Soviet–Afghan War

The Soviet–Afghan War was a conflict

wherein insurgent groups (known
collectively as the Mujahideen), as well as
smaller Maoist groups, fought a nine-year
guerrilla war against the Soviet Army and
the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
government throughout the 1980s, mostly
in the Afghan countryside. The Mujahideen
were variously backed primarily by the
United States, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia,
China, and the United Kingdom; the
conflict was a Cold War-era proxy war.
Between 562,000[46] and 2,000,000
Afghans were killed and millions more fled
the country as refugees,[50][51][47][48] mostly
to Pakistan and Iran. The war caused
grave destruction in Afghanistan and is
believed to have contributed to the Soviet
collapse, in hindsight leaving a mixed
legacy to people in both territories.[52][53]
 Soviet–Afghan War
Part of the Cold War and the continuous
Afghanistan conflict

Top: Mujahideen fighters in the Kunar

Province of Afghanistan, 1987
Bottom: Soviet soldier on watch in
Afghanistan, 1988

Date December 24, 1979 – February

 15, 1989
(9 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and
1 day)

Location Afghanistan

Result Soviet failure to quell the Afghan

Mujahideen insurgency
Geneva Accords (1988)
Withdrawal of Soviet forces
from Afghanistan
Afghan Civil War continues[30]
Belligerents

 Soviet Union Sunni Mujahideen:

 Afghanistan
Factions:
Supported by: Jamiat-e Islami[3]
 East Germany[1]
  India Shura-e
(humanitarian Nazar
aid)[2] Hezb-e Islami
Gulbuddin[4]
Maktab al-
Khadamat
Hezb-e Islami
Khalis[4]
Ittehad-e Islami
(IULA)[3]
Harakat-i-Inqilab
(IRM)[5]
Jebh-e Nejat-e
Melli [6]
Mahaz-e Milli
(NIFA)[6]
Supported by:
 Pakistan[7]
  Saudi Arabia[15]
 United States[18]
 China[21]
 United
Kingdom[23]
 Egypt[26]
 West Germany[27]

Other Mujahideen:

Factions:
Harakat i-Islami[5]
Nasr Party
(IVOA)[28]
COIRGA
Shura Party
Hezbollah (Afghan
section)
 IRM
UOIF
Raad Party
Supported by:
 Iran[29]

Maoists:

Factions
Sazman-i Rihayi
(ALO)
SAMA
AMFFF
Supported by:
RIM

Commanders and leaders

Leonid Brezhnev Burhanuddin
Yuri Andropov Rabbani
 Konstantin Ahmad Shah
Chernenko Massoud
Mikhail Gorbachev Naqib Alikozai
Dmitriy Ustinov Ismail Khan
Sergei Sokolov Gulbuddin
Dmitriy Yazov Hekmatyar

Valentin Varennikov Fazal Haq Mujahid

Igor Rodionov Abdullah Azzam

Boris Gromov Wa'el Hamza

Julaidan
Yuri Drozdov
Osama bin Laden
Babrak Karmal
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Mohammad
Najibullah Mulavi Younas
Khalis
Abdul Rashid
Dostum Abdul Haq
Abdul Qadir Haji Abdul Qadeer
Shahnawaz Tanai Jalaluddin Haqqani
Mohammed Rafie Nek Muhammad[31]
Aslam Vatanzhar Mohammed
Omar[31]
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf
Mohammad Nabi
Sibghatullah
Mojaddedi
Ahmed Gailani
Abdul Rahim
Wardak

Muhammad Asif
Muhsini
Abdul Ali Mazari
 Assef Kandahari
Sayyid Ali Beheshti
Mosbah Sade

Mulavi Dawood 
(AMFFF)
Faiz Ahmad 
Majid Kalakani
(SAMA)
Strength

Soviet forces: Mujahideen:

KGB 200,000–
40th Army 250,000[35][36][37]

620,000 total
personnel [32]
 115,000 peak
strength[33]

Afghan forces:

65,000 regulars at
peak[34]

Casualties and losses

Soviet forces: Mujahideen:

At least 90,000
14,453 killed (total) casualties, including
or 56,000 killed and
9,500 killed in 17,000
combat[38] wounded.[41][42]
4,000 died 150,000-180,000
from casualties (other
wounds[38] estimates)[42]
 1,000 died Pakistan:
from disease 5,775 killed[43]
and 6,804 wounded[43]
accidents[38]
1 F-16 shot down due
53,753 wounded[38] to friendly fire.[44]
264 missing Iran:
451 aircraft 2 AH-1J helicopters
(including 333 shot down
helicopters) Unknown number
147 tanks killed[45]

1,314 IFV/APCs
433 artillery guns
and mortars
11,369 cargo and
fuel tanker trucks

(Soviet estimation)
26,000 killed including
3,000 officers[39]
(other sources)

Afghan forces:
18,000 killed[40]

Civilians (Afghan):
562,000[46]–2,000,000 killed[47][48]
5 million refugees outside Afghanistan
2 million internally displaced persons
Around 3 million Afghans wounded (mostly
civilians)[49]
The foundations of the conflict were laid
by the Saur Revolution, a 1978 coup
wherein Afghanistan's communist party
took power, initiating a series of radical
modernization and land reforms
throughout the country. These reforms
were deeply unpopular among the more
traditional rural population and established
power structures.[54] The repressive nature
of the "Democratic Republic",[55] which
vigorously suppressed opposition and
executed thousands of political prisoners,
led to the rise of anti-government armed
groups; by April 1979, large parts of the
country were in open rebellion. [56] The
communist party itself experienced deep
internal rivalries between the Khalqists
and Parchamites; in September 1979,
People's Democratic Party General
Secretary Nur Mohammad Taraki was
assassinated under orders of the second-
in-command, Hafizullah Amin, which
soured relations with the Soviet Union.
With fears rising that Amin was planning
to switch sides to the United States,[57] the
Soviet government, under leader Leonid
Brezhnev, decided to deploy the 40th Army
across the border on December 24,
1979.[58] Arriving in the capital Kabul, they
staged a coup (Operation Storm-333),[59]
killing General Secretary Amin and
installing Soviet loyalist Babrak Karmal
from the rival faction Parcham. [56] The
Soviet invasion[nb 1] was based on the
Brezhnev Doctrine.

In January 1980, foreign ministers from 34

nations of the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation adopted a resolution
demanding "the immediate, urgent and
unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops"
from Afghanistan.[63] The UN General
Assembly passed a resolution protesting
the Soviet intervention by a vote of 104
(for) to 18 (against), with 18 abstentions
and 12 members of the 152-nation
Assembly absent or not participating in
the vote;[63][64] only Soviet allies Angola,
East Germany and Vietnam, along with
India, supported the intervention.[65]
Afghan insurgents began to receive
massive amounts of support through aid,
finance and military training in
neighbouring Pakistan with significant
help from the United States and United
Kingdom.[66] They were also heavily
financed by China and the Arab
monarchies in the Persian Gulf.[67][16][68]
[69] As documented by the National
Security Archive, "the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) played a significant role in
asserting U.S. influence in Afghanistan by
funding military operations designed to
frustrate the Soviet invasion of that
country. CIA covert action worked through
Pakistani intelligence services to reach
Afghan rebel groups."[70] Soviet troops
occupied the cities and main arteries of
communication, while the Mujahideen
waged guerrilla war in small groups
operating in the almost 80 percent of the
country that was outside government and
Soviet control, almost exclusively[71] being
the rugged, mountainous terrain of the
countryside.[72][73] The Soviets used their
air power to deal harshly with both rebels
and civilians, levelling villages to deny safe
haven to the Mujahideen, destroying vital
irrigation ditches, and laying millions of
land mines.[74][75][76][77]
The international community imposed
numerous sanctions and embargoes
against the Soviet Union, and the U.S. led a
boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics
held in Moscow. The boycott and
sanctions exacerbated Cold War tensions
and enraged the Soviet government, which
later led a revenge boycott of the 1984
Olympics held in Los Angeles.[78] The
Soviets initially planned to secure towns
and roads, stabilize the government under
new leader Karmal, and withdraw within
six months or a year. But they were met
with fierce resistance from the guerillas[79]
and had difficulties on the harsh cold
Afghan terrain,[80] resulting in them being
stuck in a bloody war that lasted nine
years.[81] By the mid-1980s, the Soviet
contingent was increased to 108,800 and
fighting increased, but the military and
diplomatic cost of the war to the USSR
was high.[13] By mid-1987 the Soviet Union,
now under reformist leader General
Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, announced it
would start withdrawing its forces after
meetings with the Afghan
government.[9][10] The final troop
withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and
ended on February 15, 1989, leaving the
government forces alone in the battle
against the insurgents, which continued
until 1992, when the former Soviet-backed
government collapsed. Due to its length, it
has sometimes been referred to as the
"Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear
Trap" by the Western media.[82][83][84] The
Soviets' failure in the war[85] is thought to
be a contributing factor to the fall of the
Soviet Union.[52] It has left a mixed legacy
in the former Soviet Union and in
Afghanistan.[53] Additionally, U.S. policies
in the war are also thought to have
contributed to a "blowback" of unintended
consequences against American interests.

Naming
In Afghanistan the war is usually called the
Soviet war in Afghanistan (Pashto: ‫ﭘﻪ‬
‫ اﻓﻐﺎﻧﺴﺘﺎن ﮐﯥ ﺷﻮروی ﺟ ه‬Pah Afghanistan ke
Shuravi Jagera, Dari: ‫ﺟﻨﮓ ﺷﻮروی در اﻓﻐﺎﻧﺴﺘﺎن‬
Jang-e Shuravi dar Afghanestan). In Russia
and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union it
is usually called the Afghan war (Russian:
Афганская война, Ukrainian: Війна в
Афганістані, Uzbek: Afgʻon urushi); it is
sometimes simply referred to as "Afgan"
(Russian: Афган), with the understanding
that this refers to the war (just as the
Vietnam War is often called "Vietnam" or
just "'Nam" in the United States).[86]

Background
In 1885, Russian forces seized the
disputed oasis at Panjdeh 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 of
1885–87. The Russian interest in the
region continued on through the Soviet era,
with billions in economic and military aid
sent to Afghanistan between 1955 and
1978.[87]

In 1947, Prime Minister of Afghanistan,

Mohammed Daoud Khan, had rejected the
Durrand Line, which was accepted as
international border by successive Afghan
governments for over a half a century.[88]
The British Raj also came to an end and
the British Crown colony of India was
partitioned into the new nations of India
and Pakistan, the latter which inherited the
Durrand Line as its frontier with
Afghanistan. Daoud Khan's irredentist
foreign policy to reunite the Pashtun
homeland caused much tension with
Pakistan, a nation that allied itself with the
United States. Daoud Khan's policy was
fueled by his desire to unite his divided
country. Daoud Khan started emulating
policies of Emir Abdur Rahman Khan and
for that he needed a popular cause (a
Pashtun homeland) to unite the Afghan
people divided along the tribal lines and a
modern, well equipped Afghan army which
would be used to surpass anyone who
would oppose the Afghan government.[89]
Daoud Khan's policy to annex Pashtun
areas of Pakistan had also angered Non-
Pashtun population of Afghanistan.[90]
Similarly, Pashtun population in Pakistan
were also not interested in having their
areas being annexed by Afghanistan.[91] In
1951, the United States's State
Department urged Afghanistan to drop its
claim against Pakistan and accept the
Durrand Line.[92]
In 1954, the United States began selling
arms to Pakistan while refusing an Afghan
request to buy arms out of the fear that
the Afghans would use any weapons they
had purchased against America's ally
Pakistan.[92] As a consequence,
Afghanistan, though officially neutral in the
Cold War, drew closer to India and the
Soviet Union, which unlike the United
States, was willing to sell Afghanistan
weapons.[92] In 1962, China defeated India
in a border war, and as a result, China
formed an alliance with Pakistan against
their common enemy, India. The Sino-
Pakistani alliance pushed Afghanistan
even closer to India and the Soviet Union.
After the Saur Revolution in 1978, the
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was
formed on April 27, 1978. The government
was one with a pro-poor, pro-farmer
socialist agenda. It had close relations
with the Soviet Union. On December 5,
1978, a treaty of friendship was signed
between the Soviet Union and
Afghanistan.[93]

In February 1979, the United States

Ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs,
was kidnapped by Setami Milli militants
and was later killed during an assault
carried out by the Afghan police, assisted
by Soviet advisers. Dubs' death led to a
major deterioration in Afghanistan–United
States relations.[94]

In Southwestern Asia, drastic changes

were taking place concurrent with the
upheavals in Afghanistan. In February
1979, the Iranian Revolution ousted the
American-backed Shah from Iran, losing
the United States as one of its most
powerful allies.[95] The United States then
deployed twenty ships in the Persian Gulf
and the Arabian Sea including two aircraft
carriers, and there were constant threats
of war between the U.S. and Iran.[96] 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 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.[97] In addition, the
US sold more than 5,000 missiles to Saudi
Arabia, and Soviet Union's previously
strong relations with Iraq had recently
soured. In June 1978, Iraq 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 allies, and China.

