Soviet–Afghan War
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 2/8/24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War
Soviet–Afghan War
Part of the Cold War and the Afghan conflict
Above: Mujahideen fighters in Kunar Province, 1987
Below: Soviet airmen with a local Afghan man in Logar Province, 1987
Date: 24 December 1979 – 15 February 1989
(9 years, 1 month, 3 weeks and 1 day)
Location: Afghanistan
Result: Mujahideen victory
Belligerents: Soviet Union; Afghanistan; Afghan Mujahideen; Afghan Interim Government (from 1988)
Commanders and leaders
Soviet Union:
Leonid Brezhnev #
Yuri Andropov #
Konstantin Chernenko #
Mikhail Gorbachev
Dmitry Ustinov
Andrei Gromyko
Sergey Sokolov
Dmitry Yazov
Valentin Varennikov
Igor Rodionov
Boris Gromov
Yuri Drozdov
Afghanistan:
Babrak Karmal
Mohammad Najibullah
Abdul Rashid Dostum
Abdul Qadir
Shahnawaz Tanai
Mohammed Rafie
Ismatullah Muslim
Aslam Vatanzhar
Mohammad Sardar Bajauri
Abdul Jabar Qahraman
Dawlat Waziri
Sunni Mujahideen:
Burhanuddin Rabbani
Ahmad Shah Massoud
Naqib Alikozai
Ismail Khan
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Fazal Haq Mujahid
Abdullah Azzam
Wa'el Hamza Julaidan
Osama bin Laden
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Mulavi Younas Khalis
Jalaluddin Haqqani
Mohammed Omar[1]
Abdul Haq
Haji Abdul Qadeer
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf
Mohammad Nabi
Sibghatullah Mojaddedi
Ahmed Gailani
Abdul Rahim Wardak
Shia Mujahideen:
Muhammad Asif Muhsini
Abdul Ali Mazari
Assef Kandahari
Sayyid Ali Beheshti
Abuzar Ghaznavi
Mosbah Sade
Units involved
Soviet Armed Forces; KGB
Paramilitaries:
Sarandoy; Defense of the Revolution; Fidayan-i Islam; KhAD; Pader Watan
Sunni Mujahideen Factions:
Jamiat-e Islami[2]
Shura-e Nazar
Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin[3]
Maktab al-Khidamat
Hezb-i Islami Khalis[3]
Ittehad-e Islami[2]
Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami[4]
Jebh-e Nejat-e Melli[5]
Mahaz-e Milli[5]
Haqqani network
Ahmadzai (Ghilji clan) Tribes
Islamic Dawah Organisation of Afghanistan
National Islamic Front
Shia Mujahideen Factions:
Harakat i-Islami[4]
Sazman-i Nasr[6]
Corps of Islamic Revolution Guardians of Afghanistan
Shura Council
Hezbollah Afghanistan
Islamic Revolution Movement (IRM)
Union of Islamic Fighters (UIF)
Raʽad Party
Strength
Soviet Union:
620,000 total personnel[7] 115,000 (1986 estimate)[8] 120,000 (1987 estimate)[9]
Afghanistan:
250,000 total personnel (1989, including Sarandoy and Khad)[10]
Mujahideen:
200,000–250,000 fighters[11][12][13]
Casualties and losses
Total: 86,470–98,017
Soviet Union:
14,453[14] killed
9,500 killed in combat[14]
4,000 died from wounds[14]
1,000 died from disease and accidents[14]
53,753 wounded[14]
264 missing
451 aircraft lost (including 333 helicopters)
147 tanks lost
1,314 IFVs/APCs lost
433 artillery guns and mortars lost
11,369 cargo and fuel tanker trucks lost
Afghanistan:
41,951 killed (1985-1989)[15]
Total: 162,579–192,579+
Mujahideen:
150,000–180,000 casualties (tentative estimate)[16]
75,000–90,000 killed
Pakistan:
5,775 killed[citation needed]
6,804 wounded[citation needed]
1 F-16 fighter aircraft lost (lost to friendly fire, according to Pakistan) (shot down, according to Afghan authorities)[17][18]
Total killed: 80,775–95,775+
Civilian casualties (Afghan):
562,000–2,000,000 killed[19][20][21]
3+ million wounded[22]
5+ million externally displaced
2+ million internally displaced
Le Nouvel Observateur: Former CIA director Robert Gates states in his memoirs: The American secret services began six months before the Soviet intervention to support the Mujahideen [in Afghanistan]. At that time you were president Carter's security advisor; thus you played a key role in this affair. Do you confirm this statement?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version, the CIA's support for the Mujahideen began in 1980, i.e. after the Soviet army's invasion of Afghanistan on 24 December 1979. But the reality, which was kept secret until today, is completely different: Actually it was on 3 July 1979 that president Carter signed the first directive for the secret support of the opposition against the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And on the same day I wrote a note, in which I explained to the president that this support would in my opinion lead to a military intervention by the Soviets.
