to begin matching Moscow's moves toward withdrawal. Among other things the Geneva Accords identified the US and Soviet non-intervention in the internal affairs of Pakistan and Afghanistan and a timetable for full Soviet withdrawal. The agreement on withdrawal held, and on 15 February 1989, the last Soviet troops departed on schedule from Afghanistan.

January 1987 – February 1989: Withdrawal

The promotion of

to General Secretary in 1985 and his 'new thinking' on foreign and domestic policy was likely an important factor in the Soviets' decision to withdraw. Gorbachev had been attempting to remove the Soviet Union from the economic stagnation that had set in under the leadership of Brezhnev, and to reform the Soviet Union's economy and image with the Glasnost and Perestroika policies. Gorbachev had also been attempting to ease cold war tensions by signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the U.S. in 1987 and withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan, whose presence had garnered so much international condemnation. Beijing had stipulated that a normalization of relations would have to wait until Moscow withdrew its army from Afghanistan (among other things), and in 1989 the first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years took place. At the same time, Gorbachev pressured his Cuban allies in Angola to scale down activities and withdraw even though Soviet allies were faring somewhat better there. The Soviets also pulled many of their troops out of Mongolia in 1987, where they were also having a far easier time than in Afghanistan, and restrained the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea to the point of an all-out withdrawal in 1988. This massive withdrawal of Soviet forces from such highly contested areas shows that the Soviet government's decision to leave Afghanistan was based upon a general change in Soviet foreign policy – from one of confrontation to avoidance of conflict wherever possible. In the last phase, Soviet troops prepared and executed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, whilst limiting the launching of offensive operations by those who had not withdrawn yet. By mid-1987 the Soviet Union announced that it would start withdrawing its forces. Sibghatullah Mojaddedi was selected as the head of the Interim Islamic State of Afghanistan, in an attempt to reassert its legitimacy against the Moscow-sponsored Kabul regime. Mojaddedi, as head of the Interim Afghan Government, met with then-Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush, achieving a critical diplomatic victory for the Afghan resistance. Defeat of the Kabul government was their solution for peace. This confidence, sharpened by their distrust of the United Nations, virtually guaranteed their refusal to accept a political compromise. In September 1988, Soviet MiG-23 fighters shot down two Iranian Bell AH-1 SuperCobra, AH-1J Cobra helicopters which had intruded into Afghan airspace. Operation Magistral was one of the final offensive operations undertaken by the Soviets, a successful sweep operation that cleared the road between the towns of Gardez and Khost. This operation did not have any lasting effect on the outcome of the conflict nor on the soiled political and military status of the Soviets in the eyes of the West but was a symbolic gesture that marked the end of their widely condemned presence in the country with a victory. The first half of the Soviet contingent was withdrawn from 15 May to 16 August 1988, and the second from 15 November to 15 February 1989. In order to ensure a safe passage, the Soviets had negotiated ceasefires with local Mujahideen commanders. The withdrawal was generally executed peacefully except for the operation "Typhoon". RIAN archive 660671 Pullout of Soviet troops contingent from Afghanistan

RIAN archive 660671 Pullout of Soviet troops contingent from Afghanistan

General Yazov, the Minister of Defence (Soviet Union), Defense Minister of Soviet Union, ordered the 40th Army to violate the agreement with

, who commanded a large force in the Panjshir Valley, and attack his relaxed and exposed forces. The Soviet attack was initiated to protect Najibullah, who did not have a ceasefire in effect with Massoud, and who rightly feared an offensive by Massoud's forces after the Soviet withdrawal. General Gromov, the 40th Army Commander, objected to the operation, but reluctantly obeyed the order. "Typhoon" began on 23 January and continued for three days. To minimize their own losses, the Soviets abstained from close-range fighting. Instead, they used long-range artillery, surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles. Numerous civilian casualties were reported. Massoud had not threatened the withdrawal to this point and did not attack Soviet forces after they breached the agreement. Overall, the Soviet attack represented a defeat for Massoud's forces, who lost 600 fighters killed and wounded. After the withdrawal of the Soviets, the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, DRA forces were left fighting alone and had to abandon some provincial capitals, as well as disbanding their ANA Special Operations Command, air assault brigades a year prior. A year prior to the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan government established the Guards Corps, being renamed to the Special Guard (Gard-e Khas'''), Republican Guard, and later, the Afghan National Guard. This force included the 22nd and 44th Guard Regiment, as well as the 88th Heavy Artillery Regiment and the 1st Motorized Infantry Brigade. By 1988, the Afghan National Guard had approximately 14,000 officers and personnel organised into two divisions, three infantry brigades, an artillery battalion, a SCUD battalion, and various other units, all equipped with modern weapons and equipment. The force was headquartered at Bala Hissar, Kabul, Bala Hissar Fort. It was widely believed that they would not be able to resist the Mujahideen for long. However, in the spring of 1989, DRA forces inflicted a major defeat on the Mujahideen during the Battle of Jalalabad (1989), Battle of Jalalabad, as well launching successful assaults on fortified complexes in Paghman in 1990. The United States, having achieved its goal of forcing the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, gradually disengaged itself from the country.