Saur Revolution

King Mohammed Zahir Shah ascended to

the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973.
Zahir's cousin, Mohammad Daoud Khan,
served as Prime Minister from 1954 to
1963. The Marxist People's Democratic
Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)'s strength
grew considerably in these years. In 1967,
the PDPA split into two rival factions, the
Khalq (Masses) faction headed by Nur
Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin
and the Parcham (Flag) faction led by
Babrak Karmal.[98] The leaders of the
Khalq faction tended to be Pashtuns from
a poorer background while the leaders of
the Parcham faction were usually Farsi-
speakers from the Tajik and Hazara ethnic
groups who came from well-off
backgrounds.[99] 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.[99] More importantly, the radical
Khalq faction believed in rapidly
transforming Afghanistan by violence if
necessary from a feudal nation into a
Communist nation 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.[99] 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.[99]

Former Prime Minister Daoud seized

power in a military coup on July 17, 1973
after allegations of corruption and poor
economic conditions against the king's
government. Daoud put an end to the
monarchy, and his time in power was
marked by unpopularity as the abolition of
the monarchy was not widely approved of
in a conservative society. Daoud Khan
billed himself as a reformer, but few of his
reforms were ever implemented and his
rule grew more repressive as the 1970s
went on. In 1975, both Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia began to support Islamic
fundamentalist groups committed to
overthrowing the Daoud Khan regime and
establishing an Islamist theocracy in its
place.[100]
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.[101] The mysterious
circumstances of Khyber's death sparked
massive anti-Daoud demonstrations in
Kabul, which resulted in the arrest of
several prominent PDPA leaders.[102]

On April 27, 1978, the Afghan army, which

had been sympathetic to the PDPA cause,
overthrew and executed Daoud along with
members of his family.[103] 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".[100] 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.

Factions inside the PDPA

After the revolution, Taraki assumed the
leadership, Prime Ministership and General
Secretaryship of the PDPA. The
government was divided along factional
lines, with General Secretary Taraki and
Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin of
the Khalq faction pitted against Parcham
leaders such as Babrak Karmal and
Mohammad Najibullah.

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 in a deeply conservative and
Muslim nation.[99] 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 Khaqis to
eliminate their rivals so the Soviets would
have no other choice but to back them.[104]
Within the PDPA, conflicts resulted in
exiles, purges and executions of Parcham
members.[105] The PDPA executed
between 10,000 and 27,000 people, mostly
at Pul-e-Charkhi prison prior to the Soviet
intervention.[106][107]
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.[108] Decrees setting forth changes
in marriage customs and land reform were
not received well by a population deeply
immersed in tradition and Islam,
particularly by the powerful landowners
who were harmed economically by the
abolition of usury (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 and promoted
Afghanistan's ethnic minorities, although
these programs appear to have had an
effect only in the urban areas. [109] By mid-
1978, a rebellion started, with rebels
attacking the local military garrison in the
Nuristan 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 General Secretary
Taraki. Over two months of instability
overwhelmed Amin's regime as he moved
against his opponents in the PDPA and the
growing rebellion.

Soviet–Afghan relations
Afghanistan Scout Association in 1950s

The Soviet Union (USSR) had been a major

power broker and influential mentor in
Afghan politics. Its involvement ranging
from civil-military infrastructure to Afghan
society.[110] 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 and when the
regime was facing the Russian Civil War.
Provisions were given in the form of small
arms, ammunition, a few aircraft, and
(according to debated Soviet sources) a
million gold rubles to support the
resistance during the Third Anglo-Afghan
War in 1919. In 1942, the USSR again
moved to strengthen the Afghan Armed
Forces by providing small arms and
aircraft, and establishing training centers
in Tashkent (Uzbek Soviet Socialist
Republic). 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.

In 1978, after witnessing India's nuclear

test, Smiling Buddha, President Daud Khan
initiated a military buildup to counter
Pakistan's armed forces and Iranian
military influence in Afghan politics. A final
pre-war treaty, signed in December 1978,
allowed the PDPA to call upon the Soviet
Union for military support.[111]

Following the Herat

We believe it
uprising, General Secretary would be a
Taraki contacted Alexei fatal
mistake to
Kosygin, chairman of the commit

USSR Council of Ministers, ground

troops. [...] If
and asked for "practical
our troops
and technical assistance
went in, the
with men and armament".
situation in
Kosygin was unfavorable your country
to the proposal on the would not
basis of the negative improve. On
political repercussions the contrary,
it would get
such an action would have
worse. Our
for his country, and he
troops
rejected all further
would have
attempts by Taraki to to struggle
solicit Soviet military aid in not only with
Afghanistan.[113] Following an external
Kosygin's rejection, Taraki aggressor,
requested aid from Leonid but with a

Brezhnev, the general significant

part of your
secretary of the
own people.
Communist Party of the
And the
Soviet Union and Soviet
people
head of state, who warned would never
Taraki that full Soviet forgive such
intervention "would only things.
play into the hands of our – Alexei
Kosygin, the
enemies – both yours and
Chairman of
ours". Brezhnev also
the USSR
advised Taraki to ease up
Council of
on the drastic social Ministers, in
reforms and to seek response to
broader support for his Taraki's
regime.[114] request for
In 1979, Taraki attended a Soviet

conference of the Non- presence in

Afghanistan[112]
Aligned Movement in
Havana, Cuba. On his way
back, he stopped in Moscow on March 20
and met with Brezhnev, Soviet Foreign
Minister Andrei Gromyko 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.[115]
Initiation of the insurgency

Soviet infantry at the time of deployment

Afghanistan, under the regime of

Mohammed Daoud Khan, had hostile
relations with both Pakistan and
Iran.[116][89] Like all previous Afghan rulers
since 1901, Daoud Khan also wanted to
emulate Emir Abdur Rahman Khan and
unite his divided country. To do that, he
needed a popular cause to unite the
Afghan people divided along the tribal
lines (Pashtunistan policy) and a modern,
well equipped Afghan army which would
be used to surpass 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.[89] Daoud Khan's
Pashtunistan policy had angered both
Pakistan and Non-Pashtun population of
Afghanistan.[90] In 1960 and 1961, Afghan
army, on the orders of Daoud Khan, made
two unsuccessful incursions into
Pakistan's Bajaur District. In both the
attempts, Afghan army was routed after
suffering heavy casualties.[117] In
response, Pakistan closed its consulate in
Afghanistan and blocked all trade routes
running through the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border. This damaged Afghanistan's
economy and Daoud's regime was pushed
towards closer alliance with Soviet Union
for trade. However, these stopgap
measures were not enough to compensate
the loss suffered by Afghanistan's
economy because of 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.
Following his resignation, crisis between
Pakistan and Afghanistan was resolved
and Pakistan re-opened the trade
routes.[117] After the removal of Daoud
Khan, King Zahir Shah took control of
Afghanistan and he started creating a
balance in Afghanistan's relation with west
and Soviet Union,[117] which angered the
Soviet Union.[91] Zahir Shah also ended all
anti-Pakistani propaganda and improved
his country's relation with Pakistan. In
1973, Daoud Khan supported by Soviet-
trained Afghan army officers seized power
from his cousin, King Zahir Shah, in a
bloodless coup. Soviet Union welcomed
the coup as they were unhappy with
Zahir's liberal regime and friendly ties with
the United States. Following Daoud's
return to power, Daoud revived his
Pashtunistan policy and for the first time
started proxy war against Pakistan[118] by
supporting anti-Pakistani groups and
providing them with arms, training and
sanctuaries.[91] Daoud Khan also provided
key government positions to Parcham
faction of PDPA, which was led by Babrak
Karmal. During the coup against Zahir
Shah, Parcham had supported Daoud
Khan.[117]

Soviet Union also supported Daoud Khan

militancy against Pakistan.[91] Soviets
wanted to weaken Pakistan which was an
ally of United States and China. However, it
did not openly try to create problems for
Pakistan as that would damage the Soviet
Union relations with other Islamic
countries. Hence, it relied on Daoud Khan
to weaken Pakistan. Similarly, Soviet Union
also wanted to weaken Iran, which was
another major U.S. ally, but without hurting
its relations with Islamic countries. 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
to into a closer relationship with Soviet
Union.[119] The pro-Soviet Afghans also
supported Daoud Khan hostility towards
Pakistan, as they believed that a conflict
with Pakistan would promote Afghanistan
to seek aid from Soviet Union. As a result,
the pro-Soviet Afghans would be able to
establish their influence over
Afghanistan.[120]

Aid to insurgents

In response to Afghanistan's proxy war,

Pakistan started supporting Afghans who
were critical of Daoud Khan's policies.
Pakistan's Prime minister Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto authorized a covert operation under
MI's Major-General Naseerullah Babar.[121]
In 1974, Bhutto authorized another secret
operation in Kabul where the ISI and the AI
extradited Burhanuddin Rabbani,
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmad Shah
Massoud to Peshawar, amid fear that
Rabbani, Hekmatyar and Massoud might
be assassinated by Daoud.[121] 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.[121]

The first ever Inter-Services Intelligence

(ISI) operation in Afghanistan took place in
1975. Before 1975, ISI did not conduct any
operation in Afghanistan and it was in
retaliation to Daoud Khan's proxy war
against Pakistan.[122] In June 1975,
militants from the Jamiat-e Islami party,
led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, attempted
to overthrow the government. They started
their rebellion in the Panjshir valley (a part
of the greater Parwan province), in the
present day Panjshir province, some 100
kilometers north of Kabul, and in a number
of other provinces of the country. However,
government forces easily defeated the
insurgency and a sizable portion of the
insurgents sought refuge in Pakistan
where they enjoyed the support of Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto's government, which had been
alarmed by Daoud's revival of the
Pashtunistan issue.[123][120]
The 1975 rebellion though unsuccessful,
had shaken Daoud Khan to the core and
made him realize that a friendly Pakistan
was in his best interest.[122][120] Pakistani
Pashtuns were also not interested in
having their areas being annexed by
Afghanistan. As a result, Daoud started
improving his country's relations with
Pakistan and made two state visit to
Pakistan in 1976 and 1978. During his
1978 visit to Pakistan, Daoud Khan agreed
to stop supporting anti-Pakistan militants
and to expel any remaining militant in
Afghanistan. In 1975, Daoud Khan,
established his own party named National
Revolutionary Party of Afghanistan and
outlawed all other parties like Parcham
and Khalq. He then started removing
members of the Parcham party from the
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 lowering his
dependence on Soviet Union. As a
consequence of Daoud's actions,
Afghanistan's relations with Soviet Union
deteriorated.[91] Following the death of one
of the leaders of Parcham faction, Mir
Akbar Khyber, Saur Revolution took place
and Daoud Khan was removed from power
by Afghan armed forces and killed.[117][90]
Daoud Khan was replaced by Nur
Muhammad Taraki.

