SOVIET-AFGHAN WAR

It is Christmas of 1979. Afghanistan is gripped in a precarious situation. The forced of the Soviet Union have crossed the border in full force, complete with tanks, while helicopters and paratroopers seize the mountain passes. Afghanistan's leader, Hafizullah Amin, celebrates the arrival of the Soviets as he believed they would be able to help stabilize his country and get rid of all the opposition springing up against his government; the next day, Amin would be found dead at the hands of his Soviet saviors, an event which would trigger the start of a conflict that Afghanistan would never be able to recover from for a long time, and a conflict with consequences that hold up until now: the Soviet-Afghan War.

ROOTS OF CONFLICT

Afghanistan had always been a special interest for Russia, even prior to Soviet times. The country bordered the Russians and were seen as a potential springboard from which they could spread their influence to the Middle East and India. Afghanistan found itself caught in geopolitical games between Russia and Britain during the 19th century, as the latter feared a Russian-aligned Afghanistan would threaten their prized colony of India. However, Afghanistan remained a neutral country, even after tensions between Britain and Russia ended. During both world wars, Afghanistan was neutral and enjoyed the benefits of working with both sides, and it would remain true to this policy during the initial stages of the Cold War. The country welcomed both American and Soviet aid, as the incumbent king, Zahir Shah, who has reigned since the 1930s, wanted to focus entirely on his country's modernization.

For his part, King Zahir was a relatively moderate ruler compared to his predecessors. He made a drastic step forwards towards democracy in 1964 by introducing a new constitution which transformed the country from a traditional monarchy into a parliamentary one, complete with a proper parliament, free elections, and universal suffrage. Cities began to develop thanks to foreign aid, and an urban middle class would emerge as a result. Afghanistan would regularly accept Soviet aid, who poured millions of dollars worth of money into helping the country's economy and sent Soviet military officers to train the Afghan army. This move, however, proved to be troublesome for the king due to Afghanistan's deeply traditional and religious society. Those residing in the countryside (which made up 85% of the country) rejected Soviet influence and communism as a whole. The king himself was wary of communists, resulting in the king placing a stop at the country's path to democratization.

In 1973, the king would be deposed in an army-backed coup d'etat led by his cousin, Mohammad Daoud Khan. Previously, Daoud had served as Afghanistan's prime minister who spearheaded the nation's hostile relations with Pakistan. Afghanistan made claims to a region in western Pakistan along the border which was populated by Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. This brought it to conflict with Pakistan, but it was difficult for Afghanistan to confront them due to Pakistan being an American and Chinese ally. Naturally, Afghanistan became closer to the Soviet Union, who also wished to bring Afghanistan closer into their sphere of influence. The conflict with Pakistan climaxed in the early 1960s when Afghanistan attempted to invade them using Soviet-equipped weaponry, though this attempt was foiled by the Pakistanis. An economic recession ensued in the country, and the irritated King Zahir forced Daoud to resign before mending relations with Pakistan.

After the 1973 coup, Daoud seized power all for himself. He abolished the monarchy and established a republican government. Initially, the Soviets welcomed Daoud, as he portrayed himself as a moderate who was willing to work with the Afghan communists, who by this point have organized themselves as the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, or the PDPA for short. During the first couple of years of his rule, Daoud was mainly focused on restarting hostilities with Pakistan. He also started being hostile towards Iran, which was then also a US ally. A proxy war ensued between Afghanistan and Pakistan where they would support militants in the other's country. The Soviet Union supported this conflict, seeing it as a way to weaken Pakistan indirectly without damaging their reputation with Islamic countries.

REIGN OF THE PDPA

However, Daoud would soon fall out of favor with the Soviets when he shifted his stance in 1975. He started purging all his political opposition and outlawed all political parties except his own. His popularity would take a steep decline as his increasingly autocratic rule lost him the support of the urban middle class as well as the communists. This all led to demonstrations erupting against his rule in April 1978 after the death of a prominent communist leader. The communists have been slowly building up support over the years, having managed to infiltrate in and gain sympathies from the military and some within the government. Daoud actively repressed the communists, drawing their ire. With support from the army, the PDPA instigated a violent revolution in Kabul, engaging in fierce fighting with loyalist Afghan troops. The battle was complete with tanks and air assaults, resulting in 2,000 casualties. The government palace was stormed, and Daoud along with his family were killed in what would be known as the Saur Revolution of 1978.