Le Nouvel Observateur: Despite this risk you were a supporter of this covert action? But perhaps you expected the Soviets to enter this war and tried to provoke it?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: It's not exactly like that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would do it.
Le Nouvel Observateur: When the Soviets justified their intervention with the statement that they were fighting against a secret US interference in Afghanistan, nobody believed them. Nevertheless there was a core of truth to this...Do you regret nothing today?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Regret what? This secret operation was an excellent idea. It lured the Russians into the Afghan trap, and you would like me to regret that? On the day when the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote president Carter, in essence: "We now have the opportunity to provide the USSR with their Viet Nam war." Indeed for ten years Moscow had to conduct a war that was intolerable for the regime, a conflict which involved the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet Empire.
Le Nouvel Observateur: And also, don't you regret having helped future terrorists, having given them weapons and advice?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: What is most important for world history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? Some Islamic hotheads or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Le Nouvel Observateur: "Some hotheads?" But it has been said time and time again: today Islamic fundamentalism represents a world-wide threat...
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Rubbish! It's said that the West has a global policy regarding Islam. That's hogwash: there is no global Islam. Let's look at Islam in a rational and not a demagogic or emotional way. It is the first world religion with 1.5 billion adherents. But what is there in common between fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, moderate Morocco, militaristic Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt and secularized Central Asia? Nothing more than that which connects the Christian countries.
-- Zbigniew Brzezinksi's Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, by Le Nouvel Observateur
The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Soviet-controlled Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) from 1979 to 1989. The war was a major conflict of the Cold War as it saw extensive fighting between the DRA, the Soviet Union and allied paramilitary groups against the Afghan mujahideen and their allied foreign fighters. While the mujahideen were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of their support came from Pakistan, the United States (as part of Operation Cyclone), the United Kingdom, China, Iran, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The involvement of the foreign powers made the war a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union.[23] Combat took place throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside. The conflict led to the deaths of between 562,000 and 2,000,000 Afghans, while millions more fled from the country as refugees; most externally displaced Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and in Iran. Approximately 6.5% to 11.5% of Afghanistan's erstwhile population of 13.5 million people (per the 1979 census) is estimated to have been killed over the course of the conflict. The Soviet–Afghan War caused grave destruction throughout Afghanistan and has also been cited by scholars as a significant factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, formally ending the Cold War.
The war began after the Soviets, under the command of Leonid Brezhnev, launched an invasion of Afghanistan to support the local pro-Soviet government that had been installed during Operation Storm-333.[nb 1] Numerous sanctions and embargoes were imposed on the Soviet Union by the international community in response. Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan's major cities and all main arteries of communication, whereas the mujahideen waged guerrilla warfare in small groups across the 80% of the country that was not subject to uncontested Soviet control—almost exclusively comprising the rugged, mountainous terrain of the countryside. In addition to laying millions of landmines across Afghanistan, the Soviets used their aerial power to deal harshly with both Afghan resistance and civilians, levelling villages to deny safe haven to the mujahideen, destroying vital irrigation ditches and other scorched-earth tactics.