Soviet forces after capturing some Mujahideen

Soviet soldiers conducting training

In 1978, the Taraki government initiated a
series of reforms, including a radical
modernization of the traditional Islamic
civil and especially marriage law, aimed at
"uprooting feudalism" in Afghan society.[54]
The government brooked no opposition to
the reforms[105] 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[107] Pul-e-Charkhi prison,
including many village mullahs and
headmen.[106] Other members of the
traditional elite, the religious
establishment and intelligentsia fled the
country.[106]

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.[124] The revolt began in October
among the Nuristani tribes of the Kunar
Valley 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.[125][126] The rebellion began to
take hold in the cities: in March 1979 in
Herat, 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.[127][128]

Pakistan–U.S. relations

In the mid-1970s, Pakistani intelligence

officials began privately lobbying the U.S.
and its allies to send materiel assistance
to the Islamist insurgents. Pakistani
President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's ties
with the U.S. had been strained during
Jimmy Carter's presidency due to
Pakistan's nuclear program and the
execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in April
1979, but Carter told National Security
Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary
of State Cyrus Vance as early as January
1979 that it was vital to "repair our
relationships with Pakistan" in light of the
unrest in Iran.[129] According to former
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official
Robert Gates, "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]" of the United States National
Security Council. At a March 30 meeting,
U.S. Department of Defense representative
Walter B. Slocombe "asked if there was
value in keeping the Afghan insurgency
going, 'sucking the Soviets into a
Vietnamese quagmire?'"[130] When asked
to clarify this remark, Slocombe explained:
"Well, the whole idea was that if the
Soviets decided to strike at this tar baby
[Afghanistan] we had every interest in
making sure that they got stuck."[131] Yet
an April 5 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."[130]

In May 1979, U.S. officials secretly began

meeting with rebel leaders through
Pakistani government contacts.[132] After
additional meetings Carter signed a
"presidential 'finding'" that "authorized the
CIA to spend just over $500,000" on "non-
lethal" aid to the mujahideen, which
"seemed at the time a small
beginning."[129][130][133]
Soviet operations 1979–1985

Deployment

The headquarters of the Soviet 40th Army in Kabul,

1987. Before the Soviet intervention, the building was
Tajbeg Palace, where Hafizullah Amin was killed.

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 mujaheddin rebels. After the
killing of Soviet technicians in Herat by
rioting mobs, the Soviet government sold
several Mi-24 helicopters to the Afghan
military, and increased the number of
military advisers in the country to
3,000.[134] On April 14, 1979, the Afghan
government requested that the USSR send
15 to 20 helicopters with their crews to
Afghanistan, and on June 16, the Soviet
government responded and sent a
detachment of tanks, BMPs, and crews to
guard the government in Kabul and to
secure the Bagram and Shindand airfields.
In response to this request, an airborne
battalion, commanded by Lieutenant
Colonel A. Lomakin, arrived at the Bagram
Air Base on July 7. 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 Alexei Kosygin and Andrei
Gromyko 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

We should
tell Taraki the KGB, Soviet leaders felt
and Amin to that Prime Minister
change their Hafizullah Amin's actions
tactics. They had destabilized the
still continue situation in Afghanistan.
to execute
Following his initial coup
those people
against and killing of
who
Taraki, the KGB station in
disagree
with them. Kabul warned Moscow
They are that Amin's leadership
killing nearly would lead to "harsh
all of the repressions, and as a
Parcham
result, the activation and
leaders, not
consolidation of the
only the
opposition."[136]
highest rank,
but of the
The Soviets established a
middle rank,
special commission on
too.
– Kosygin
Afghanistan, comprising
speaking at KGB chairman Yuri
a Politburo Andropov, Boris
session.[135]
Ponomarev from the
Central Committee and
Dmitriy Ustinov, the Minister of Defence. In
late April 1978, 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 secret meetings with the U.S.
chargé d'affaires, J. Bruce Amstutz, which,
while never amounting to any agreement
between Amin and the United States,
sowed suspicion in the Kremlin.[137]

Soviet ground forces in action while conducting an

offensive operation against the Islamist resistance,
the Mujahideen.

Information obtained 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
suspected to be a CIA agent. The latter,
however, is still disputed with Amin
repeatedly demonstrating friendliness
toward the various delegates of the Soviet
Union who would arrive in Afghanistan.
Soviet General Vasily Zaplatin, a political
advisor of Premier 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.[138]
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; the effects of the
Iranian Revolution 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 Soviets
feared could become aligned with the
Americans and provide them with a new
strategic position after the loss of Iran;
and the deteriorating ties with the United
States after NATO's two-track missile
deployment decision and the failure of
Congress to ratify the SALT II treaty,
creating the impression that détente was
"already effectively dead."[139]

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".[140] 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
("Those engaged in jihad") 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 mujahideen would take
Kabul, but only when the mujahideen would
take Kabul.[140]

In Moscow, Leonid Brezhnev was

indecisive and waffled as he usually did
when faced with a difficult decision.[141]
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 Andrei Gromyko; the
Chairman of KGB, Yuri Andropov and the
Defense Minister Marshal Dmitry
Ustinov.[141] 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.[141] Androprov, 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.[141] 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
Babrak Karmal to stabilize the
situation.[141]

The concerns raised by the Chief of the

Red Army General Staff, Marshal Nikolai
Ogarkov 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.[141] Most
notably, through the diplomats of the
Narkomindel at the Embassy in Kabul and
the KGB officers stationed in Afghanistan
were well informed about the
developments in that nation, but such
information rarely filtered through to the
decision-makers who viewed Afghanistan
more in the context of the Cold War rather
than understanding Afghanistan as a
subject in its own right.[142] The viewpoint
that it was the United States that was
fomenting the Islamic insurgency in
Afghanistan with the aim of destabilizing
Soviet 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 what
seen as an outrageous American
provocation.[142] 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.

Soviet intervention and coup

The Soviet intervention

On October 31, 1979, Soviet informants

under orders from the inner circle of
advisors under Soviet General Secretary
Leonid Brezhnev relayed information to the
Afghan Armed Forces 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. With a deteriorating security
situation, large numbers of Soviet Airborne
Forces joined stationed ground troops and
began to land in Kabul on December 25.
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 December 17.[143][144] 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.[143]

Soviet paratroopers aboard a BMD-1 in Kabul

On December 27, 1979, 700 Soviet troops

dressed in Afghan uniforms, including KGB
and GRU special forces 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, the assault on
Tajbeg Palace began; as planned, General
Secretary Hafizullah Amin was killed.
Simultaneously, other objectives were
occupied (e.g., the Ministry of Interior at
19:15). The operation was fully complete
by the morning of December 28, 1979.

The Soviet military command at Termez,

Uzbek SSR, 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 elected
as head of government former Deputy
Prime Minister Babrak Karmal, 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.[145]

Soviet ground forces, under the command

of Marshal Sergei Sokolov, entered
Afghanistan from the north on December
27. 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.[146] In all,
the initial Soviet force was around 1,800
tanks, 80,000 soldiers and 2,000 AFVs. In
the second week alone, Soviet aircraft had
made a total of 4,000 flights into
Kabul.[147] With the arrival of the two later
divisions, the total Soviet force rose to
over 100,000 personnel.

International positions on Soviet

intervention

40th Army headquarters, Tajbeg Palace, 1986

Foreign ministers from 34 Islamic nations

adopted a resolution which condemned
the Soviet intervention and demanded "the
immediate, urgent and unconditional
withdrawal of Soviet troops" from the
Muslim nation of Afghanistan.[63] The UN
General Assembly passed a resolution
protesting the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan by a vote of 104–18.[64]
According to political scientist Gilles
Kepel, the Soviet intervention or "invasion"
was "viewed with horror" in the West,
considered to be a "fresh twist" on the geo-
political "Great Game" 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" in 1945. [56]

Weapons supplies were made available

through numerous countries. The United
States purchased all of Israel's captured
Soviet weapons clandestinely, 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
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.[148] China provided
the most relevant weapons, likely due to
their own experience with guerrilla warfare,
and kept meticulous record of all the
shipments.[148]

December 1979 – February 1980:

Occupation

The first phase of the war began with the

Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and first
battles with various opposition groups.[63]
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 nationalistic
sentiment, causing the rebellion to spread
further.[149] Babrak Karmal, Afghanistan's
new leadership, 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.[150] 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.[151]

March 1980 – April 1985: Soviet

offensives

A mujahideen fighter in Kunar uses a communications

receiver.

The war now developed into a new pattern:

the Soviets occupied the cities and main
axis of communication, while the
mujahideen, which the Soviet Army
soldiers called 'Dushman,' meaning
'enemy',[152] divided into small groups and
waged a guerrilla war. Almost 80 percent
of the country was outside government
control. [71] 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.[153] 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.

Periodically the Soviet Army undertook

multi-divisional offensives into
mujahideen-controlled areas. Between
1980 and 1985, nine offensives were
launched into the strategically important
Panjshir Valley, but government control of
the area did not improve.[154] Heavy
fighting also occurred in the provinces
neighbouring Pakistan, where cities and
government outposts were constantly
under siege by the mujahideen. Massive
Soviet operations would regularly break
these sieges, but the mujahideen would
return as soon as the Soviets left.[82] In the
west and south, fighting was more
sporadic, except in the cities of Herat and
Kandahar, which were always partly
controlled by the resistance.[155]

Mujahideen with two captured artillery field guns in

Jaji, 1984
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.[156] 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. [157] 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
collecting 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. [158] 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.[159]

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 the 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.[160] 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.[161] The 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.[162] The
Sarandoy, a KHAD controlled government
militia, had mixed success in the war.
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.[161]
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.

Mujahedin raid inside Soviet Union

In an effort to foment unrest and rebellion

by the Islamic populations of the Soviet
Union, starting in late 1984 Director of CIA
William Casey encouraged Mujahedin
militants to mount violent sabotage raids
inside the Soviet Union, according to
Robert Gates, Casey's executive assistant
and Mohammed Yousef, the Pakistani ISI
brigadier general who was the chief for
Afghan operations. The rebels began
cross-border raids into the Soviet Union in
Spring 1985.[163]

1980s: Insurrection

A Soviet Spetsnaz (special operations) group prepares

for a mission in Afghanistan 1988
for a mission in Afghanistan, 1988

In the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance

movement, assisted by the United States,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United
Kingdom, Egypt,[13] 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 Operation Cyclone.[164]
Pakistan's 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 Madrasa Haqqaniyya
becoming a prominent organisational and
networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan
fighters.[165] As well as money, Muslim
countries provided thousands of volunteer
fighters known as "Afghan Arabs", who
wished to wage jihad against the atheist
communists. Notable among them was a
young Saudi named Osama bin Laden,
whose Arab group eventually evolved into
al-Qaeda.[166][167][168] Despite their
numbers,[169][170][171] the contribution has
been called a "curious sideshow to the real
fighting,"[172] with only an estimated 2000
of them fighting "at any one time",
compared with about a 250,000 Afghan
fighters and 125,000 Soviet troops.[173]
Their efforts were also sometimes
counterproductive as in the March 1989
battle for Jalalabad. Instead of being the
beginning of the collapse of the Afghan
Communist government forces after their
abandonment by the Soviets, the Afghan
communists rallied to break the siege of
Jalalabad and to win the first major
government victory in years, provoked by
the sight of a truck filled with
dismembered bodies of Communists
chopped to pieces after surrendering by
radical non-Afghan salafists eager to show
the enemy the fate awaiting the
infidels.[174] "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."[175]

Maoist guerilla groups were also active, to

a lesser extend compared to the religious
mujahideen. Perhaps the most notable of
these groups was the Liberation
Organization of the People of Afghanistan
(SAMA), which launched skilled guerilla
attacks and controlled some territory north
of Kabul in the early years of the war. The
Maoist resistance eventually lost its pace
and was severely weakened following the
deaths of leaders Faiz Ahmad and Mulavi
Dawood in 1986, both committed by the
Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin mujahideen
faction.

The areas where the different mujahideen forces

operated in 1985
In the course of the guerrilla war,
leadership came to be distinctively
associated with the title of "commander".
It applied to independent leaders,
eschewing identification with elaborate
military bureaucracy associated with such
ranks as general. As the war produced
leaders of reputation, "commander" was
conferred on leaders of fighting units of all
sizes, signifying pride in independence,
self-sufficiency, and distinct ties to local
communities. The title epitomized Afghan
pride in their struggle against a powerful
foe. Segmentation of power and religious
leadership were the two values evoked by
nomenclature generated in the war.
Neither had been favored in the ideology
of the former Afghan state.