With Daoud gone, the PDPA seized power, and prominent leader Nur Muhammad Taraki and his second-in-command Hafizullah Amin assumed control of the country. The revolution was an unexpected event that shocked both the Americans and the Soviets, blaming one another for funding the PDPA. Nevertheless, the Soviets welcomed an actually communist government, and believed that their dreams of a subservient Afghanistan would be achieved. But not all things ran smooth; earlier in 1967, the PDPA suffered an ideological split, with a radical and moderate faction emerging. The radicals were led by none other than Taraki and Amin, while the moderates were led by Babrak Karmal.

So, with Taraki and Amin in power, the radicals held full rein and purged the moderates, sending Karmal to exile. The radicals pushed for aggressive and controversial land reforms and antagonized the Islamic and conservative groups in the countryside. The PDPA would launch a series of mass killings and arrests as well as torture those opposed to their policies. The Soviets were against this brutal display of violence, and were hesitant to openly support the PDPA regime, leading to a lot of caution in terms of relations with Afghanistan.

The brutality of the regime was apalling to the population, and subsequently the regime began to fall apart in 1979. Major rebellions erupted in the vast rural areas of the country, and soon these rebellions spread to other provinces and eventually into major cities. The most notable of which was the Herat Uprising in 1979, during which heavy fighting ensued as the PDPA regime destroyed large parts of the city. Though it was able to be crushed, thousands of the city's inhabitants became casualties in the battle. Herat was just one of many such uprisings. Desperate to regain control of the country, Taraki and Amin requested Soviet intervention.

THE MUJAHIDEEN

But firstly, it is important to talk about the groups that are rebelling in the provinces. Since as early as the time of Daoud Khan's reign, several Islamist militant groups resistant to government policies in the rural countryside have begun to emerge, though most of them were crushed. Many of them fled to and were sheltered by neighboring Pakistan, and the Islamist groups were used by the country to destabilize Afghanistan as part of the proxy conflict between the two countries. In 1975, Pakistan supported a major Islamist rebellion in Afghanistan, which, despite its failure, scared them into pursuing peaceful relations with Pakistan. When Afghanistan fell to communism, Pakistan became extremely fearful of being sandwiched by their rival India and a hostile, potentially Soviet-backed Afghanistan. It was not just Pakistan that was concerned; the US and their allies in pre-revolutionary Iran and the Persian Gulf states shared their fears. Together, these countries began funding Islamist groups in Afghanistan to undermine the communists, and these groups became collectively known as the mujahideen.

The mujahideen were able to be successful due to Afghanistan's naturally conservative population, and after the brutal actions that the PDPA regime committed on their own people, many turned to the mujahideen, coming to regard them as the true saviors of the Afghan people. Moreover, the Afghan military was far too overstretched to fight the mujahideen, who were scattered across the entire country and hiding out in mountains and valleys. They shined in guerilla warfare, utilizing the countryside's mountainous terrain to their advantage. While the Afghan army disintegrated under the pressure, the mujahideen gained thousands of new recruits as the PDPA regime collapsed.

LEADUP TO WAR

Things became more awry for the communist regime when the Soviet KGB began suspecting that Amin was affiliated with the CIA due to his past dealings with the United States. Regardless of this claim though, the Soviets believed that Amin was ultimately responsible for leading the regime's violent policies. They shared their findings to Taraki, warning him of Amin's potential treachery. Armed with this knowledge, Taraki hatched a plan to kidnap and kill Amin, but the plan failed when Amin managed to escape; Amin successfully killed Taraki instead by suffocating him with a pillow. Amin automatically assumed control of the government, much to the Soviet Union's dismay. Unfortunately for Amin, he inherited the countless problems that his country was facing, and he quickly realized there was no possible way to resolve this crisis. So, he counterintuitively turned towards the Soviet Union and requested military intervention.

