Soviet war in Afghanistan

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{{Warbox |conflict= Soviet - Afghan war |partof=Cold War |campaign= |image=Image:Evstafiev-Soviet-slodier-Afghanistan.jpg |caption=A Soviet soldier on guard in Afghanistan in 1988.
Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev |date= December 1979 - February 1989 |place= Afghanistan |casus= Use of the Treaty of Friendship between Afghanistan and the USSR. |territory= |result= Soviet withdrawal
Afghan Civil War
|combatant1= USSR
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan |combatant2= Mujahideen Rebels supported by nations such as the United States, Pakistan, China and Saudi Arabia |commander1= General Boris Gromov |commander2= Gulbuddin Hekmatyar Sibghatullah Mojadeddi Ahmed Shah Massoud Abdul Ali Mazari

Indirect and Minor roles Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq Osama Bin Laden

|strength1= |strength2= |casualties1=Over 15,000 Soviet military personnel killed according to the Soviet figure (many Western estimates put the number much higher, around 50,000), 35,000 wounded (Soviet figure) |casualties2= well over 1,000,000 Afghan civilians and Mujahideen killed, nearly 5 million refugees. Total deaths from beginning of invasion, through the aftermath, until the collapse of Najibullah's regime in 1992 amount to 1,800,000. }}

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine year war between the Soviet forces and anti-government insurgents which were fighting to depose Afghanistan's Marxist government. The Soviet Union supported the government while the insurgents found support from a variety of sources including the United States,and Pakistan.

The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army into Afghanistan took place on December 25 1979, with the final troop withdrawal taking place between May 15 1988 and February 2 1989. On February 15 1989 the Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had departed the country.

Contents

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Background

Afghanistan, the crossroads of Central Asia, has a long history of armed conflict. In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great entered the territory, then part of the Persian Empire, to capture Bactria (present-day Balkh). Invasions by the Scythians and Turks followed in succeeding centuries. In AD 642, Arabs invaded the entire region and introduced Islam.

Afghanistan's nearly impassable mountainous and desert terrain reflects its ethnically and linguistically singular population. Pashtuns are the most dominant ethnic group, along with Tajiks, Hazara, Aimak, Uzbeks, Turkmen and other small groups.

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April 1978 Coup

Mohammad Zahir Shah succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Zahir's cousin, Mohammad Daoud Khan, served as Prime Minister from 1953 to 1963. The Marxian People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was credited for significant growth 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 (Banner) faction led by Babrak Karmal.

Former Prime Minister Daoud seized power in an almost bloodless, military coup on July 17 1973 through charges of corruption and poor economic conditions. Daoud put an end to the monarchy but his attempts at economic and social reforms were unsuccessful. Intense opposition from the factions of the PDPA was sparked by the repression imposed on them by Daoud's regime. With the purpose of ending Daoud's rule, the factions of the PDPA reunified. On April 27 1978, the PDPA overthrew and executed Daoud along with members of his family. Nur Muhammad Taraki, Secretary General of the PDPA, became President of the Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

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Marxist government

During its first 18 months of rule, the PDPA applied a Marxist-style program of reforms. Decrees setting forth changes in marriage customs and land reform were misunderstood by a population deeply immersed in tradition and Islam. Thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment and intelligentsia were persecuted. Within the PDPA, conflicts resulted in exiles, purges and executions.

By the summer of 1978, a rebellion began in the Nuristan region of eastern Afghanistan and civil war spread throughout the country. In September 1979, Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin seized power after a palace shootout that resulted in the murder of Prime Minister Taraki. Over 2 months' instability overwhelmed Amin's regime as he moved against his opponents in the PDPA and the growing rebellion.

The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs "From the Shadows", that American intelligence services began to aid the opposing factions in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet deployment. On July 3 1979, US President Jimmy Carter signed a directive authorizing the CIA to conduct covert propaganda operations against the revolutionary regime. This information has led to renewed debate over the beginning of the war. Supporters of the US intervention, citing the Brezhnev Doctrine, claim that the USSR's intentions to control Afghanistan were already clear. Opponents assert that the US deliberately gave the USSR casus belli to lure them into a conflict that could not be won at Afghanistan's expense.

Furthermore, the regimes of the USSR and Afghanistan enjoyed comfortable diplomatic relations. Prior to the Soviet deployment, up to 400 Soviet military advisers were dispatched to Afghanistan in May 1978. On 7 July 1979, the USSR sent an airborne battalion with crews in response to a request from the Afghan government for such a delivery. Subsequent requests by the Afghan government related more broadly to regiments rather than to individual crews. With Afghanistan in a dire situation during which the country was under assault by an externally supported rebellion, the Soviet Union deployed the 40th Army in response to previous requests from the government of Afghanistan. The 40th Army consisted of two motorized rifle divisions, an airborne division, an assault brigade, and two separate motorized rifle regiments.