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.[176]
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 Ahmad
Shah Massoud of the Panjshir valley north
of Kabul. He led at least 10,000 trained
troopers at the end of the Soviet war and
had expanded his political control of Tajik-
dominated areas to Afghanistan's
northeastern provinces under the
Supervisory Council of the North.[176]

Three mujahideen in Asmar, 1985

Roy also describes regional, ethnic and

sectarian variations in mujahideen
organization. In the 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.[177]
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.[176]

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- and 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 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.[176]

The mujahideen favoured sabotage

operations. The more common types of
sabotage included damaging power lines,
knocking out 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
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.

Mujahideen praying in Shultan Valley, 1987

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 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 September 4, 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, 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.

Media reaction

International journalistic Those

perception of the war hopelessly
varied. Major American brave
television journalists were warriors I
sympathetic to the walked with,
mujahideen. Most visible and their

was CBS news families,

who
correspondent Dan Rather,
suffered so
who in 1982 accused the
much for
Soviets of "genocide",
faith and
comparing them to freedom and
Hitler.[180] Rather was who are still
embedded with the not free, they
mujahideen for a 60 were truly
the people
Minutes report.[181] In
of God. –
1987, CBS produced a full
Journalist
documentary special on
Rob
the war.[182] A Schultheis,
retrospective commentary 1992[178][179]
for Niemen Reports
criticized mainstream television for biased
presentation of a "Ramboesque struggle
of holy warriors against the evil
empire."[183]

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.[184]

At least some, such as leftist journalist

Alexander Cockburn, were 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."[185] 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."[186] 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
were a million civilians were killed, but the
result of the great difficulty and
unprofitability of media coverage. Kaplan
note that "none of the American TV
networks had a bureau for a war",[187] and
television cameramen venturing to follow
the mujahideen "trekked for weeks on little
food, only to return ill and half starved".[188]
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.'"[187] 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.[189]

Exit

Diplomatic efforts and Geneva

Accords (1983–1988)

As early as 1983, Pakistan's Foreign

ministry began working with the Soviet
Union to provide them an exit from the
Afghanistan, initiatives led by Foreign
Minister Yaqub Ali Khan and Khurshid
Kasuri. Despite an active support for
insurgent groups, Pakistanis remained
sympathetic to the challenges faced by the
Russians in restoring the peace, eventually
exploring the idea towards the possibility
of setting-up the interim system of
government under former monarch Zahir
Shah but this was not authorized by
President Zia-ul-Haq due to his stance on
issue of Durand line.:247–248[190] In 1984–
85, Foreign Minister Yaqub Ali Khan paid
state visits to China, Saudi Arabia, Soviet
Union, France, United States and the
United Kingdom in order to develop
framework for the Geneva Accords which
was signed in 1988 between Pakistan and
Afghanistan. [191]

April 1985 – January 1987: Exit

strategy

Awards ceremony for the 9th Company

Soviet soldier in Afghanistan, 1988

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 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
attacked well-entrenched mujahideen
positions in the Arghandab District, but the
mujahideen held their ground, and the
attackers suffered heavy casualties.[192] In
the spring of 1986, an offensive into Paktia
Province briefly occupied the mujahideen
base at Zhawar only at the cost of heavy
losses.[193] Meanwhile, the mujahideen
benefited from expanded foreign military
support from the United States, Saudi
Arabia, Pakistan and other Muslim
nations. The US tended to favor the
Afghan resistance forces led by Ahmed
Shah Massoud, and US support for
Massoud's forces increased considerably
during the Reagan administration in what
US military and intelligence forces called
"Operation Cyclone". Primary advocates
for supporting Massoud included two
Heritage Foundation foreign policy
analysts, Michael Johns and James A.
Phillips, both of whom championed
Massoud as the Afghan resistance leader
most worthy of US support under the
Reagan Doctrine.[194][195][196]

January 1987 – February 1989:

Withdrawal

Soviet T-62M main battle tank withdraws from

Soviet T-62M main battle tank withdraws from
Afghanistan

The promotion of Mikhail Gorbachev 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. Gorbachev
regarded confrontation with China and
resulting military build ups on that border
as one of Brezhnev's biggest mistakes.
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.[197] 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.[198] 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
Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea to the
point of an all out withdrawal in 1988.[199]
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
hadn't 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 AH-1J Cobra, which
had intruded in Afghan airspace.[200]

Operation Magistral was one of the final

offensive operations undertaken by the
Soviets, a successful sweep operation that
cleared the road between Gardez and
Khost. This operation did not have any
lasting effect on the outcome of the
conflict nor 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.[201]

The first half of the Soviet contingent was

withdrawn from May 15 to August 16,
1988, and the second from November 15
to February 15, 1989. In order to ensure a
safe passage the Soviets had negotiated
ceasefires with local mujahideen
commanders, so the withdrawal was
generally executed peacefully,[202] except
for the operation "Typhoon".
CGen of 40th Army, Boris Gromov, announcing the
withdrawal of Soviet contingent forces.

General Yazov, the Defense Minister of

Soviet Union, ordered the 40th Army to
violate the agreement with Ahmed Shah
Masood, 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 cease fire in effect with
Masood, and who rightly feared an
offensive by Masood's forces after the
Soviet withdrawal.[203] General Gromov, the
40th Army Commander, objected to the
operation, but reluctantly obeyed the order.
"Typhoon" began on January 23 and
continued for three days. To minimize their
own losses the Soviets abstained from
close-range fight, instead they used long-
range artillery, surface-to-surface and air-
to-surface missiles. Numerous civilian
casualties were reported. Masood had not
threatened the withdrawal to this point,
and did not attack Soviet forces after they
breached the agreement.[203] Overall, the
Soviet attack represented a defeat for
Masood's forces, who lost 600 fighters
killed and wounded.[203]

After the withdrawal of the Soviets the

DRA forces were left fighting alone and
had to abandon some provincial capitals,
and 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 sharp defeat on the
mujahideen at Jalalabad.

The government of President Karmal, a

puppet regime, 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."
A column of Soviet BTR armored personnel carriers
departing from Afghanistan.

In November 1986, Mohammad Najibullah,

former chief of the Afghan secret police
(KHAD), was elected General Secretary
and a new constitution was adopted. He
also introduced in 1987 a policy of
"national reconciliation," devised by
experts of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, and later used in other
regions of the world. Despite high
expectations, the new policy neither made
the Moscow-backed Kabul regime more
popular, nor did it convince the insurgents
to negotiate with the ruling government.
Informal negotiations for a Soviet
withdrawal from Afghanistan had been
underway since 1982. In 1988, the
governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan,
with the United States and Soviet Union
serving as guarantors, signed an
agreement settling the major differences
between them known as the Geneva
Accords. The United Nations set up a
special Mission to oversee the process. In
this way, Najibullah had stabilized his
political position enough to begin
matching Moscow's moves toward
withdrawal. On July 20, 1987, the
withdrawal of Soviet troops from the
country was announced. The withdrawal
of Soviet forces was planned out by Lt.
Gen. Boris Gromov, who, at the time, was
the commander of the 40th Army.

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 February 15,
1989, the last Soviet troops departed on
schedule from Afghanistan.

Aerial engagements
Soviet Union and Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan Air Force jet fighters and
bombers would occasionally cross into
Pakistani airspace to target Afghan
refugees camps in Pakistan. In order to
counter the Soviet jets, United States
started providing F-16 jets to Pakistan.[204]
These F-16 jets lacked the capability to fire
radar-guided beyond-visual range missiles
and thus required to get close to their
opponents in order to use their AIM-9P
and more advanced AIM-9L Sidewinder
heat-seeking or their 20-millimeter Vulcan
cannons. On May 17, 1986, two Pakistan
Air Force (PAF) F-16 intercepted two Su-
22M3K belonging to Democratic Republic
of Afghanistan Air Force (DRAAF) near the
Pakistani airspace.[204] Pakistani officials
insisted that both the fighter jets belonging
to DRAAF were shot down while Afghan
officials confirmed loss of only one fighter
jet. Following the engagement, there was
major decline in the number of attacks on
Afghan refugees camps in Pakistan. On
April 16, 1987, a group of PAF F-16s again
chased down two DRAAF Su-22 and
managed to shoot down one of them and
capture its pilot.[204] In the year 1987,
Soviet Union reported that Pakistani
fighter jets were roaming in Afghan
airspace, harassing attempts to aerial
resupply the besieged garrisons like the
one in Khost. On March 30, 1987, two PAF
F-16s shot down an An-26 cargo plane,
killing all 39 personnel on board the
aircraft. In the coming years, PAF claimed
credit for shooting down several Mi-8
transports helicopter, another An-26 which
was on a reconnaissance mission in
1989.[204] In the year 1987, two PAF F-16
ambushed four Mig-23 who were bombing
Mujahideen supply bases. In the clash, one
PAF F-16 was lost after it was accidentally
hit by an AIM-9 Sidewinder fired by the
second PAF F-16. The PAF pilot landed in
Afghanistan territory and was smuggled
back to Pakistan along with wreckage of
his aircraft by the Mujahideen. However,
some Russian sources claim that F-16
was shot down by Mig-23, though the
Russian Mig-23 were not carrying air-to-air
missiles.[204]

On August 8, 1988, Colonel Alexander

Rutskoy was leading a group of Sukhoi Su-
25 fighter jets to attack a refugee camp in
Miramshah, Pakistan. His fighter jet was
intercepted and was shot down by two
PAF F-16.[205] Colonel Alexander Rustkoy
landed in Pakistani territory and was
captured.[204] He was later exchanged
back to Russia. A month later, around
twelve Mig-23 crossed into Pakistani
airspace with the aim to lure ambush the
Pakistani F-16s. Two PAF F-16s flew
towards the Soviet fighter jets.[204] The
Soviet radars failed to detect the low flying
F-16s and the sidewinder fired by one of F-
16 damaged one of the Mig-23. However,
the damaged Mig-23 managed to reach
back home. Two Mig-23 engaged the two
PAF F-16s. The Pakistani officials state
that both the Mig-23 were shot down.
However, Soviet records show that no
additional aircraft was lost on that day.
The last aerial engagement took place on
November 3, 1988. One Su-2M4K
belonging to DRAAF was shot down by
Pakistani airforce jet.[204]

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.[204] In all,
Pakistan Air Force F-16 had downed
several MiG-23s, Su-22s, an Su-25, and an
An-24 while lost only one F-16.[206]

War crimes
Human Rights Watch concluded that the
Soviet Red Army and its communist-allied
Afghan Army perpetrated war crimes and
crimes against humanity in Afghanistan,
intentionally targeting civilians and civilian
areas for attack, killing and torturing
prisoners.[207] Several historians and
scholars went even a step further and
have stated that the Afghans were victims
of genocide by the Soviet Union, including
American professor Samuel Totten,[208]
Australian professor Paul R. Bartrop,[208]
scholars from Yale Law School such as W.
Michael Reisman and Charles Norchi,[209]
writer and human rights advocate
Rosanne Klass,[47] as well as scholar
Mohammed Kakar.[210]

Massacres

The army of the Soviet Union killed large

numbers of Afghans to suppress their
resistance. In one notable incident the
Soviet Army committed mass killing of
civilians in the summer of 1980.[210] To
separate the mujahideen from the local
populations and eliminate their support,
the Soviet army killed, drove off civilians
and used scorched earth tactics to prevent
their return. They used booby traps, mines,
and chemical substances throughout the
country.[210] The Soviet army
indiscriminately killed combatants and
non-combatants to ensure submission by
the local populations.[210] The provinces of
Nangarhar, Ghazni, Lagham, Kunar, Zabul,
Qandahar, Badakhshan, Lowgar, Paktia
and Paktika witnessed extensive
depopulation programmes by the Soviet
forces.[209]

Rape

The Soviet forces abducted Afghan

women in helicopters while flying in the
country in search of mujahideen. In
November 1980 a number of such
incidents had taken place in various parts
of the country, including Laghman and
Kama. Soviet soldiers as well as KhAD
agents kidnapped young women from the
city of Kabul and the areas of Darul Aman
and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons,
to rape them.[211] Women who were taken
and raped by Russian soldiers were
considered 'dishonoured' by their families
if they returned home.[212] Deserters from
the Soviet Army in 1984 also reported the
atrocities by Soviet troops on Afghan
women and children, including rape.[213]

Wanton destruction
An Afghan village left in ruins after being destroyed by
Soviet forces