The Soviet government had initially planned to swiftly secure Afghanistan's towns and road networks, stabilize the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government, and withdraw all of their military forces in a span of six months to one year. However, they were met with fierce resistance from Afghan guerrillas and experienced great operational difficulties on the rugged mountainous terrain. By the mid-1980s, the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan had increased to approximately 115,000 troops and fighting across the country intensified; the complication of the war effort gradually inflicted a high cost on the Soviet Union as military, economic, and political resources became increasingly exhausted. By mid-1987, reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet military would begin a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. The final wave of disengagement was initiated on 15 May 1988, and on 15 February 1989, the last Soviet military column occupying Afghanistan crossed into the Uzbek SSR. With continued external Soviet backing, the PDPA government pursued a solo war effort against the mujahideen, and the conflict evolved into the Afghan Civil War. However following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, all support to the Republic was pulled, leading to the toppling of the Homeland Party's Isolated Republic at the hands of the mujahideen in 1992 and the start of another Afghan Civil War.
Naming
In Afghanistan, the war is usually called the Soviet war in Afghanistan (Pashto: په افغانستان کې شوروی جګړه, romanized: Pah Afghanistan ke Shuravi Jagera; Dari: جنگ شوروی در افغانستان, romanized: 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; Belarusian: Афганская вайна; 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).[27] It is also known as the Afghan jihad, especially by the non-Afghan volunteers of the Mujahideen.
Background
Russian interest in Central Asia
In the 19th century, the British Empire was fearful that the Russian Empire would invade Afghanistan and use it to threaten the large British colonies in India. This regional rivalry was called the "Great Game". In 1885, Russian forces seized a disputed oasis south of the Oxus River from Afghan forces, which became known as the Panjdeh Incident. The border was agreed by the joint Anglo-Russian Afghan Boundary Commission of 1885–87. The Russian interest in Afghanistan continued through the Soviet era, with billions in economic and military aid sent to Afghanistan between 1955 and 1978.[28]
Following Amanullah Khan's ascent to the throne in 1919 and the subsequent Third Anglo-Afghan War, the British conceded Afghanistan's full independence. King Amanullah afterwards wrote to Russia (now under Bolshevik control) desiring for permanent friendly relations. Vladimir Lenin replied by congratulating the Afghans for their defence against the British, and a treaty of friendship between Afghanistan and Russia was finalized in 1921. The Soviets saw possibilities in an alliance with Afghanistan against the United Kingdom, such as using it as a base for a revolutionary advance towards British-controlled India.[29][30]
The Red Army intervened in Afghanistan to suppress the Islamic Basmachi movement in 1929 and 1930, supporting the ousted king Amanullah, as part of the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929).[31][32] The Basmachi movement had originated in a 1916 revolt against Russian conscription during World War I, bolstered by Turkish general Enver Pasha during the Caucasus campaign. Afterwards, the Soviet Army deployed around 120,000–160,000 troops in Central Asia, a force similar to the peak strength of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in size.[31] By 1926–1928, the Basmachis were mostly defeated by the Soviets, and Central Asia was incorporated into the Soviet Union.[31][33] In 1929, the Basmachi rebellion reignited, associated with anti-forced collectivization riots.[31] Basmachis crossed over into Afghanistan under Ibrahim Bek, which gave a pretext for the Red Army interventions in 1929 and 1930.[31][32]
Soviet–Afghan relations post-1920s
See also: Kabul International Airport, Soyuz TM-6, Abdul Ahad Mohmand, Interkosmos, Bagram Airfield, Naghlu Dam, and Afghanistan–Russia relations § The USSR
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.[34] 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 SSR. Soviet-Afghan military cooperation began on a regular basis in 1956, and further agreements were made in the 1970s, which saw the USSR send advisers and specialists. The Soviets also had interests in the energy resources of Afghanistan, including oil and natural gas exploration from the 1950s and 1960s.[35] The USSR began to import Afghan gas from 1968 onwards.[36]
Afghanistan-Pakistan border
See also: Partition of India
In the 19th century, with the Czarist Russian forces moving closer to the Pamir Mountains, near the border with British India, civil servant Mortimer Durand was sent to outline a border, likely in order to control the Khyber Pass. The demarcation of the mountainous region resulted in an agreement, signed with the Afghan Emir, Abdur Rahman Khan, in 1893. It became known as the Durand Line.[37]
In 1947, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Afghanistan, Mohammad Daoud Khan, rejected the Durand Line, which had been accepted as an international border by successive Afghan governments for over half a century.[38]
The British Raj also came to an end, and the Dominion of Pakistan gained independence from British India and inherited the Durand Line as its frontier with Afghanistan.