The Soviets debated their next course of action, with many in the Politburo being more hesitant to send troops. However, they were eventually persuaded to intervene to prevent Afghanistan from breaking away from their sphere of influence. But the intervention was not meant to save Amin's government, but rather to overthrow it. The Soviets had lost trust in Amin and the radical faction of the PDPA, instead throwing their support for the moderate faction led by the exiled Babrak Karmal, who was more aligned to Soviet interests and was able to be easily leashed by Moscow. Once Karmal was installed into power, the Soviet army would remain in Afghanistan as a show of force on the country's enemies, as they wanted to leave much of the fighting to the Afghan government regardless.

In the leadup to the operation (codenamed Operation Baikal-79), the Soviets have already infiltrated the Afghan military. A good portion of their army included Soviet advisors, and they even had agents working within Amin's presidential security forces. Soviet troops were already present in Kabul and other major cities from prior deployments, and several key roads and passes leading to the capital were secured easily as a result. In order to cause confusion among the Afghan populace, Soviet forces within Kabul sabotaged infrastructure in broad daylight. All the while, Amin welcomed the Soviet army's presence in Afghanistan, oblivious that they were assigned to kill him.

Operation Storm-333 was the name of the operation to kill Amin on December 27th. In addition, the operation also aimed to secure important government buildings in Kabul and capture key roads leading to the city to prevent the Afghan army from reinforcing. Security was high after the KGB attempted to assassinate Amin using poison earlier during the day, causing him to be secured to the palace. Due to close ties and infiltration, the Soviets have access to the palace's security detail and layout, however. Nevertheless, the palace was a very difficult place to breach. It was well-defended by 2,500 Afghan troops prepared to fight to the end, and supported by entrenched tanks. Functional tanks and anti-aircraft weaponry are also available nearby. The Soviets deployed 13 different groups of soldiers to carry out these objectives. On 7:15 PM, after assessing the situation, the group tasked with killing Amin launched their assault on the Tajbeg Palace, triggering a fierce battle that lasted 45 minutes. Soviet troops breached the palace and engaged in fighting inside the building as well, before finding and ultimately killing Amin. Simultaneously, government buildings were seized by disguised Soviet soldiers. By the morning of December 28th, Amin was dead and Operation Storm-333 was declared a success.

SOVIET-AFGHAN WAR

Operation Storm-333 precipitated Operation Baikal-79, the full-scale Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was to be carried out by the 40th Army, specifically reorganized for this very occasion. The Soviets moved from the north, quickly taking control of key positions like military bases and strategic areas and disarming the Afghan soldiers there largely without issue; the few firefights that did happen often led to a massacre of the resisting Afghan troops.

The Soviets claimed that they had liberated the country from Amin's tyrannical rule and expected to be hailed as heroes; they were treated as invaders instead. In fact, the Afghan populace's resentment towards the Soviet invasion transcended beyond ethnic, religious, and cultural lines. If anything, the Soviet presence united the country strongly against them. Babrak Karmal, who subsequently became Afghanistan's new leader in accordance with the Soviet plan, requested that the Soviets help crush the mujahideen rebellions sprouting across the country.

As tensions rose between the Soviets and the local Afghans, many became emboldened to take radical action. It became a common sight for Soviet soldiers in Kabul to be killed in broad daylight on the streets by resentful civilians. Violent protests in major cities occupied by the Soviets have also erupted, and some were successful in driving out the occupiers due to the mounting violence. Tensions exploded in late February 1980 when Kabul was gripped by the 3 Hoot Uprising, where the Soviets killed a great number of protesters. A student demonstration later that year also ended in brutal fashion. It was then that the Soviet Union realized that they had made a major blunder: they had been dragged into their own Vietnam, a war that they were completely unprepared to fight in. The Soviets had no real strategy or experience to use to fight against the mujahideen, who dominated the countryside using guerilla tactics and their knowledge of the terrain; the Soviets and the PDPA government held roads and cities, which made up only 20% of the country.

By 1980, the occupation had devolved into a protracted war against the mujahideen. The Soviet strategy of utilizing the Afghan army to help crush the rebellions was out of the question due to their abysmal quality. The Afghan army had a high desertion rate, and the average soldier had little to no sympathy or loyalty towards the communist PDPA government; most of them were simply working to earn a paycheck instead of actively fighting. Subsequently, the Soviets began involving themselves even further into the conflict and developed three strategies to use against the mujahideen.