Irrigation systems, crucial to agriculture in

Afghanistan's arid climate, were destroyed
by aerial bombing and strafing by Soviet or
government forces. In the worst year of
the war, 1985, well over half of all the
farmers who remained in Afghanistan had
their fields bombed, and over one quarter
had their irrigation systems destroyed and
their livestock shot by Soviet or
government troops, according to a survey
conducted by Swedish relief experts.[214]
Everything was the target in the country,
from cities, villages, up to schools,
hospitals, roads, bridges, factories and
orchards. Soviet tactics included targeting
areas which showed support for the
Mujahideen, and forcing the populace to
flee the rural territories the communists
were unable to control. Half of Afghan's
24,000 villages were destroyed by the end
of the war.[215]

Use of chemical weapons

There have also been numerous reports of
chemical weapons being used by Soviet
forces in Afghanistan, often
indiscriminately against
civilians.[159][216][217] A declassified CIA
report from 1982 states that between
1979 and 1982 there were 43 separate
chemical weapons attacks which caused
more than 3000 deaths.[218] By early 1980,
attacks with chemical weapons were
reported in "all areas with concentrated
resistance activity".[218]

Torture
Amnesty International concluded that the
communist-controlled Afghan government
used widespread torture against inmates
(officials, teachers, businessmen and
students suspected of having ties to the
rebels) in interrogation centers in Kabul,
run by the KHAD, who were beaten,
subjected to electric shocks, burned with
cigarettes and that some of their hair was
pulled out. Some died from these harsh
conditions. Women of the prisoners were
forced to watch or were locked up in the
cells with the corpses. The Soviets were
accused of supervising these
tortures.[219][220]
Looting

The Soviet soldiers were looting from the

dead in Afghanistan, including stealing
money, jewelry and clothes.[221] During the
Red Army withdrawal in February 1989, 30
to 40 military trucks crammed with Afghan
historical treasures crossed into the Soviet
Union, under orders from General Boris
Gromov. He cut an antique Tekke carpet
stolen from Darul Aman Palace into
several pieces, and gave it to his
acquaintances.[222]

Foreign involvement
Pro-Mujaheddin

The Afghan mujahideen were backed

primarily by the United States, Saudi
Arabia, Pakistan and the United Kingdom
making it a Cold War proxy war. Out of the
countries that supported the Mujahideen,
the U.S. and Saudi Arabia offered the
greatest financial
support.[11][12][14][16][17][223] However,
private donors and religious charities
throughout the Muslim world—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."[224] 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.[225]

Other countries that supported the

mujaheddin were Egypt and China. Iran on
the other hand only supported the Shia
Mujaheddin 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.[226] They
were supplied predominately by the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps but
Iran's support for the Hazaras nevertheless
frustrated efforts for a united mujahedeen
front.[227]

Pakistan

A German database showing the channelling of the

money and weapons, provided by ISI officer
Mohammad Yousaf in his book: Afghanistan – The
Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower
 p p p

Shortly after the intervention, Pakistan's

military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-
Haq called for a meeting of senior military
members and technocrats of his military
government.[228] At this meeting, General
Zia-ul-Haq asked the Chief of Army Staff
General Khalid Mahmud Arif and the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Admiral Muhammad Shariff to lead a
specialized civil-military team to formulate
a geo-strategy to counter the Soviet
aggression.[228] At this meeting, the
Director-General of the ISI at that time,
Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman
advocated for an idea of covert operation
in Afghanistan by arming the Islamic
extremist.[228] As for Pakistan, the Soviet
war with Islamist mujahideen was viewed
as retaliation for the Soviet Union's long
unconditional support of regional rival,
India, notably during the 1965 and the
1971 wars, which led to the loss of East
Pakistan.[228]

After the Soviet deployment, Pakistan's

military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-
Haq started accepting financial aid from
the Western powers to aid the
mujahideen.[229] In 1981, following the
election of US President Ronald Reagan,
aid for the mujahideen through Zia's
Pakistan significantly increased, mostly
due to the efforts of Texas Congressman
Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust
Avrakotos.[230][231]

The Pakistan Navy were involved in the

covert war coordinating foreign weapons
being funnelled into Afghanistan. Some of
the navy's high-ranking admirals were
responsible for storing those weapons in
their depots.

ISI allocated the highest percentage of

covert aid to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
leader of the Hezb-e-Islami faction. This
was based on his record as an effective
anti-Soviet military commander in
Afghanistan.[232] The other reason was
that Hekmatyar and his men had "almost
no grassroots support and no military
base inside Afghanistan", and thus more
"dependent on Zia-ul-Haq's protection and
financial largesse" than other mujahideen
factions. In retaliation for Pakistan's
assistance to the insurgents, the KHAD
Afghan security service, under leader
Mohammad Najibullah, carried out
(according to the Mitrokhin Archives and
other sources) a large number of
operations against Pakistan. In 1987, 127
incidents resulted in 234 deaths in
Pakistan. In April 1988, an ammunition
depot outside the Pakistani capital of
Islamabad was blown up killing 100 and
injuring more than 1000 people. The KHAD
and KGB were suspected in the
perpetration of these acts.[233] Soviet
fighters and Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan Air Force bombers
occasionally bombed Pakistani villages
along the Pakistani-Afghan border. The
target of Soviet and Afghan fighters and
bombers were Afghan refugees camps on
Pakistan side of the border.[204] These
attacks are known to have caused at least
300 civilian deaths and extensive damage.
Sometimes they got involved in shootings
with the Pakistani jets defending the
airspace.[234]

Pakistan took in millions of Afghan

refugees (mostly Pashtun) fleeing the
Soviet occupation. Although the refugees
were controlled within Pakistan's largest
province, Balochistan under then-martial
law ruler General Rahimuddin Khan, the
influx of so many refugees – believed to
be the largest refugee population in the
world [235]– spread into several other
regions.

All of this had a heavy impact on Pakistan

and its effects continue to this day.
Pakistan, through its support for the
mujahideen, played a significant role in the
eventual withdrawal of Soviet military
personnel from Afghanistan.

United States

In the mid-1970s, Pakistani intelligence

officials began privately lobbying the U.S.
and its allies to send material assistance
to the Islamist insurgents. Pakistani
President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's ties
with the U.S. had been strained during
Jimmy Carter's presidency due to
Pakistan's nuclear program. Carter told
National Security Adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus
Vance as early as January 1979 that it was
vital to "repair our relationships with
Pakistan" in light of the unrest in Iran.[129]

U.S. President Reagan meeting with Afghan

mujahideen at the White House, to highlight Soviet
atrocities in Afghanistan

Carter insisted that what he termed "Soviet

aggression" could not be viewed as an
isolated event of limited geographical
importance but had to be contested as a
potential threat to US influence in the
Persian Gulf region. The US was also
worried about the USSR gaining access to
the Indian Ocean by coming to an
arrangement with Pakistan. The Soviet air
base outside of Kandahar was only thirty
minutes flying time by strike aircraft or
naval bomber to the Persian Gulf. It
"became the heart of the southernmost
concentration of Soviet soldier" in the 300-
year history of Russian expansion in
central Asia.[236]

Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies

on the Soviet Union, became convinced by
mid-1979 that the Soviets were going to
invade Afghanistan regardless of U.S.
policy due to the Carter administration's
failure to respond aggressively to Soviet
activity in Africa. Despite the risk of
unintended consequences, support for the
mujahideen could be an effective way to
prevent Soviet aggression beyond
Afghanistan (particularly in Brzezinski's
native Poland).[131] Carter signed a
"presidential 'finding'" that "authorized the
CIA to spend just over $500,000" on "non-
lethal" aid to the mujahideen, which
"seemed at the time a small
beginning."[129][130][133] Pakistan's Pakistani
security services (ISI) was used as an
intermediary for most of these activities to
disguise the sources of support for the
resistance in a program called Operation
Cyclone.[11] The support all went to the
Sunni Mujahideen, given that the Shiite
Mujahideen had close ties to Iran at the
time.

The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI)

Stansfield Turner and the CIA's Directorate
of Operations (DO) contemplated "several
enhancement options"—up to and
including the direct provision of arms from
the U.S. to the mujahideen through the ISI
—as early as late August 1979 despite the
claim of "non-lethal" assistance.[237] The
first shipment of U.S. weapons intended
for the mujahideen reached Pakistan on
January 10, 1980.[238][239][240]

Charlie Wilson (D-TX), 2nd from the left, dressing in

Afghan clothing (armed with AKS-74U) with the local
Afghan mujahideen.

Democratic congressman Charlie Wilson

became obsessed with the Afghan cause,
in 1982 he visited the Pakistani leadership,
and was taken to a major Pakistan-based
Afghan refugee camp to see first hand the
conditions and the Soviet atrocities. After
his visit he was able to leverage his
position on the House Committee on
Appropriations to encourage other
Democratic congressmen to vote for CIA
Afghan war money.[241] Wilson teamed
with CIA manager Gust Avrakotos and
formed a team of a few dozen insiders
who greatly enhanced support for the
Mujahideen. With Ronald Reagan as
president he then greatly expanded the
program as part of the Reagan Doctrine of
aiding anti-Soviet resistance movements
abroad. To execute this policy, Reagan
deployed CIA Special Activities Division
paramilitary officers to equip the
Mujihadeen forces against the Soviet
Army. Avrakotos hired Michael G. Vickers,
the CIA's regional head who had a close
relationship with Wilson and became a key
architect of the strategy. The program
funding was increased yearly due to
lobbying by prominent U.S. politicians and
government officials, such as Wilson,
Gordon Humphrey, Fred Ikle, and William
Casey. Under the Reagan administration,
U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen
evolved into a centerpiece of U.S. foreign
policy, called the Reagan Doctrine, in
which the U.S. provided military and other
support to anti-communist resistance
movements in Afghanistan, Angola, and
Nicaragua.[242]
The CIA gave the majority of their
weapons and finances to Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami who also
received the lion's share of aid from the
Saudis. There was recurrent contact
between the CIA and Afghan commanders,
especially by agent Howard Hart,[243] and
Director of Central Intelligence William
Casey personally visited training camps on
several occasions.[244][245] There was also
direct Pentagon and State Department
involvement[246][247] which led to several
major mujahideen being welcomed to the
White House for a conference in October
1985. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar declined the
opportunity to meet with Ronald Reagan,
but Yunus Khalis and Abdul Haq were
hosted by the president.[248][249] CIA
agents are also known to have given direct
cash payments to Jalaluddin Haqqani.[250]

The arms included FIM-43 Redeye and

9K32 Strela-2 shoulder-fired, antiaircraft
weapons that they initially used against
Soviet helicopters. Michael Pillsbury, a
Pentagon official, and Vincent Cannistraro
pushed the CIA to supply the Stinger
missile to the rebels.[242] This was first
supplied in 1986; Wilson's good contact
with Zia was instrumental in the final go-
ahead for the Stinger introduction. The
first Hind helicopter was brought down
later that year. The CIA eventually supplied
nearly 500 Stingers (some sources claim
1,500–2,000) to the Mujahideen in
Afghanistan,[251] and 250 launchers.[252]
The impact of the Stinger on the outcome
of the war is contested, nevertheless
some saw it more of a "force multiplier"
and a morale booster.[253]

Overall financially the U.S. offered two

packages of economic assistance and
military sales to support Pakistan's role in
the war against the Soviet troops in
Afghanistan. By the wars end more than
$20 billion in U.S. funds were funnelled
through Pakistan.[254] to train and equip
the Afghan mujahideen militants.
Controversially $600 million went to
Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami party which had
the dubious distinction of never winning a
significant battle during the war. They also
killed significant numbers of mujahideen
from other parties, and eventually took a
virulently anti-Western line.[255] Cyclone
nevertheless was one of the CIA's longest
and most expensive covert operations.[256]
The full significance of the U.S. sending
aid to the mujahideen prior to the
intervention is debated among scholars.
Some assert that it directly, and even
deliberately, provoked the Soviets to send
in troops.[257][258][259][260][261] According to
Steve Coll's dissenting analysis, however:
"Contemporary memos—particularly those
written in the first days after the Soviet
invasion—make clear that while Brzezinski
was determined to confront the Soviets in
Afghanistan through covert action, he was
also very worried the Soviets would
prevail. ... Given this evidence and the
enormous political and security costs that
the invasion imposed on the Carter
administration, any claim that Brzezinski
lured the Soviets into Afghanistan
warrants deep skepticism."[262][263]

As a consequence the US launched

attempted to buy back the Stinger
missiles, with a $55 million program
launched in 1990 to buy back around 300
missiles (US$183,300 each).[264]

Stinger Missile and "Stinger effect"

Painting of the 'first Stinger Missile kill in 1986'.