Under the regime of Daoud Khan, Afghanistan had hostile relations with both Pakistan and Iran.[39][40] 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 tribal lines, and a modern, well equipped Afghan army which would be used to suppress anyone who would oppose the Afghan government. His Pashtunistan policy was to annex Pashtun areas of Pakistan, and he used this policy for his own benefit.[40]
Daoud Khan's irredentist foreign policy to reunite the Pashtun homeland caused much tension with Pakistan, a state that allied itself with the United States.[40] The policy had also angered the non-Pashtun population of Afghanistan,[41] and similarly, the Pashtun population in Pakistan were also not interested in having their areas being annexed by Afghanistan.[42] In 1951, the U.S. State Department urged Afghanistan to drop its claim against Pakistan and accept the Durand Line.[43]
1960s–1970s: Proxy war
See also: Afghanistan-Pakistan relations
The existing border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In 1954, the United States began selling arms to its ally Pakistan, while refusing an Afghan request to buy arms, out of fear that the Afghans would use the weapons against Pakistan.[43] As a consequence, Afghanistan, though officially neutral in the Cold War, drew closer to India and the Soviet Union, which were willing to sell them weapons.[43] In 1962, China defeated India in a border war, and as a result, China formed an alliance with Pakistan against their common enemy, India, pushing Afghanistan even closer to India and the Soviet Union.
In 1960 and 1961, the Afghan Army, on the orders of Daoud Khan following his policy of Pashtun irredentism, made two unsuccessful incursions into Pakistan's Bajaur District. In both cases, the Afghan army was routed, suffering heavy casualties.[44] In response, Pakistan closed its consulate in Afghanistan and blocked all trade routes through the Pakistan–Afghanistan border. This damaged Afghanistan's economy and Daoud's regime was pushed towards closer alliance with the Soviet Union for trade. However, these stopgap measures were not enough to compensate the loss suffered by Afghanistan's economy because of the border closure. As a result of continued resentment against Daoud's autocratic rule, close ties with the Soviet Union and economic downturn, Daoud Khan was forced to resign by the King of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah. Following his resignation, the crisis between Pakistan and Afghanistan was resolved and Pakistan re-opened the trade routes.[44] After the removal of Daoud Khan, the King installed a new prime minister and started creating a balance in Afghanistan's relation with the West and the Soviet Union,[44] which angered the Soviet Union.[42]
Ten years later, in 1973, Daoud Khan, supported by Soviet-trained Afghan army officers, seized power from the King in a bloodless coup, and established the first Afghan republic.[44] Following his return to power, Daoud revived his Pashtunistan policy and for the first time started proxy warring against Pakistan[45] by supporting anti-Pakistani groups and providing them with arms, training and sanctuaries.[42] The Pakistani government of prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was alarmed by this.[46] The Soviet Union also supported Daoud Khan's militancy against Pakistan[42] as they wanted to weaken Pakistan, which was an ally of both the United States and China. However, it did not openly try to create problems for Pakistan as that would damage the Soviet Union's relations with other Islamic countries, hence it relied on Daoud Khan to weaken Pakistan. They had the same thought regarding Iran, another major U.S. ally. The Soviet Union also believed that the hostile behaviour of Afghanistan against Pakistan and Iran could alienate Afghanistan from the west, and Afghanistan would be forced into a closer relationship with the Soviet Union.[47] The pro-Soviet Afghans (such as the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)) also supported Daoud Khan's hostility towards Pakistan, as they believed that a conflict with Pakistan would induce Afghanistan to seek aid from the Soviet Union. As a result, the pro-Soviet Afghans would be able to establish their influence over Afghanistan.[48]
In response to Afghanistan's proxy war, Pakistan started supporting Afghans who were critical of Daoud Khan's policies. Bhutto authorized a covert operation under MI's Major-General Naseerullah Babar.[49] In 1974, Bhutto authorized another secret operation in Kabul where the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Air Intelligence of Pakistan (AI) extradited Burhanuddin Rabbani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmad Shah Massoud to Peshawar, amid fear that Rabbani, Hekmatyar and Massoud might be assassinated by Daoud.[49] 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.[49] Pakistan's goal was to overthrow Daoud's regime and establish an Islamist theocracy in its place.[50] The first ever ISI operation in Afghanistan took place in 1975,[51] supporting militants from the Jamiat-e Islami party, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, attempting to overthrow the government. They started their rebellion in the Panjshir valley, but lack of support along with government forces easily defeating them made it a failure, and a sizable portion of the insurgents sought refuge in Pakistan where they enjoyed the support of Bhutto's government.[46][48]