Causes of withdrawal

Some of the causes of the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan leading to the Afghanistan regime's eventual defeat include * The Soviet Army of 1980 was trained and equipped for large scale, conventional warfare in Central Europe against a similar opponent, i.e., it used armored and motor-rifle formations. This was notably ineffective against small scale guerrilla groups using hit-and-run tactics in the rough terrain of Afghanistan. Also, the Soviet Army's large formations were not mobile enough to engage small groups of Mujahideen fighters that easily merged back into the terrain. The set strategy also meant that troops were discouraged from "tactical initiative", essential in counter insurgency, because it "tended to upset operational timing". * The Soviets used large-scale offensives against Mujahideen strongholds, such as in the Panjshir Valley, which temporarily cleared those sectors and killed many civilians in addition to enemy combatants. The biggest shortcoming here, though, was the fact that once the Soviets engaged the enemy with force, they failed to hold the ground, as they withdrew once their operation was completed. The killing of civilians further alienated the population from the Soviets, with bad long-term effects. * The Soviets did not have enough men to fight a counter-insurgency war (COIN), and their troops had low morale. The peak number of Soviet troops during the war was 115,000, but the bulk of these troops were conscripts, which led to poor combat performance in their Motor-Rifle Formations. However, the Soviets did have their elite infantry units, such as the famed Spetsnaz, the VDV, and their recon infantry. The problem with their elite units was not combat effectiveness, but that there were not enough of them and that they were employed incorrectly. * Intelligence gathering, essential for successful COIN, was inadequate. The Soviets overly relied on less-than-accurate aerial recon and radio intercepts rather than their recon infantry and special forces. Although their special forces and recon infantry units performed very well in combat against the Mujahideen, they would have better served in intelligence gathering. * The concept of a "war of national liberation" against a Soviet-sponsored "revolutionary" regime was so alien to the Soviet dogma that the leadership could not "come to grips" with it. This led to, among other things, a suppression by the Soviet media for several years of the truth about how bad the war was going, which caused a backlash when it was unable to hide it further.

Fall of Najibullah government, 1992

After the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the government of Mohammad Najibullah remained in power until 15 April 1992. Najibullah stepped down that day as Mujahideen guerrilla forces moved into Kabul. He attempted to fly to India under the protection of the U.N. but was blocked from leaving at the airport. He then took refuge at a United Nations compound in Kabul. After a bloody, four-year power struggle between different factions of the victorious anti-Najibullah forces, the Taliban took Kabul. They stormed the U.N. compound on September 26, 1996. They eventually tortured and killed Najibullah.

Aerial engagements

Aerial losses in Pakistan airspace

During the conflict, Pakistan Air Force F-16 had shot down ten aircraft, belonging to Soviet Union, which had intruded into Pakistani territory. However, the Soviet record only confirmed five kills (three Su-22s, one Su-25 and one An-26). Some sources show that PAF had shot down at least a dozen more aircraft during the war. However, those kills were not officially acknowledged because they took place in Afghanistan's airspace and acknowledging those kills would mean that Afghan airspace was violated by PAF. In all, Pakistan Air Force F-16s had downed several MiG-23s, Su-22s, a Su-25, and an An-24 while losing only one F-16.