Whether the introduction of the personal,

portable, infrared-homing surface-to-air
"Stinger" 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.[265] Some military analysts
considered it a "game changer" coined the
term "Stinger effect" to describe it.[266]
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

Mujahedin self-reporting, which is of
unknown reliability. A Russian general
however 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.[267] The Pakistan Army fired
twenty-eight Stingers at enemy aircraft
without a single kill.[268]

Many Russian military analysts tend to be

dismissive of the impact to the Stinger.
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev decided to withdraw from
Afghanistan a year before the mujahideen
fired their first Stinger missiles, 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, along with night operation
and terrain-hugging tactics to prevent the
rebels from getting a clear shot. By 1988
the mujahideen had all but stopped firing
them.[269] 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
antiaircraft weaponry.[270]

United Kingdom
Throughout the war Britain played a
significant role in support of the US and
acted in concert with the U.S. government.
While the US provided far more in financial
and material terms to the Afghan
resistance, the UK played more of a direct
combat role - in particular the Special Air
Service — supporting resistance groups in
practical manners.[271] This turned out to
be Whitehall's most extensive covert
operation since the Second World War.[272]
An Afghan mujahid carries a Lee–Enfield No. 4 in
August 1985

Unlike the U.S., British aid to the Afghan

resistance began before the Soviet
invasion was actually launched, working
with chosen Afghani forces during the
Afghan government's close ties to the
Soviet Union in the late seventies. Within
three weeks of the invasion this was
stepped up - cabinet secretary, Sir Robert
Armstrong sent a note to Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher, Secretary of State
Peter Carrington and "C", the head of MI6
arguing the case for military aid to
"encourage and support resistance".
Support was approved by the British
government who then authorised MI6 to
conduct operations in the first year of the
Soviet occupation, coordinated by MI6
officers in Islamabad in liaison with the
CIA and the ISI.

Thatcher visited Pakistan in October 1981

and met President Zia-ul-Haq, toured the
refugee camps close to the Afghan border
and then gave a speech telling the people
that the hearts of the free world were with
them and promised aid. The Kremlin
responded to the whole incident by
blasting Thatcher's "provocation aimed at
stirring up anti-Soviet hysteria." Five years
later two prominent Mujaheddin,
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Haq met
Thatcher in Downing Street.[273]

MI6 helped the CIA by activating long-

established British networks of contacts in
Pakistan.[274] MI6 supported one of the
hardline Islamic groups commanded by
Ahmad Shah Massoud a young
commander in the Panjshir Valley. Despite
the CIA's doubts on Massoud he
nevertheless became a key MI6 ally and
would become an effective fighter. They
sent an annual mission of two of their
officers as well as military instructors to
Massoud and his fighters. They stayed for
three weeks or more in the mountains
moving supplies to Massoud under the
noses of the Pakistanis who insisted on
maintaining control. The team's most
important contribution was help with
organisation and communication via radio
equipment. The Cheltenham-based GCHQ
intercepted and translated Soviet battle
plan communications which was then
relayed to the Afghan resistance.[275] MI6
also helped to retrieve crashed Soviet
helicopters from Afghanistan - parts of
which were carried on mules.[66]

In the Spring of 1986, Whitehall sent

weapons clandestinely to some units of
the Mujaheddin, and made sure their
origins were open to speculation.[276] The
most notable of these was the Blowpipe
missile launchers. These had proved a
failure in the Falklands War and had been
mothballed by the British army, but were
available on the international arms market.
Around fifty Launchers and 300 Missiles
were delivered[277] and the system
nevertheless proved ineffective; thirteen
missiles were fired for no hits and it was
eventually supplanted by the US Stinger
missile.[278] The mujaheddin were also
sent hundreds of thousands of old British
army small arms, mostly Lee Enfield rifles,
some of which were purchased from old
Indian Army stocks.[279] They also included
limpet mines which proved the most
successful, destroying Soviet barges on
their side of the Amu River.[280]

In 1983 the Special Air Service were sent

in to Pakistan and worked alongside their
SSG, whose commandos guided guerrilla
operations in Afghanistan in the hope
officers could impart their learned
expertise directly to the Afghans. Britain
also directly trained Afghan forces, much
of which was contracted out to private
security firms, a policy cleared by the
British Government. The main company
was Keenie Meenie Services (KMS Ltd)
lead by former SAS officers.[281] In 1985
they helped train Afghans in sabotage,
reconnaissance, attack planning, arson,
how to use explosive devices and heavy
artillery such as mortars. One of these
men was a key trainer, a former senior
officer in the royal Afghan army, Brigadier
General Rahmatullah Safi - he trained as
many as 8,000 men. As well as sending
Afghan commando units to secret British
bases in Oman to train; KMS even sent
them to Britain. Disguised as tourists
selected junior commanders in the
mujaheddin were trained in three week
cycles in Scotland, northern and Southern
England on SAS training grounds.[275][280]

The UK 's role in the conflict entailed direct

military involvement not only in
Afghanistan, but the Central Asian
republics of the Soviet Union.[281] MI6
organised and executed "scores" of psyop
attacks in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, on
Soviet troop supplies which flowed from
these areas. These were the first direct
Western attacks on the Soviet Union since
the 1950s. MI6 also funded the spread of
radical and anti-Soviet Islamic literature in
the Soviet republics.[275]

China

During the Sino-Soviet split, strained

relations between China and the USSR
resulted in bloody border clashes and
mutual backing for the opponent's
enemies. China and Afghanistan had
neutral relations with each other during the
King's rule. When the pro-Soviet Afghan
Communists seized power in Afghanistan
in 1978, relations between China and the
Afghan communists quickly turned hostile.
The Afghan pro-Soviet communists
supported China's then-enemy Vietnam
and blamed China for supporting Afghan
anti-communist militants. China
responded to the Soviet war in
Afghanistan by supporting the mujahideen
and ramping up their military presence
near Afghanistan in Xinjiang. China
acquired military equipment from America
to defend itself from Soviet attack.[282] At
the same time relations with the United
States had cooled considerably that by
1980 Washington had begun to supply
China with a variety of weapons. They
even reached an agreement of two joint
tracking and listening stations in
Xinjiang.[283]
The Chinese People's Liberation Army
provided training, arms organisation and
financial support. Anti-aircraft missiles,
rocket launchers and machine guns,
valued at hundreds of millions, were given
to the mujahideen by the Chinese.
Throughout the war Chinese military
advisers and army troops trained upwards
of several thousand Mujahidin inside
Xinjiang and along the Pakistani
border.[283]

Pro-Soviet

Prior to the Soviet Union's move on

Afghanistan the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet's
allies, were not consulted. Eastern
European troops did not take part in the
invasion or occupation of Afghanistan. In
the end the Soviets would have nothing
more than limited political support from
the Warsaw Pact countries.[284] Romania
went further and broke with its Warsaw
Pact allies and abstained when the UN
General Assembly voted on a resolution
calling for the immediate and
unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops.
The only other communist country, North
Korea, also refused to endorse the
invasion partly because China was
supporting the Mujaheddin, so they had to
create a fine political balance between
them and the Soviets.[285] The only allies
of the Soviet Union to give support to the
intervention were Angola, East Germany,
Vietnam and India.[65]

India

India, a close ally of the Soviet Union,

endorsed the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan[65] and by the end of the
hostilities, offered to provide humanitarian
assistance to the Afghan
government.[286][287] India didn't condemn
the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as
India was excessively dependent on the
Soviet Union for its military and
security,[288] and it has been said that "the
failure of the Indian government to publicly
condemn the invasion, its support of the
Soviet puppet regime of Kabul, and its
hostile vision of the resistance have
created major stumbling blocks in Afghan-
Indian relations."[289] India also opposed
an UN resolution condemning the
intervention.[290]

Impact

International reaction

President Jimmy Carter placed a trade

embargo against the Soviet Union on
shipments of commodities such as grain.
This resulted in newly increased tensions
between the two nations. On top of
recently sparked apprehensions in the
West directed toward the tens of
thousands of Soviet troops which were of
close proximity to oil-rich regions in the
Persian Gulf, the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan effectively brought about the
end of détente.

The international diplomatic response was

severe, ranging from stern warnings from
the UN to a US-led boycott of the 1980
Summer Olympics in Moscow. The
intervention, along with other events, such
as the Iranian revolution and the US
hostage stand-off that accompanied it, the
Iran–Iraq War, the 1982 Lebanon War and
the escalating tensions between Pakistan
and India, contributed to the volatility of
the Middle East and South Asian regions in
the 1980s.

The Non-Aligned Movement was sharply

divided between those who believed the
Soviet deployment to be a legitimate
police action and others who considered
the deployment an illegal invasion. Among
the Warsaw Pact countries, the
intervention was condemned only by
Romania.[291]
Soviet personnel strengths and
casualties

Soviet soldiers return from Afghanistan, October 1986

Spetsnaz troops interrogate a captured mujahideen

with an RPG, rounds and AK47 in the background,
1986
Between December 25, 1979, and February
15, 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 KGB
sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations
of 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 irrecoverable personnel losses of

the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier, and
internal security troops came to 14,453.
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.[292]

Material losses were as follows:[38]

451 aircraft (includes 333 helicopters)

147 tanks
1,314 IFV/APCs
433 artillery guns and 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[293] ($115 billion in 2019
USD).[294] 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).[295] Financial
and economic aid were also significant; by
1990, 75% of the Afghan state's income
came from Soviet aid.[296]

Causes of withdrawal

Some of the causes of the Soviet Union's

withdrawal from Afghanistan leading to
the Afghanistan regime's eventual defeat
include[297]

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. The large Red Army
formations weren't mobile enough to
engage small groups of Muj fighters that
easily merged back into the terrain.[297]
The set strategy also meant that troops
were discouraged from "tactical
initiative", essential in counter
insurgency, because it "tended to upset
operational timing".[298]
The Russians used large-scale
offensives against Mujahideen
strongholds, such as in the Panjshir
Valley, which temporarily clearing those
sectors and killed many civilians in
addition to enemy combatants. The
biggest shortcoming here was the fact
that once the Russians did engage the
enemy in force, they failed to hold the
ground by withdrawing once their
operation was completed. The killing of
civilians further alienated the population
from the Soviets, with bad long-term
effects.[297]
The Soviets didn't have enough men to
fight a counter-insurgency war
(COIN),[298] and their troops were not
motivated. The peak number of Soviet
troops during the war was 115,000. The
bulk of these troops were conscripts,
which led to poor combat performance
in their Motor-Rifle Formations.
However, the Russians 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.[297]
Intelligence gathering, essential for
successful COIN, was inadequate. The
Soviets over-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.[297]
The concept of a "war of national
liberation" against a Soviet-sponsored
"revolutionary" regime was so alien to
the Soviet dogma, 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 how bad the war was going, which
caused a backlash when it was unable
to hide it further.[298]

Casualties and destruction in

Afghanistan

A member of the International Committee of the Red

Cross helping a wounded Afghan child walk in 1986

Civilian death and destruction from the

war was considerable. Estimates of
Afghan civilian deaths vary from
562,000[46] to 2,000,000.[47][48] By one
estimate, at least 800,000 Afghans were
killed during the Soviet occupation.[299] 5
million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran,
1/3 of the prewar population of the
country, and another 2 million were
displaced within the country. In the 1980s,
half of all refugees in the world were
Afghan.[214] In his report, Felix Ermacora,
the UN Special Rapporteur to Afghanistan,
enumerated 32,755 killed civilians, 1,834
houses and 74 villages destroyed, and
3,308 animals killed in the first nine
months of 1985.[300]