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The Soviet deployment

Image:Evstafiev-40th army HQ-Amin-palace-Kabul.jpg

In December 1978, Moscow signed a bilateral treaty of friendship and cooperation with Afghanistan that permitted Soviet deployment in case of an Afghan request. Soviet military assistance increased and Amin’s regime became increasingly dependent on Soviet military equipment and advisers. However, by October 1979 relations between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union soured somewhat as Amin dismissed Soviet advice on stabilizing his government.

Islamic guerrillas in the mountainous countryside harassed the Afghan army to the point where the government of President Hafizullah Amin turned to the Soviet Union for increased amounts of aid. The Soviet Union decided to provide that aid to Afghanistan in order to preserve its regime's revolution, but felt that Amin as the Afghan leader was incapable of accomplishing this goal. Soviet leaders, based on information from the KGB, felt that Amin destabilized the situation in Afghanistan. The last arguments to eliminate Amin were information obtained by the KGB from its agents in Kabul; supposedly, two of Amin's guards killed the former president Nur Muhammad Taraki with a pillow, and Amin was suspected to be a CIA agent. There were, however, some skeptics among the Soviet military advisors of the Afghan army, e.g. General Vasily Zaplatin, a political advisor at that time, who claimed that four of the young Taraki's ministers were responsible for the destabilization. Another strong argument against the belief that Amin was a CIA agent, was that he always and everywhere showed official friendliness to the Soviet Union. And even after the execution of Amin and two of his sons, his wife claimed that she and her remaining two daughters and a son only wanted to go to the Soviet Union, because her husband was its friend. She did eventually go to the Soviet Union to live. However, Zaplatin failed to emphasize this enough. [1]

On December 22, the Soviet advisors to the Afghan Armed Forces advised them to undergo maintenance cycles for 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. Simultaneously, Amin moved the offices of the president to the Tajbeg Palace, believing this location to be more secure from possible threats.

On December 27 1979 700 troops, including 54 KGB spetsnaz special forces troops from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group, dressed in Afghan uniforms occupied major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul, including their primary target - the Tajbeg Presidential Palace, where they deposed President Hafizullah Amin. That operation began at 7:00 P.M., when the Soviet spetsnaz (Zenith Group) blew up Kabul's communications hub, paralyzing Afghani military command. At 7:15, the storm of Tajbeg Palace began, lasting 45 minutes. Simultaneously, other objects were occupied (e.g. the Ministry of Interior at 7:15). The operation was fully complete by the morning of December 28. The Soviet military command at Termez announced on Radio Kabul that Afghanistan had been liberated from Amin's rule.

According to the Soviet Politburo they were complying with the 1978 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighborliness that former President Taraki signed. Moscow calculated that Amin's ouster would end the factional power struggle within the PDPA and also reduce Afghan discontent.

The Soviets reported that the execution of Hafizullah Amin was carried out 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.

Soviet ground forces entered Afghanistan from the north on December 27. In the morning, the Vitebsk parachute division landed at the airport at Bagram City and the deployment of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was underway.

Overall, Brezhnev turned down 18 official requests for military help from Afghanistan's government before actually ordering deployment of Soviet troops to Afghanistan. The operation by the Soviets was not "invasion" by legal terms, and the USSR claimed that the labelling was only as a result of anti-Soviet US propaganda.

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Soviet operations

Image:Evstafiev-afghan-apc-passes-russian.jpgFollowing the deployment, the Soviet troops were unable to establish authority outside Kabul. As much as 80% of the countryside still escaped effective government control. The initial mission, to guard cities and installations, was expanded to combat the anti-communist Mujahideen forces, primarily using Soviet reservists.

Early military reports revealed the difficulty which the Soviet forces encountered in fighting in mountainous terrain. The Soviet Army was unfamiliar with such fighting, had no anti-guerrilla training, and their weaponry and military equipment, particularly armored cars and tanks, was sometimes ineffective or vulnerable in the mountainous environment. Heavy artillery was extensively used when fighting rebel forces.

Afghan guerillas were armed, funded, and trained mostly by the US and Pakistan. Of particular significance was the donation of American-made FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems, which increased aircraft losses of Soviet Air Force. Also guerillas were able to fire at aircraft landing at and taking off from airstrips and airbases.

The international diplomatic response was severe, ranging from stern warnings to a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. U.S President Jimmy Carter indicated that the Soviet incursion was "the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War." In what was seen by many as great naivete, he appeared very suprised that the Soviets would actually commit an act such as this, and he declared that his perception of the character of the Soviet Union had dramatically changed since the invasion. Carter later placed an embargo on shipments of commodities such as grain and high technology to the USSR from the US. The increased tensions, as well as the anxiety in the West about masses of Soviet troops being in such close proximity to oil-rich regions in the gulf effectively brought about the end of detente. The invasion, along with other events such as the revolution in Iran and the US hostage stand off that accompanied it, the bloody nine year Iran-Iraq war, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the escalating tensions between Pakistan and India, and the rise of Middle East - born terrorism against the West, contributed to making the Middle East an extremely violent and turbulent region during the 1980's.