Stinger missiles and the "Stinger effect"

Whether the introduction of the personal, portable, infrared-homing "FIM-92 Stinger, Stinger" surface-to-air missile in September 1986 was a turning point in the war is disputed. Many Western military analysts credit the Stinger with a kill ratio of about 70% and with responsibility for most of the over 350 Soviet or Afghan government aircraft and helicopters downed in the last two years of the war. Some military analysts considered it a "game changer" and coined the term "Stinger effect" to describe it. US Congress, Congressman Charlie Wilson (Texas politician), Charlie Wilson claimed that before the Stinger the Mujahideen never won a set piece battle with the Soviets, but after it was introduced, the Mujahideen never again lost one. However, these statistics are based on Mujahideen self-reporting, which is of unknown reliability. A Russian general claimed the United States "greatly exaggerated" Soviet and Afghan aircraft losses during the war. According to Soviet figures, in 1987–1988, only 35 aircraft and 63 helicopters were destroyed by all causes. The Pakistan Army fired twenty-eight Stingers at Soviet aircraft near the border without a single kill. Many Russian military analysts tend to be dismissive of the impact of the Stinger.

decided to withdraw from Afghanistan a year before the Mujahideen fired their first Stinger missiles; Gorbachev was motivated by U.S. sanctions, not military losses. The Stingers did make an impact at first but within a few months flares, beacons, and exhaust baffles were installed to disorient the missiles, while night operation and terrain-hugging tactics tended to prevent the rebels from getting a clear shot. By 1988 the Mujahideen had all but stopped firing them. Stingers also forced Soviet helicopters and ground attack planes to bomb from higher altitudes with less accuracy but did not bring down many more aircraft than Chinese heavy machine guns and other less sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry. Gorbachev stated in an interview in 2010 that the Stinger did not influence his decision-making process.

War crimes

The Soviet Union committed war crimes during the war to the point some have characterized their scale and systematicity as being a genocide of Afghans during the Soviet-Afghan War.

Foreign involvement

The

were backed primarily by

, the

, and the

making it a

. Out of the countries that supported the Mujahideen, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia offered the greatest financial support. However, private donors and religious charities throughout the

—particularly in the Persian Gulf—raised considerably more funds for the Afghan rebels than any foreign government; Jason Burke recounts that "as little as 25 per cent of the money for the Afghan jihad was actually supplied directly by states." Saudi Arabia was heavily involved in the war effort and matched the United States' contributions dollar-for-dollar in public funds. Saudi Arabia also gathered an enormous amount of money for the Afghan mujahideen in private donations that amounted to about $20 million per month at their peak. Other countries that supported the Mujahideen were Egypt and

on the other hand only supported the Shia Mujahideen, namely the Persian speaking Shiite Hazaras in a limited way. One of these groups was the Tehran Eight, a political union of Afghan Shi'a.Ruttig, T. ''Islamists, Leftists – and a Void in the Center. Afghanistan's Political Parties and where they come from (1902–2006)'

/ref> They were supplied predominantly by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but Iran's support for the Hazaras nevertheless frustrated efforts for a united Mujahideen front.

Spillover

Raids inside the Soviet Union

The Mujahideen launched multiple raids into the Soviet Union in an effort to foment unrest and rebellion by the Islamic populations of the Soviet Union, starting in late 1984 Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Director of CIA William Casey encouraged Mujahideen militants to mount sabotage raids inside the Soviet Union, according to

Aerial engagements with Pakistan

During the conflict, Soviet aircraft intruded into Pakistani airspace multiple times and Pakistan Air Force F-16 had shot down ten aircraft, belonging to Soviet Union, which had intruded into Pakistani territory. However, the Soviet record only confirmed five plane kills (three Su-22s, one Su-25 and one An-26) and 4 helicopter (Mi-8) kills. Some sources show that PAF had shot down at least a dozen more aircraft during the war. However, those kills were not officially acknowledged because they took place in Afghanistan's airspace and acknowledging those kills would mean that Afghan airspace was violated by PAF. In all, Pakistan Air Force F-16s had downed 3 Su-22,1 Su-25,2 Mig-23,2 An-26, and Several Mi-8 while 1 Mig-23 was damaged while losing only one F-16.