The 1975 rebellion, though unsuccessful, shook President Daoud Khan and made him realize that a friendly Pakistan was in his best interests.[51][48] He started improving relations with Pakistan and made state visits there in 1976 and 1978. During the 1978 visit, he agreed to stop supporting anti-Pakistan militants and to expel any remaining militants in Afghanistan. In 1975, Daoud Khan established his own party, the National Revolutionary Party of Afghanistan and outlawed all other parties. He then started removing members of its Parcham wing from government positions, including the ones who had supported his coup, and started replacing them with familiar faces from Kabul's traditional government elites. Daoud also started reducing his dependence on the Soviet Union. As a consequence of Daoud's actions, Afghanistan's relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated.[42] In 1978, after witnessing India's nuclear test, Smiling Buddha, Daoud Khan initiated a military buildup to counter Pakistan's armed forces and Iranian military influence in Afghan politics.
Saur Revolution of 1978
Main article: Saur Revolution
The Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan's strength grew considerably after its foundation. In 1967, the PDPA split into two rival factions, the Khalq (Masses) faction headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and the Parcham (Flag) faction led by Babrak Karmal.[52][53] 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.[53] More importantly, the radical Khalq faction believed in rapidly transforming Afghanistan, if necessary even using violence, from a feudal system into a Communist society, while the moderate Parcham faction favored a more gradualist and gentler approach, arguing that Afghanistan was simply not ready for Communism and would not be for some time.[53] 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.[53] In 1971, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul reported that there had been increasing leftist activity in the country, attributed to disillusionment of social and economic conditions, and the poor response from the Kingdom's leadership. It added that the PDPA was "perhaps the most disgruntled and organized of the country’s leftist groups."[54]
Postage stamp from 1979 depicting the Arg, with the text reading "The Great Saur Revolution is the fruit of the class struggle"
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.[55] The mysterious circumstances of Khyber's death sparked massive anti-Daoud demonstrations in Kabul, which resulted in the arrest of several prominent PDPA leaders.[56] On 27 April 1978, the Afghan Army, which had been sympathetic to the PDPA cause, overthrew and executed Daoud along with members of his family.[57] 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".[50] After this the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) was formed. Nur Muhammad Taraki, General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, became Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the newly established Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. On 5 December 1978, a treaty of friendship was signed between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan.[58]
"Red Terror" of the revolutionary government
See also: Kidnapping and assassination of U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs
After the revolution, Taraki assumed the leadership, prime ministership and general secretaryship of the PDPA. As before in the party, the government never referred to itself as "communist".[59] The government was divided along factional lines, with Taraki and Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin of the Khalq faction pitted against Parcham leaders such as Babrak Karmal. Though the new regime promptly allied itself to the Soviet Union, many Soviet diplomats believed that the Khalqi plans to transform Afghanistan would provoke a rebellion from the general population, which was socially and religiously conservative.[53] Immediately after coming to power, the Khalqis began to persecute the Parchamis, not the least because the Soviet Union favored the Parchami faction whose "go slow" plans were felt to be better suited for Afghanistan, thereby leading the Khalqis to eliminate their rivals so the Soviets would have no other choice but to back them.[60] Within the PDPA, conflicts resulted in exiles, purges and executions of Parcham members.[61] The Khalq state executed between 10,000 and 27,000 people, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison, prior to the Soviet intervention.[62][63] Political scientist Olivier Roy estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 people disappeared during the Taraki–Amin period:[64]
There is only one leading force in the country – Hafizullah Amin. In the Politburo, everybody fears Amin.
— PDPA Politburo member Nur Ahmad Nur to Soviet Ambassador Alexander Puzanov, June 1978[65]
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.[66] 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 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.[67] 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 Taraki. More than two months of instability overwhelmed Amin's regime as he moved against his opponents in the PDPA and the growing rebellion.
