Soviet war in Afghanistan
From Freepedia
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a 9-year conflict fought between the Soviet Army and rebels in Afghanistan. The war is generally held to have started December 24, 1979. Soviet troops ultimately withdrew from the area between May 15, 1988 and February 2, 1989. The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had left Afghanistan on February 15, 1989.
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Background
Afghanistan, the crossroads of Central Asia, has had a violent history. In 328 BC, Alexander the Great entered the territory, then part of the Persian Empire, to capture Bactria (present-day Balkh). Invasions by the Scythians, White Huns, 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 mixed population. Pashtuns are the most dominant ethnic group along with, Tajiks, Hazara, Aimak, Uzbek, Turkmen and other small groups.
April 1978 coup
Mohammad Zahir Shah, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Zahir's cousin, Mohammad Daoud, served as Prime Minister from 1953 to 1963. The growth of the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), with close ties to the Soviet Union, was credited 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 a military coup on July 17, 1973 through charges of corruption and poor economic conditions. Daoud put an end to the monarchy. His attempts at economic and social reforms failed. Seeking to exploit mounting popular disaffection, the PDPA reunified with Moscow's support.
On April 27, 1978 the PDPA overthrew and murdered Daoud and most 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.
Marxist government
During its first 18 months of rule, the PDPA imposed a Marxist-style "reform" program. Decrees forcing changes in marriage customs and ill-conceived land reform were misunderstood by virtually all Afghans. In addition, thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment and intellectuals were tortured, imprisoned or murdered. Within the PDPA conflicts resulted in exiles, purges and executions.By the summer of 1978, a revolt began in the Nuristan region of eastern Afghanistan and spread into a countrywide insurgency. In September 1979 Hafizullah Amin seized power from Taraki after a palace shootout. Over 2 month’s instability overwhelmed Amin's regime as he moved against perceived enemies in the PDPA and the growing insurgency.
The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs "From the Shadows", that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. According to then US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. It was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. These revalations have shed a whole new light onto the proceeding conflict.
The Soviet invasion
In December 1978, Moscow signed a bilateral treaty of cooperation with Afghanistan. The Soviet military assistance program increased and Amin’s regime became dependent on Soviet military equipment and advisers. However, By October 1979 relations between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union were tense as Amin refused Soviet advice to stabilize his government.
With a deteriorating security situation, large numbers of Soviet airborne forces joined thousands of stationed ground troops and began to land in Kabul. On December 27, 1979 700 troops, including 54 KGB spetsnaz special forces troops from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group, dressed in Afghan uniforms stormed the Presidential Palace in Kabul, killing President Hafizullah Amin. Moscow calculated that Amin's ouster would end the factional power struggle within the PDPA and also calm Afghan discontent. Babrak Karmal, exiled leader of the PDPA Parcham faction was installed as President. Soviet ground forces invaded from the north on December 27.
Soviet/Afghan war
Following the invasion, 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 Mujahideen rebel forces by mostly Soviet army reservists.Early military reports emphasized the difficulty of fighting on the mountainous terrain, for which the Soviet Army had no training. Weaponry and military equipment, particularly armored cars and tanks, were vulnerable and Soviet troops had no anti-guerrilla training. Heavy artillery was broadly used against the rebels.
Soviet soldiers often found themselves fighting against the civilians they intended to protect, which led to the killing of local people. Operations to capture rebel formations were often unsuccessful and had to be repeated several times in the same area because the rebels retreated to the mountains and home villages while the Soviets returned to their occupying forces.
By the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance movement, aided by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others was costing Moscow a high price militarily and with relations to the Western and Islamic world.
In May 1985, the seven principal guerrilla organizations formed an alliance to coordinate their military operations against the Soviet army. Late in 1985 the groups were active in and around Kabul, launching rocket attacks and conducting operations against the communist government. The failure of the Soviet Union to win militarily, gain a significant number of Afghan collaborators or to rebuild the Afghan army forced an increasing responsibility towards the resistance and civilian administration.
Karmal was replaced by Mohammad Najibullah, former chief of the Afghan secret police (KHAD) in May 1986. Najibullah was ineffective and highly dependent on Soviet support. Further weakened by divisions within the PDPA, the regimes efforts to broaden its base of support once again failed.
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.
Among other things the Geneva accords identified the U.S. and Soviet non-interference with internal affairs of Pakistan and Afghanistan and a timetable for full Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan by February 15, 1989. An estimated one million Afghans were killed between 1979 and 1989, along with about 15,000 Soviets.
Aftermath
The war in Afghanistan had a major impact on domestic politics in the Soviet Union. It was one of the key factors in the de-legitimization of Communist Party rule. Civil society reacted to the intervention by marginalizing the Afghan veterans. The army was demoralized as a result of being perceived as an invader.
The prominent dissident and human rights activist, Academician Andrei Sakharov, publicly denounced the atrocities committed by the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. The image of the Soviet Army fighting against Islam in Afghanistan also contributed to a rapid rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Central Asian republics and possibly to the strengthening of the independence movement in Chechnya.
A 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 resistance-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 lower production.
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 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Cinema
- Rambo 3 was a movie set within the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
- The Beast is a movie made in 1989 about a Soviet T-62 tank during the invasion of Afghanistan, set in 1981.
- Afghan Breakdown/Afghanskij Izlom, a movie produced jointly by Italy and the USSR in 1990, is about the invasion of Afghanistan; one of the main characters is played by Michele Placido, from the Italian mafia TV series The Octopus/La Piovra.
- The James Bond movie The Living Daylights, made in 1987 with Timothy Dalton as Bond, was partly set in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.
- 9th Company the first attempt by Russian cinema to produce a big-screen, big-budget move about the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.
See also
- Invasions of Afghanistan
- For the history of the Soviet Union's presence in the country, see: Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
Further reading
Non-fiction
- Kurt Lohbeck, introduction by Dan Rather, Holy War, Unholy Victory: Eyewitness to the Cia's Secret War in Afghanistan, Regnery Publishing (November, 1993), hardcover, ISBN 0895264994
- Stephanie Courtios, Le livre noir du Communisme, hardcover, ISBN 0674076087
- George Crile, Charlie Wilson's War: the extraordinary story of the largest covert operation in history, Atlantic Monthly Press 2003, ISBN 0871138514
- Robert D. Kaplan, Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan, ISBN 1400030250
- Lester W. Grau, The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Super Power Fought and Lost, ISBN 070061186X
Fiction
- Vladimir Rybakov. The Afghans. Infinity Publishing, 2004. ISBN 0-7414-2296-4
- Hosseini Khaled. The Kite Runner. Riverhead Books, 2003. ISBN 1573222453
External links
- Other sources
- U.N resolution A/RES/37/37 over the Intervention in the Country
- details up to 1985 Afghanistan Country Study
- Urban operations casebook .
Categories: Cold War | Military history of the Soviet Union | Guerrilla wars | History of Afghanistan