Terror campaign in Pakistan

The ''KhAD-KGB campaign in Pakistan'' was a joint campaign in which the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Afghan KHAD, KhAD’s foreign "Tenth Directorate" and the Soviet

targeted Pakistan using prostitution spy rings, terror attacks, hijackings, serial killings, assassinations and the dissemination of propaganda to dissuade

from supporting the Afghan Mujahideen.

Miram Shah incident

On 2 April 1986, the 38th commando brigade of

accidentally landed inside Pakistan territory during the Second Battle of Zhawar. The strike force, in the darkness of night, accidentally landed near Miram Shah in Pakistan instead of Zhawar. The force was surrounded and 120 soldiers were taken prisoner and 6 Mi-8 helicopters were captured.

Badaber uprising

In between 26 and 27 April 1985, in Badaber,

, an armed rebellion was instigated by Soviet Union, Soviet and Afghanistan, Afghan prisoners of war who were being held at the Badaber fortress near

. The prisoners fought the Afghan Mujahideen of the Jamiat-e Islami party and the Pakistani XI Corps (Pakistan), XI Corps supported by American CIA advisors in an attempt to escape but the rebellion was squashed and all POWs were killed.

Raid inside Iran

On 5 April 1982, Soviet forces accidentally infiltrated Iranian territory, in which Soviet forces strayed from the target of a Mujahideen base in southern

and accidentally destroyed an asphalt factory in

. Iranian security forces attacked this strike force by using tanks and aircraft destroying two Soviet Mi-8 helicopters and damaging many more.

Impact

Soviet personnel strengths and casualties

Between 25 December 1979, and 15 February 1989, a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000–104,000 serving at one time): 525,000 in the Army, 90,000 with border troops and other

sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations of Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union), MVD Internal Troops, and police forces. A further 21,000 personnel were with the Soviet troop contingent over the same period doing various white collar and blue-collar jobs. The total official fatalities of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier, and internal security troops came to 14,453. Other estimates give a figure of 26,000 killed Soviet soldiers. Soviet Army formations, units, and HQ elements lost 13,833, KGB sub-units lost 572, MVD formations lost 28, and other ministries and departments lost 20 men. During this period 312 servicemen were missing in action or taken prisoner; 119 were later freed, of whom 97 returned to the USSR and 22 went to other countries. Of the troops deployed, 53,753 were wounded, injured, or sustained concussion and 415,932 fell sick. A high proportion of casualties were those who fell ill. This was because of local climatic and sanitary conditions, which were such that acute infections spread rapidly among the troops. There were 115,308 cases of infectious hepatitis, 31,080 of typhoid fever, and 140,665 of other diseases. Of the 11,654 who were discharged from the army after being wounded, maimed, or contracting serious diseases, 10,751 men, were left disabled. Material losses were as follows:The Soviet-Afghan War: Breaking the Hammer & Sickle
by Lester W. Grau and Ali Ahmad Jalali, vfw.org * List of Soviet aircraft crashes in Afghanistan, 451 aircraft (includes 333 helicopters) * 147

s * 1,314 IFV/Armoured personnel carrier, APCs * 433 Artillery, artillery guns and Mortar (weapon), mortars * 11,369 cargo and fuel tanker trucks. In early 1987 a CIA report estimated that, from 1979 to 1986, the Soviet military spent 18 billion rubles on the war in Afghanistan (not counting other costs incurred to the Soviet state such as economic and military aid to the DRA). The CIA noted that this was the equivalent of US$50 billion ($115 billion in 2019 USD). The report credited the relatively low cost to the small size of the Soviet deployment and the fact that the supply lines to Afghanistan were very short (in some cases, easier and cheaper than internal USSR lines). Military aid to the DRA's armed forces totaled 9.124 billion rubles from 1980 to 1989 (peaking at 3.972 billion rubles in 1989). Financial and economic aid were also significant; by 1990, 75% of the Afghan state's income came from Soviet aid.