The first strategy was "intimidation". While the mujahideen might be skillful in the mountains, the Soviets held technological superiority. Aerial raids and assaults supported by armored cars would be launched on villages held by or located near insurgent territory, where they would destroy the targeted village and obliterate their farms and livestock. This was done to prevent the mujahideen in the area to live off of the resources in the villages. As a result, however, innocent villagers became caught in the crossfire, as they were forced to leave their homes or risk dying; the villagers in Soviet-occupied villages were frequently subjected to torture for information or be killed. The second strategy was "subversion", which was more on the intelligence side of things. The Soviets and the Afghan government would plant spies into mujahideen cells to gather intel on their activities and seed dissent within the group. The Afghan secret police was largely responsible for these infiltrations. The third strategy involved regular military raids into mujahideen territory with air and armored support involving numerous military divisions to root them out.

A major part of the war also took place around the strategically-important Panjshir Valley, located north of Kabul and near the strategic Salang Pass connecting the capital to Soviet Uzbekistan. In June 1979, mujahideen forces led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, given logistic support from the British MI6, seized control of the valley and turned it into a formidable stronghold for the mujahideen. Since the Salang Pass was frequented by Soviet supply convoys, the mujahideen were now able to easily launch raids and attacks on said convoys once they crossed the path, leading to the loss of many valuable supplies and resources for the Soviet army; it thus became a main priority to clear out the rebels in the Panjshir. Between 1980 and 1985, the Soviets launched a total of nine offensives into the region. The Soviets managed to push them out many times, but once they left Massoud's men were able to easily retake it.

International reactions to the war was overwhelmingly against the Soviet Union. The US responded to the initial invasion with a trade embargo on American grain products and called for a boycott on the 1980 Olympics which was meant to be held in Moscow. As the war intensified, so did American aid to the mujahideen. At its height, the US spent a total of $400 million a year to fund and support the rebels with weaponry, military training, and general economic aid. They also provided and taught the mujahideen the mechanisms of surface-to-air missiles which were able to weaken Soviet air superiority. The British MI6 also continued supporting Massoud and trained mujahideen troops in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

In the Soviet Union itself, the war had become increasingly unpopular due to the mounting Soviet casualties and their army's inability to achieve any meaningful win against the mujahideen. By this point, the Soviets were reduced to the defensive, focusing on maintaining order in the areas they have already controlled and only sending small-scale operations towards the countryside. It did not help that the mujahideen were even launching offensives into Soviet territory, having been persuaded by their Western allies to do so, believing that the raids might destabilize the Soviet Union by encouraging rebellions in their Muslim territories.

Over the course of the war, atrocities became frequently committed by both the Soviets and the mujahideen, and the civilian population were mainly the victims. As stated before, Soviet strategy involved raiding and attacking small villages using aerial bombardments, and they even escalated these measures by deploying chemical attacks. Meanwhile, the mujahideen ruthlessly tortured Soviet POWs, ensuring they died a slow and painful death. Due to the brutal tactics used by both sides, an estimated total of 4 million Afghans fled the country by 1985.

EXIT STRATEGY

That same year, Mikhail Gorbachev became the new leader of the Soviet Union. Having inherited the problems caused by the war, he immediately recognized that the war was unwinnable and not favorable for his country. However, it was not easy for the Soviets to simply end the war and leave Afghanistan. Gorbachev wanted a proper "exit strategy", one which would peacefully allow the Soviet army to withdraw while saving face. For their first step, the Soviets planned on strengthening the communist Afghan government to the point where they would be able to hold the mujahideen on their own and be independent from Soviet military assistance. As they built up to this goal, the Soviets limited their involvement in the war to merely giving artillery and air support to the Afghan troops.