R. J. Rummel, an analyst of political

killings, estimated that Soviet forces were
responsible for 250,000 democidal killings
during the war and that the government of
Afghanistan was responsible for 178,000
democidal killings. He also assumed that
overall a million people died during the
war.[301] There were also a number of
reports of large scale executions of
hundreds of civilians by Soviet and DRA
soldiers.[302][303][304] Noor Ahmed Khalidi
calculated that 876,825 Afghans were
killed up until 1987.[50] Historian John W.
Dower somewhat agrees with this
estimate, citing 850,000 civilian fatalities,
while the military fatalities "certainly
totaled over 100,000".[305] Marek Sliwinski
estimated the number of war deaths to be
much higher, at a median of 1.25 million,
or 9% of the entire pre-war Afghan
population.[51] Scholars John Braithwaite
and Ali Wardak accept this in their
estimate of 1.2 million dead Afghans.[306]
However, Siddieq Noorzoy presents an
even higher figure of 1.71 million deaths
during the Soviet-Afghan war.[307][308] Anti-
government forces were also responsible
for some casualties. Rocket attacks on
Kabul's residential areas caused more
than 4,000 civilian deaths in 1987
according to the UN's Ermacora.[309]

Along with fatalities were 1.2 million

Afghans disabled (mujahideen,
government soldiers and noncombatants)
and 3 million maimed or wounded
(primarily noncombatants).[310]
A PFM-1 mine, often mistaken for a toy by children.
The mine's shape was dictated by aerodynamics.[311]

The population of Afghanistan's second

largest city, Kandahar, was reduced from
200,000 before the war to no more than
25,000 inhabitants, following a months-
long campaign of carpet bombing and
bulldozing by the Soviets and Afghan
communist soldiers in 1987.[312] Land
mines had killed 25,000 Afghans during
the war and another 10–15 million land
mines, most planted by Soviet and
government forces, were left scattered
throughout the countryside.[313] The
International Committee of the Red Cross
estimated in 1994 that it would take 4,300
years to remove all the Soviet land mines
in Afghanistan.[314]

A great deal of damage was done to the

civilian children population by land
mines.[315] A 2005 report estimated 3–4%
of the Afghan population were disabled
due to Soviet and government land mines.
In the city of Quetta, a survey of refugee
women and children taken shortly after the
Soviet withdrawal found child mortality at
31%, and over 80% of the children refugees
to be unregistered. Of children who
survived, 67% were severely malnourished,
with malnutrition increasing with age.[316]

Critics of Soviet and Afghan government

forces describe their effect on Afghan
culture as working in three stages: first,
the center of customary Afghan culture,
Islam, was pushed aside; second, Soviet
patterns of life, especially amongst the
young, were imported; third, shared Afghan
cultural characteristics were destroyed by
the emphasis on so-called nationalities,
with the outcome that the country was
split into different ethnic groups, with no
language, religion, or culture in
common.[317]

The 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.[318]

Before the war, Afghanistan was already

one of the world's poorest nations. 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.[319]
Afghan guerrillas that were chosen to receive medical
treatment in the United States, Norton Air Force Base,
California, 1986

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.[320]
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.[321][322]

The CIA World Fact Book reported that as

of 2004, Afghanistan still owed $8 billion
in bilateral debt, mostly to Russia,[323]
however, in 2007 Russia agreed to cancel
most of the debt.[324]

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.[214]
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 Peshawar, 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).[325][326] At
the same time, close to two million
Afghans were living in Iran. Over the years
Pakistan and Iran have imposed tighter
controls on refugees which have resulted
in numerous returnees.[327][328] In 2012
Pakistan banned extensions of visas to
foreigners.[326][329] Afghan refugees have
also settled in India and became Indian
citizens over time.[330][331][332] Some also
made their way into North America, the
European Union, Australia, and other parts
of the world.[333] The photo of Sharbat
Gula placed on National Geographic cover
in 1985 became a symbol both of the
1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee
situation.

Aftermath

Weakening of the Soviet Union

According to scholars Rafael Reuveny and

Aseem Prakash, the war contributed to the
fall of the Soviet Union by undermining the
image of the Red Army as invincible,
undermining Soviet legitimacy, and by
creating new forms of political
participation.

The war created a cleavage between the

party and the military in the Soviet Union,
where the efficacy of using the Soviet
military to maintain the USSR's overseas
interests was now put in doubt. In the non-
Russian republics, those interested in
independence were emboldened by the
army's defeat. In Russia the war created a
cleavage between the party and the
military, changing the perceptions of
leaders about the ability to put down anti-
Soviet resistance militarily (as it had in
Czechoslovakia in 1968, Hungary in 1956,
and East Germany in 1953). As the war
was viewed as "a Russian war fought by
non Russians against Afghans", outside of
Russia it undermined the legitimacy of the
Soviet Union as a trans-national political
union. The war created new forms of
political participation, in the form of new
civil organizations of war veterans
(Afghansti), which weakened the political
hegemony of the communist party. It also
started the transformation of the press
and media, which continued under
glasnost.[52]
Civil war

Two Soviet T-55 tanks left by the Soviet army during

their withdrawal lie rusting in a field near Bagram
Airfield, in 2002

The war did not end with the withdrawal of

the Soviet Army. The Soviet Union left
Afghanistan deep in winter, with
intimations of panic among Kabul officials.
The Afghan mujahideen were poised to
attack provincial towns and cities and
eventually Kabul, if necessary. General
Secretary Mohammed Najibullah's
government, though failing to win popular
support, territory, or international
recognition, was able to remain in power
until 1992. Ironically, until demoralized by
the defections of its senior officers, the
Afghan Army had achieved a level of
performance it had never reached under
direct Soviet tutelage. Kabul had achieved
a stalemate that exposed the mujahideen's
weaknesses, political and military. But for
nearly three years, while Najibullah's
government successfully defended itself
against mujahideen attacks, factions
within the government had also developed
connections with its opponents.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989
proposed a peace plan in cooperation with
leader of Afghanistan, Mohammad
Najibullah, for the joint cutoff of Soviet and
American aid to the government and
guerillas respectively, to result in a
ceasefire and peace negotiations.[334]
Najibullah sought American cooperation in
achieving a political solution.[335] However
the newly elected administration of George
H. W. Bush rejected the plan, expecting to
win the war through battle. Almost
immediately after the Soviet withdrawal
the mujahideen attacked the eastern city
of Jalalabad in a plan instigated by Hamid
Gul of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence
(ISI).[336] Both the Americans and
Pakistanis expected for Jalalabad to
rapidly fall to the guerillas and lead to a
final victorious attack in Kabul.[334][337] The
Afghan Army proved their capability
without Soviet troops as they managed to
restrain the mujahideen attack, resulting in
a major defeat for the mujahideen.[336]

The victory at Jalalabad gave Najibullah's

government confidence that it start a
political solution, specifically one involving
former communists and moderates from
the opposition.[335] Along with the Afghan
and Soviet governments, China also
publicly said that it supports the creation
"broad-based" government, and Iran also
supporting a negotiated peaceful solution
- both China and Iran being guerilla-
backing countries. The United States and
Pakistan though remained committed to a
military solution. In addition, the Afghan
government could claim that Jalalabad's
bombardment, in which thousands of
civilians lost their lives and much of the
city damaged, was masterminded by the
United States and Pakistan, using
American weaponry.[334]

In December 1990, the United States and

the Soviet Union came close to an
agreement to end arms supplies to the
sides in the civil war, but a date could not
be agreed.[338] In March 1991,[339] the
guerillas managed to win over a city for
the first time: Khost, which was nicknamed
"Little Russia" due to the city's high
support of local communist officials.[340]
However the guerillas were unable to fully
defeat the Afghan Army as expected by
the United States and Pakistan, and
neither could the Najibullah government
win on the battlefield.[341] This situation
ended following the 1991 August Coup in
the Soviet Union[341] - according to Russian
publicist Andrey Karaulov, the main trigger
for Najibullah losing power was Russia's
refusal to sell oil products to Afghanistan
in 1992 for political reasons (the new Boris
Yeltsin government did not want to
support the former communists), which
effectively triggered an embargo. The
defection of General Abdul Rashid Dostam
and his Uzbek militia, in March 1992,
further undermined Najibullah's control of
the state. In April, Najibullah and his
communist government fell to the
mujahideen, who replaced Najibullah with
a new governing council for the country.

Civil war continued when the former

mujahideen guerillas, which were never
under a united command during the period
from 1979 to 1992, failed to create a
functioning unity government in 1992. The
civil war continued and about 400,000
Afghan civilians had lost their lives in the
1990s, eventually leading to Taliban
rule.[342]

Grain production declined an average of

3.5% per year between 1978 and 1990 due
to sustained fighting, instability in rural
areas, prolonged drought, and deteriorated
infrastructure.[343] Soviet efforts to disrupt
production in rebel-dominated areas also
contributed to this decline. During the
withdrawal of Soviet troops, Afghanistan's
natural gas fields were capped to prevent
sabotage. Restoration of gas production
has been hampered by internal strife and
the disruption of traditional trading
relationships following the dissolution of
the Soviet Union.

Extremism and "blowback"

The Soviet
Following the Soviet
strategy of withdrawal, some of the
"rubblization foreign volunteers
" returned (including Osama bin
the country Laden's al-Qaeda)[345] and
to the Dark
young Afghan refugees,
Ages, paving
went on to continue violent
the way for a
jihad in Afghanistan,
radicalizatio
n of the Pakistan and abroad.
survivors Some of the thousands of
(many of Afghan Arabs who left
whom joined
Afghanistan went on to
the now
become "capable leaders,
infamous
religious ideologues and
Taliban
movement) military commanders," who
that would played "vital roles" as
be realized insurgents or terrorists in
in the places such as Algeria,
decade after
Egypt, Bosnia and
the Soviet
Chechnya.[346] Tens of
departure in
thousands of Afghan
1988.
Samuel refugee children in
Totten & Pakistan were educated in
Paul madrassas "in a spirit of
Bartrop[344] conservatism and religious
 rigor", and went on to fill
the ranks and leadership of the Taliban in
Afghanistan and Sipah-e-Sahaba in
Pakistan. [347] The groups embodied new
varieties of Political Islam – "Salafi
jihadism" among the foreign
volunteers,[345] and a "hybrid" Deobandi
jihadism among the madrassa-
educated.[347]

General Secretary Najibullah, before his

ouster by the mujahideen in 1992, told a
visiting US academic that "Afghanistan in
extremist hands would be a center of
instability." It has been claimed that the
chaos may have been avoided if the Bush
administration was willing to support the
Najibullah and Soviet proposals of a
coalition government with the guerillas,
instead of a total military solution.
Najibullah also told the International Herald
Tribune that "if fundamentalism comes to
Afghanistan, war will continue for many
years. Afghanistan will be turned into a
center of terrorism."[335]

U.S. troops in 2011 conveying the Salang Pass during

the War in Afghanistan, the route used by Soviet
forces during the invasion 32 years prior
As many as 35,000 non-Afghan Muslim
fighters went to Afghanistan between
1982 and 1992.[170] Thousands more
came and did not fight but attended
schools with "former and future
fighters".[170] These "Afghan-Arabs" had a
marginal impact on the jihad against the
Soviets, but a much greater effect after the
Soviets left and in other countries. (After
the Soviets left, training continued and
"tens of thousands" from "some 40
nations" came to prepare for armed
insurrections "to bring the struggle back
home".[348] )
The man instrumental not only in
generating international support but also
in inspiring these volunteers to travel to
Afghanistan for the jihad was a Palestinian
Muslim Brotherhood cleric, Abdullah
Azzam. Touring the Muslim world and the
United States, he inspired young Muslims
with stories of miraculous deeds, such as
mujahideen who defeated vast columns of
Soviet troops virtually single-handedly,
angels riding into battle on horseback, and
falling bombs intercepted by birds.[349]

When back in the volunteer camps and

training centers that he helped set up
around Peshawar, Pakistan, Azzam
exercised a "strong influence." [350] He
preached the importance of jihad: "those
who believe that Islam can flourish [and]
be victorious without Jihad, fighting, and
blood are deluded and have no
understanding of the nature of this
religion";[351] of not compromising: "Jihad
and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no
conferences and no dialogues";[352] and
that Afghanistan was only the beginning:
jihad would "remain an individual
obligation" for Muslims until all other
formerly-Muslim lands—"Palestine,
Bukhara, Lebanon, Chad, Eritrea, Somalia,
the Philippines, Burma, South Yemen,
Tashkent, Andalusia"—were reconquered.
[353]

The volunteers also influenced each other.