Soviet soldiers often found themselves fighting against civilians due to the elusive tactics of the rebels. International condemnation arose due to the indescriminate killing of civilians in any areas where Mujahideen were suspected of operating. Tactics such as planting teddy bears and other such childrens' toys filled with explosives, in order to divert medical aid and resources in towns and villagers away from the injured Mujahideen and to the maimed or murdered children were considered especially barbaric. Operations to capture rebel formations were often unsuccessful and had to be repeated in the same area because the rebels fled to the mountains and home villages while the Soviets returned to their bases.

By the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance movement, receptive to assistance from the United States, United Kingdom, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others contributed to Moscow's high military costs and strained international relations. With the failure of their centralized Socialist economy, the war was an extra strain on the USSR, which did nothing but speed up it's downfall.

In May 1985, the seven principal rebel organizations formed an 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. The inability of the Soviet Union to break the military stalemate, gain a significant number of Afghan supporters and affiliates, or to rebuild the Afghan army, required the increasing direct use of its own forces to fight the rebels.

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Mohammad Najibullah ( 1986 - 1989 )

The Government of President Karmal was ineffective. Further weakened by divisions within the PDPA and the Parcham faction, the regime's efforts to expand its base of support resulted in futility.

At the end, Karmal was replaced by Mohammad Najibullah, former chief of the Afghan secret police (KHAD), as President in May 1986.

In November 1986, Najibullah was elected president and a new constitution was adopted. Some of the innovations incorporated into the constitution were a multi-party political system, freedom of expression, and an Islamic legal system presided over by an independent judiciary. 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.

Among other things the Geneva accords identified the U.S. and Soviet non-intervention with internal affairs of Pakistan and Afghanistan and a timetable for full Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan by February 15 1989.

Just over 15,000 Soviet troops were killed from 1979 through 1989, in addition to many hundreds of vehicles and aircraft destroyed/shot down. An estimated one million Afghans died as a result of the invasion during this period.

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Aftermath

Image:Afghanistan Veterans.jpg The war in Afghanistan had a strong impact on domestic politics in the Soviet Union. It was one of the key factors in the discontent of Communist Party rule. The war stirred religious, nationalist, and ethnic striving among the predominately Islamic populace of the central Soviet republics near Afghanistan. The army was demoralized as a result of repeatedly being accused of being invaders.

The prominent dissident, Academician Andrei Sakharov, publicly denounced the activities of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. The interpretation of the Soviet Army fighting against Islam in Afghanistan contributed to a rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Central Asian republics and possibly to the strengthening of the independence movement in Chechnya.

The civil war continued in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. Najibullah's regime, though failing to win popular support, territory, or international recognition, was able to remain in power until 1992. However, it collapsed after the defection of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostam and his Uzbek militia in March.

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. Soviet efforts to disrupt production in rebel-dominated areas also contributed to this decline. Furthermore, Soviet efforts to centralize the economy through state ownership and control and consolidation of farmland into large collective farms contributed to economic 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.

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Cinema

  • Rambo III was an action movie with Sylvester Stallone set within the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
  • The Beast is a movie released in 1988 about a Soviet T-62 tank set during the invasion of Afghanistan in 1981.
  • Afghan Breakdown (Afghanskiy Izlom), the first accurate and in-depth movie about the war, produced jointly by Italy and the USSR in 1991.
  • The 1987 James Bond movie The Living Daylights, with Timothy Dalton as Bond, was fictionally set in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.
  • 9th Company, the biggest Russian box office success to date
  • The Road to Kabul "الطريق الى كابول" Arabic television series. It explored Arab youth participation in the Afghan war.
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See also

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Further reading

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Non-fiction

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Fiction

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External links

Template:Cold Warar:الحرب السوفيتية في أفغانستان da:Den afghansk-sovjetiske krig de:Afghanischer Bürgerkrieg und sowjetische Invasion es:Invasión soviética de Afganistán fa:جنگ شوروی در افغانستان fr:Guerre d'Afghanistan (1979) ko:소비에트 연방의 아프가니스탄 침공 it:Invasione sovietica dell'Afghanistan he:מלחמת אפגניסטן (ברית המועצות) nl:Afghaanse Oorlog (1979-1989) ja:ソビエト連邦のアフガニスタン侵攻 no:Den afghansk-sovjetiske krig pl:Radziecka wojna w Afganistanie ru:Советско-афганская война sh:Afgansko-sovjetski rat fi:Afganistanin sisällissota sv:Afghanistankriget zh:1979年阿富汗战争

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