The next step was to remove Karmal from power. He was seen as a disappointment for the Soviet Union since his government failed to achieve any meaningful success in stabilizing the country. The Soviets blamed Afghanistan's predicament on Karmal's shortcomings and subsequently removed him from power. In May 1986, Karmal was replaced by Mohammad Najibullah, former chief of the Afghan secret police. Najibullah was not a well-known figure at the time, but he quickly made moves to win support from the people by leaning closer towards the Islamic clergy, acknowledging Islam as a unifying factor for the country. Additionally, he released a number of prisoners and lifted the nighttime curfew placed on Kabul ever since the start of the war in 1980. He also allowed the formation of political parties and purged Karmal's supporters from his government. Despite all this, however, the population had become jaded of the government, lacking trust and faith in any form of government.

In 1988, the Geneva Accords was signed between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The agreement stated that both countries would not interfere in each other's territories, and Pakistan also agreed to allow Afghan wartime refugees residing in the country to return home. Even the US and the Soviet Union agreed to limit their involvement in Afghanistan. A deadline was set on the Soviet withdrawal and the United Nations was assigned to oversee the entire process.

Between January 1987 and February 1989, the Soviet Union began withdrawing their army from Afghanistan. The process was mostly a peaceful one, as Soviet commanders managed to arrange local ceasefires with various mujahideen leaders allowing their soldiers safe passage out the country. However, there were still a couple of major offensives launched by the Soviet army even during the withdrawal period. Operation Magistral, for example, was a Soviet offensive which secured a road linking the towns of Gardez and Khost together, though this did not have any lasting effects.

One of the largest instances of major fighting happening during this period was Operation Typhoon. During this operation, General Yazov of the Soviet military ordered the army to launch an attack on the Panjshir Valley now that Massoud's troops were relaxed and off-guard. The stated cause of the attack was to eliminate the threat Massoud posed to the new Afghan government after the Soviets left. The assault was launched in late January and continued for three days, and it primarily consisted of artillery and missile strikes on mujahideen forces to avoid any personnel casualties that might arise from direct fighting. In the end, the attack left 600 mujahideen troops dead.

AFTERMATH

By February 15th 1989, the Soviet Union had fully left Afghanistan, but the impacts and aftermath of it to Afghanistan was immense. For the Soviets, the total number of soldiers that served in the war numbered 620,000; official reports state that the death count is somewhere between 14,000 to 26,000, while around 54,000 soldiers were wounded. Billions of rubles were poured onto the war effort and the entire war soured the Soviet Union's reputation with the international community, on top of already being in a state of economic decline. Some would argue that the Soviet-Afghan War contributed somewhat to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. On the Afghan side, a total of 3 million people are reported to have perished in the war; a good chunk of the deaths were civilians. 5.5 million Afghans have also fled the country throughout the war, becoming refugees. Mujahideen losses numbered to 90,000 killed and an equal amount of wounded. Most of the refugees fled to friendly Iran and Pakistan.

The consequences of the Soviet-Afghan War are still unraveling; in fact, the end of the war did not end hostilities between the government and the mujahideen. By 1987, some of the mujahideen groups have coalesced into a single united political group known as the Afghan Interim Government, and when the Soviets fully left by 1989, they became bolder and directed their attacks towards Najibullah's government. In March that year, the mujahideen coalition launched an attack on the city of Jalalabad What followed was a brutal battle, but by June the mujahideen were surprisingly defeated. At this time the Soviet Union was sometimes giving the Afghan government some support, but this gradually disappeared as the Soviet Union collapsed. By March 1991, the mujahideen successfully captured the city of Khost, and a year later in 1992, Najibullah stepped down as leader of the country to peacefully allow the mujahideen to take control.

After the mujahideen seized power, Afghanistan would effectively disintegrate as a single country as it would descend into civil war countless times, with fighting mainly between the various mujahideen factions and warlords vying for power. One of these groups, the Taliban, would eventually rise and take control of the country entirely.

Roughly twelve years after the end of the Soviet-Afghan War, the Taliban would launch the 9/11 attacks, prompting the United States, the country that once supported the mujahideen, to fight in Afghanistan, starting the cycle all over again.

GALLERY OF IMAGES

Soviet soldiers scouting and fighting guerillas (The Christian Science Monitor)

Afghan refugees fleeing to Pakistan (The Atlantic)

Map of Soviet-Afghan War (Wikipedia)