Casualties and destruction in Afghanistan

The war resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000,000 Afghans, Civilian death and destruction from the war was massive and detrimental. Estimates of Afghan civilian deaths vary from 562,000 to 2,000,000. The Geneva Accords (1988), Geneva Accords of 1988, which ultimately led to the withdrawal of the Soviet forces in early 1989, left the Afghan government in ruins. The accords had failed to address adequately the issue of the post-occupation period and the future governance of Afghanistan. The assumption among most Western diplomats was that the Soviet-backed government in Kabul would soon collapse; however, this was not to happen for another three years. During this time the Interim Islamic Government of Afghanistan (IIGA) was established in exile. The exclusion of key groups such as refugees and Shias, combined with major disagreements between the different Mujahideen factions, meant that the IIGA never succeeded in acting as a functional government. Before the war, Afghanistan was already one of the world's poorest countries. The prolonged conflict left Afghanistan ranked 170 out of 174 in the UNDP's ''Human Development Index'', making Afghanistan one of the least developed countries in the world. AfghanGuerillainUS1986e

Once the Soviets withdrew, US interest in Afghanistan slowly decreased over the following four years, much of it administered through the DoD Office of Humanitarian Assistance, under the then Director of HA, George M. Dykes III. With the first years of the Clinton Administration in Washington, DC, all aid ceased. The US decided not to help with reconstruction of the country, instead handing the interests of the country over to US allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Pakistan quickly took advantage of this opportunity and forged relations with warlords and later the Taliban, to secure trade interests and routes. The ten years following the war saw much ecological and agrarian destruction—from wiping out the country's trees through logging practices, which has destroyed all but 2% of forest cover country-wide, to substantial uprooting of wild pistachio trees for the exportation of their roots for therapeutic uses, to opium agriculture. Captain Tarlan Eyvazov, a soldier in the Soviet forces during the war, stated that the Afghan children's future is destined for war. Eyvazov said, "Children born in Afghanistan at the start of the war... have been brought up in war conditions, this is their way of life." Eyvazov's theory was later strengthened when the Taliban movement developed and formed from orphans or refugee children who were forced by the Soviets to flee their homes and relocate their lives in Pakistan. The swift rise to power, from the young Taliban in 1996, was the result of the disorder and civil war that had warlords running wild because of the complete breakdown of law and order in Afghanistan after the departure of the Soviets. The ''CIA World Fact Book'' reported that as of 2004, Afghanistan still owed $8 billion in bilateral debt, mostly to Russia, however, in 2007 Russia agreed to cancel most of the debt.

Refugees

5.5 million Afghans were made refugees by the war—a full one third of the country's pre-war population—fleeing the country to Pakistan or Iran. Another estimate states 6.2 million refugees. By the end of 1981, the UN High Commission for Refugees reported that Afghans represented the largest group of refugees in the world. A total of 3.3 million Afghan refugees were housed in Pakistan by 1988, some of whom continue to live in the country up until today. Of this total, about 100,000 were based in the city of

, while more than 2 million were located in other parts of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then known as the North-West Frontier Province). At the same time, close to two million Afghans in Iran, Afghans were living in Iran. Over the years Pakistan and

have imposed tighter controls on refugees which have resulted in numerous returnees. In 2012 Pakistan banned extensions of visas to foreigners. Afghan refugees have also settled in India and became Indian citizens over time. Some also made their way into North America, the European Union, Australia, and other parts of the world. The photo of Sharbat Gula placed on ''National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic'' cover in 1985 became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation.

Effect on Afghan society

The legacy of the war introduced a culture of guns, drugs and terrorism in Afghanistan. The traditional power structure was also changed in favor of the powerful Mujahideen militias: The militarization transformed the society in the country, leading to heavily armed police, private bodyguards, and openly armed civil defense groups becoming the norm in Afghanistan both during the war and decades thereafter. The war also altered the ethnic balance of power in the country. While Pashtuns were historically politically dominant since the modern foundation of the Durrani Empire in 1747, many of the well-organized pro-Mujahideen or pro-government groups consisted of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. With Pashtuns increasingly politically fragmented, their influence on the state was challenged.

Aftermath

Sources consistently characterize the Soviet–Afghan War as a political defeat for the

, with some sources also defining the war as a military defeat for the Soviets. Modern literature is divided, with other sources also calling the war a political defeat for the Soviets, but a military draw. The war and Afghanistan has typically been referred to as "Soviet

", but despite modern analogy, the result is that Afghanistan was much worse than a Soviet Vietnam, as the United States of America, United States had survived Vietnam, while the Soviets did not survive Afghanistan.