Many "unexpected" religious-political ideas
resulted from the "cross-pollination" during
the "great gathering" of Islamists from
dozens of countries in the camps and
training centers. [345] One in particular was
a "variant of Islamist ideology based on
armed struggle and extreme religious
vigour", known as Salafi jihadism. [354]

When the Soviet Union fell shortly after

their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the
volunteers were "exultant",[355] believing
that—in the words of Osama bin Laden—
the credit for "the dissolution of the Soviet
Union ... goes to God and the mujahideen
in Afghanistan ... the US had no
mentionable role,"[356] (Soviet economic
troubles and United States aid to
mujahideen notwithstanding). They
eagerly sought to duplicate their jihad in
other countries. [355]

Three such countries were Bosnia, Algeria

and Egypt. In Bosnia the Salafi jihadist
Afghan Arabs fought against Bosnian Serb
and Croat militias but failed to establish a
Salafi state. In Algeria and Egypt thousand
of volunteers returned and fought but were
even less successful.[357][358] In Algeria
Salafi jihadist helped lead and fight for the
GIA, deliberately killing thousands of
civilians.[359] In Egypt the Al-Gama'a al-
Islamiyya killed more than a thousand
people between 1990 and 1997 but also
failed to overthrow the
government.[359][360]

Spread of extremism in Pakistan

Among the approximately three million

Afghan refugees in Pakistan, thousands of
children were educated in madrasa
boarding schools financed by aid from the
US and Gulf monarchies. Since that aid
was distributed according to the
conservative Islamist ideological criteria
of Pakistan's President Muhammad Zia-ul-
Haq and Saudi Arabia (and ignoring native
Afghan traditions), the schools were part
of networks of the favored Hizb-e-Islami
party and the Pakistan Deobandi. [347][361]
(Iran provided similar help to Shia Islamist
groups and punishments to moderate Shia
nationalist Afghans.[362])

Cut off from families and local traditions,

the madrassa students were "educated to
put Deobandi doctrines into action through
obedience to the fatwas produced in the
madrasses in a spirit of conservatism and
religious rigor." As the Afghan students
came of age, they formed "the mainstay"
of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of the
anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba Sunni terror
group in Pakistan. But unlike the
traditionally non-violent Deobandi, this
"hybrid movement" embraced the violence
of jihad, and unlike the Islamists of Hizb-e-
Islami they were uninterested in
"islamizing modernity" of western
knowledge or in western knowledge at all.
[68] The culture of religious purification,
absolute obedience to leaders, and
disinterest in anything else, is thought to
explain the willingness of Hizb-e-Islami-
trained soldiers to bombard Kabul with
artillery and kill thousands of civilians,
reassured by their commander that the
civilians they killed would "be rewarded" in
heaven if they were "good Muslims".[363]
From 2008 to 2014 "thousands of Shia"
have been killed by Sunni extremists
according to Human Rights Watch.[364]

"Blowback"

Blowback, or unintended consequences of

funding the mujahideen, was said to have
come to the United States in the 1993
World Trade Center bombing and the
September 11 attacks.[359] In the 1993
bombing, all of the participants in the
bombing "either had served in Afghanistan
or were linked to a Brooklyn-based fund-
raising organ for the Afghan jihad" that
was later "revealed to be al-Qaeda's de
facto U.S. headquarters".[359] Principals in
the 2001 attack—Osama Bin Laden, Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed[365] – had both fought
in Afghanistan, and bin Laden was a
lieutenant of Abdullah Azzam. His group
al-Qaeda, returned to Afghanistan to take
refuge with the Taliban after being
expelled from Sudan.[359] Before the 9/11
attack, al-Qaeda had bombed two U.S.
embassies in Africa in 1998, and nearly
sank the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.[359]
However, no direct U.S. aid to bin Laden or
any of his affiliates has ever been
established.[366]

Media and popular culture

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

Perception in Afghanistan

Afghans commemorating Mujahideen Victory Day in

Kabul (2007)
The war has left a controversial legacy for
Afghan people.[367] The Mujahideen
Victory Day is an annual holiday in
Afghanistan on April 28, however it is a
controversial event to Afghans. On one
hand Afghans honor the fighters and
sacrifice made by the mujahideen to
defeat a major power. Others view the
victory as a prelude to the brutal 1990s
civil war that divided the country politically
and ethnically.[53]

Many Afghans see their victory in the war

as a source of pride.[368] Atta Muhammad
Nur, a former commander of the
mujahideen, says that the war was a
victory for Afghans but also the former
Soviet bloc for bringing "freedom" to
nations oppressed by Moscow. However
other Afghans hold the view that
subsequent infighting and the rise of the
Taliban undermined the victory in the
war.[369]

Role of the United States

Pro-mujahideen Afghans had seen the

United States as the main power to help
their cause in the Soviet–Afghan War.
However, after the Soviet withdrawal in
1989, a growing number of Afghans
started blaming the United States for
miseries. This was cited as a result of
continued American arming and funding of
rebels against the pro-Soviet
administration in Kabul. Throughout 1989
and 1990, many rebel rocket attacks were
fired, nowhere near military targets, that
killed dozens of Afghan civilians.[370] Many
Afghans also reportedly felt that the U.S.
caused the rise of the Taliban following
billions of dollars in funding for the rebels
while leaving the country to Pakistan's
hands after 1992. One Afghan ex-prisoner
who was affiliated with the U.S. Embassy
in Kabul told the Chicago Tribune in 2001:
 Afghan people have good
memories of the Americans.
During the Russian invasion
everybody knows that America
helped us to get the Russians
out. But when Russia collapsed,
they had no more interest and
they left us alone[371]

Perception in the former

Soviet Union
20th Anniversary of Withdrawal of Soviet Military
Forces from Afghanistan, stamp of Belarus, 2009

A meeting of Russian war veterans from Afghanistan,

1990

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.[372]
The remembrance of Soviet soldiers killed
in Afghanistan and elsewhere
internationally are commemorated
annually on February 15 in Russia, Ukraine
and Belarus. Veterans of the war are often
referred to as афганцы (Afgantsy) in
Russian.[373]

Russian Federation

Commemorating the intervention of

December 25, 1979, in December 2009,
veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan
were honoured by the Duma or Parliament
of the Russian Federation. On December
25, the lower house of the parliament
defended the Soviet war in Afghanistan on
the 30th anniversary of its start, and
praised the veterans of the conflict.
Differing assessments of the war "mustn't
erode the Russian people's respect for the
soldiers who honestly fulfilled their duty in
implementing tasks to combat
international terrorism and religious
extremists".[374]

Duma member Semyon Bagdasarov (Just

Russia) advocated that Russia had to
reject Western calls for stronger
assistance to the US-led ISAF-coalition in
Afghanistan and also had to establish
contacts with the "anti-Western forces";
the Taliban, in case they regain
power.[375][376]

In November 2018, Russian lawmakers

from United Russia and Communist
parties jointly approved a draft resolution
seeking to justify the Soviet–Afghan War
as well as declare null and void the 1989
resolution passed by the Congress of
People's Deputies of the Soviet Union
which condemned the intervention.
Communist lawmaker Nikolay Kharitonov
hailed the decision as a victory for
"historical truth".[377]

Ukraine
Memorial to soldiers located in Kolomyia, Ukraine

About 25 percent of Soviet servicemen in

Afghanistan were Ukrainian, numbering
160,000 of which more than 3,000 died
and dozens more went missing.[378]

Uzbekistan

The war affected many families in post-

Soviet Uzbekistan who had lost children.
Some 64,500 young men from the Uzbek
SSR were drafted in the war. At least 1,522
were killed and more than 2,500 left
disabled.[379] The former Uzbekistani
president Islam Karimov described the
Afghan war as a "major mistake" of the
Soviet Union.[380]

Belarus

The Soviet–Afghan War has caused grief

in the memories of Belarusians, but
apparently remains a topic rarely
discussed in public. It remains the last war
the nation took part in. 28,832 Belarusian
natives were involved in the campaign and
732 died. Most casualties were under 20
years old.[372]

The Soviet invasion is considered by many

Belarusians as a shameful act, and some
veterans have refused to accept medals.
Many veterans have had cold relations
with the Belarusian regime of Alexander
Lukashenko, accusing the government of
depriving them of benefits. One
Afghanistan veteran, Mikalaj Autukhovich,
has been deemed a political prisoner by
the present regime of Belarus.[372]

Moldova
Around 12,500 residents of the Moldovan
SSR served during the war. Of those, 301
Moldovans died in the war.[381] The Union
of Veterans of the War in Afghanistan of
the Republic of Moldova is a veteran's
group based in Moldova that advocates
for the well being of veterans.[382] On May
15, 2000, after the Government's initiative
to abolish benefits for veterans of the war
in Afghanistan, sympathizers went to
Great National Assembly Square. In 2001,
the Party of Communists of the Republic
of Moldova, which came to power,
radically changed the position of all
veterans in the country.[383] February 15 is
celebrated as the Day of Commemoration
of those killed in the War in
Afghanistan.[384] The main ceremony is
held at the memorial "Sons of the
Motherland - Eternal Memory".

See also
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
Post–World War II air-to-air combat
losses
Shuravi
Soviet involvement in Indo-Pakistan War
of 1971
Soviet occupation zone
 Spetsnaz (Russian Special Purpose
Regiments)
Terrorism and the Soviet Union
Afghanistan conflict (1978–present)
Political philosophies and doctrines
Brezhnev Doctrine
Carter Doctrine
Interventionism
Reagan Doctrine
Zia Doctrine

Notes
1. The Soviet deployment had been variously
called an "invasion" (by Western media and
the rebels) or a legitimate supporting
 intervention (by the Soviet Union and the
Afghan government).[60][61] Amnesty
International described it as an invasion.[62]

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210. Kakar 1997, p. 215

The Afghans are among the

latest victims of genocide by a
superpower. Large numbers of
Afghans were killed to suppress
resistance to the army of the
Soviet Union, which wished to
vindicate its client regime and
realize its goal in Afghanistan.
211. Kakar 1997, p. 224

While military operations in

the country were going on,
women were abducted. While
flying in the country in search
of mujahideen, helicopters
would land in fields where
women were spotted. While
Afghan women do mainly
domestic chores, they also
work in fields assisting their
husbands or performing tasks
by themselves. The women
were now exposed to the
Russians, who kidnapped them
with helicopters. By November
1980 a number of such
incidents had taken place in
various parts of the country,
including Laghman and Kama.
In the city of Kabul, too, the
Russians kidnapped women,
taking them away in tanks and
other vehicles, especially after
dark. Such incidents happened
mainly in the areas of Darul
Aman and Khair Khana, near
the Soviet garrisons. At times
such acts were committed even
during the day. KhAD agents
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3 3. "Информация о союзе" . www.afgan.md.
3 4. "Președintele Maia Sandu a participat la
manifestările consacrate Zilei comemorării
celor căzuți în războiul din Afganistan" .
president.md.

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External links

Wikimedia Commons has media

related to Soviet–Afghan War.

"Compound War Case Study: The

Soviets in Afghanistan"
Video on Afghan-Soviet War from the
Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital
Archives
Soviets and the Gulf War from the Dean
Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital
Archives
CIA Factbook on Afghanistan
The Art of War project, dedicated to the
soldiers of the recent wars, set up by the
veterans of the Afghan war . Has
Russian and English versions
"Afganvet" (Russian: "Афганвет") –
USSR/Afghanistan war veterans
community
The Role of Afghanistan in the fall of the
USSR by Rameen Moshref
Empire Museum of Military History
(Spain) – USSR/Afghanistan conflict
original photos
U.N resolution A/RES/37/37 over the
Intervention in the Country
Afghanistan Country Study (details up
to 1985)
A highly detailed description of the Coup
de Main in Kabul 1979
Primary Sources on the Invasion
Compiled by The Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars
Soviet Airborne: Equipment and
Weapons used by the Soviet Airborne
(VDV) and DShB from 1979 to 1991 .
English only.
 The Soviet Military Experience in
Afghanistan: A Precedent of Dubious
Relevance
Afghanistan 1979: The War That
Changed the World, Icarus Films ,
featuring interviews with numerous U.S.
and Soviet officials including Gorbachev

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