Media and popular culture

Within Afghanistan, war rugs were a popular form of carpet designs woven by victims of the war.

Perception in Afghanistan

The war has left a controversial legacy for Afghan people. Many Afghans see this as a victory over the Soviets and a source of pride. The Mujahideen Victory Day is an annual holiday in Afghanistan on 28 April, to commemorate the subsequent overthrow of the Soviet-backed regime in 1992. However, it is a controversial event to Afghans. Some Afghans honor the fighters and sacrifice made by the Mujahideen to defeat a major power, but others view the victory as a prelude to the brutal Afghan Civil War (1992–96), 1990s civil war that divided the country politically and ethnically.

Perception in the former Soviet Union

RIAN archive 21116 Afghan war veterans meeting

The war left a long legacy in the former Soviet Union and following its collapse. Along with losses, it brought physical disabilities and widespread drug addiction throughout the USSR. The remembrance of Soviet soldiers killed in Afghanistan and elsewhere internationally are commemorated annually on 15 February in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Veterans of the war are often referred to as in Russian language, Russian.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Fenzel, Michael R. ''No Miracles: The Failure of Soviet Decision-Making in the Afghan War''(Stanford UP, 2017
Online review of this book
* * * * * * * * * (free online access courtesy of UCP). * * * * * * * * * *

Historiography and memory

* * Galbas, Michael. " 'We Are Heroes': The Homogenising Glorification of the Memories on the Soviet–Afghan War in Present Russia." in ''Conflict Veterans: Discourses and Living Contexts of an Emerging Social Group'' (2018): 134+
online
* Gibbs, David N. "Reassessing Soviet motives for invading Afghanistan: A declassified history." ''Critical Asian Studies'' 38.2 (2006): 239–263
online
*

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Soviet War In Afghanistan Soviet–Afghan War, Afghanistan conflict (1978–present), * Cold War conflicts 1979 in Afghanistan 1980s in Afghanistan Conflicts in 1979 1980s conflicts Invasions of Afghanistan Invasions by the Soviet Union Soviet military occupations Wars involving Afghanistan Anti-communism in Pakistan Wars involving the Soviet Union, Afghanistan Guerrilla warfare Chemical warfare by conflict Proxy wars Cold War military history of the Soviet Union Anti-communism in Afghanistan Communism in Afghanistan Islamism in Afghanistan Maoism in Afghanistan 1979 in the Soviet Union 1980s in the Soviet Union Afghanistan–Soviet Union relations History of Islam in Afghanistan Terrorism in Pakistan Genocide of indigenous peoples in Asia

Naming

Background

Russian interest in Central Asia

Soviet–Afghan relations post-1920s

Afghanistan–Pakistan border

1960s–1970s: Proxy war

1973 coup d'état

Saur Revolution of 1978

"Red Terror" of the revolutionary government

Affairs with the USSR after the revolution

Initiation of the rebellion

Pakistan–U.S. relations and rebel aid

Soviet deployment, 1979

Soviet invasion and palace coup

International positions on Soviet invasion

Military aid

State of the Cold War

December 1979 – February 1980: Occupation and national unrest

Soviet occupation, 1980–1985

Soviet military operations against Afghan guerrillas

Reforms of the Karmal administration

Mujahideen insurrection

Raids inside Soviet territory

Media reaction

Soviet exit and change of Afghan leadership, 1985–1989

Foreign diplomatic efforts

April 1985 – January 1987: Exit strategy

May 1986–1988: Najibullah and his reforms

Negotiations for a coalition

April 1988: The Geneva Accords

January 1987 – February 1989: Withdrawal

Causes of withdrawal

Fall of Najibullah government, 1992

Aerial engagements

Aerial losses in Pakistan airspace

Stinger missiles and the "Stinger effect"

War crimes

Foreign involvement

Spillover

Raids inside the Soviet Union

Aerial engagements with Pakistan

Terror campaign in Pakistan

Miram Shah incident

Badaber uprising

Raid inside Iran

Impact

Soviet personnel strengths and casualties

Casualties and destruction in Afghanistan

Refugees

Effect on Afghan society

Aftermath

Media and popular culture

Perception in Afghanistan

Perception in the former Soviet Union

Notes

References

Bibliography

Historiography and memory

Further reading

External links