Affairs with the USSR after the revolution
Afghanistan Scout Association in the 1950s
Even before the revolutionaries came to power, Afghanistan was "a militarily and politically neutral nation, effectively dependent on the Soviet Union."[54] A treaty, signed in December 1978, allowed the Democratic Republic to call upon the Soviet Union for military support.[68]
We believe it would be a fatal mistake to commit ground troops. [...] If our troops went in, the situation in your country would not improve. On the contrary, it would get worse. Our troops would have to struggle not only with an external aggressor, but with a significant part of your own people. And the people would never forgive such things.
– Alexei Kosygin, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, in response to Taraki's request for Soviet presence in Afghanistan[69]
Following the Herat uprising, the first major sign of anti-regime resistance, General Secretary Taraki contacted Alexei Kosygin, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and asked for "practical and technical assistance with men and armament". Kosygin was unfavorable to the proposal on the basis of the negative political repercussions such an action would have for his country, and he rejected all further attempts by Taraki to solicit Soviet military aid in Afghanistan.[70] Following Kosygin's rejection, Taraki requested aid from Leonid Brezhnev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Soviet head of state, who warned Taraki that full Soviet intervention "would only play into the hands of our enemies – both yours and ours". Brezhnev also advised Taraki to ease up on the drastic social reforms and to seek broader support for his regime.[71]
In 1979, Taraki attended a conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana, Cuba. On his way back, he stopped in Moscow on 20 March 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.[72]
Lenin taught us to be merciless towards the enemies of the revolution, and millions of people had to be eliminated in order to secure the victory of the October Revolution.
— Taraki's reply to the Soviet ambassador Alexander Puzanov, who asked Taraki to spare the lives of two Parchamites sentenced to death.[73]
Taraki and Amin's regime even attempted to eliminate Parcham's leader Babrak Karmal. After being relieved of his duties as ambassador, he remained in Czechoslovakia in exile, fearing for his life if he returned as the regime requested. He and his family were protected by the Czechoslovak StB; files from January 1979 revealed information that Afghanistan sent KHAD spies to Czechoslovakia to find and assassinate Karmal.[74]
Initiation of the rebellion
See also: Pakistan–Soviet Union relations
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 law, especially marriage law, aimed at "uprooting feudalism" in Afghan society.[75][page needed] The government brooked no opposition to the reforms[61] 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[63] Pul-e-Charkhi prison, including many village mullahs and headmen.[62] Other members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment and intelligentsia fled the country.[62]
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.[76] 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.[77][78] 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.[79][80] By August 1979, up to 165,000 Afghans had fled across the border to Pakistan.[81] The main reason the revolt spread so widely was the disintegration of the Afghan army in a series of insurrections.[82] The numbers of the Afghan army fell from 110,000 men in 1978 to 25,000 by 1980.[83] The U.S. embassy in Kabul cabled to Washington the army was melting away "like an ice floe in a tropical sea".[84] According to scholar Gilles Dorronsoro, it was the violence of the state rather than its reforms that caused the uprisings.[85]
Pakistan–U.S. relations and rebel aid
Pakistani intelligence officials began privately lobbying the U.S. and its allies to send materiel assistance to the Islamist rebels. Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq'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.[86] 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 30 March 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?'"[87] 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."[88] Yet a 5 April memo from National Intelligence Officer Arnold Horelick warned: "Covert action would raise the costs to the Soviets and inflame Moslem opinion against them in many countries. The risk was that a substantial U.S. covert aid program could raise the stakes and induce the Soviets to intervene more directly and vigorously than otherwise intended."[87]
In May 1979, U.S. officials secretly began meeting with rebel leaders through Pakistani government contacts.[54] After additional meetings Carter signed two presidential findings in July 1979 permitting the CIA to spend $695,000 on non-military assistance (e.g., "cash, medical equipment, and radio transmitters") and on a propaganda campaign targeting the Soviet-backed leadership of the DRA, which (in the words of Steve Coll) "seemed at the time a small beginning."[89][90]
Soviet deployment, 1979
Further information: History of Afghanistan (1978–1992)
The headquarters of the Soviet 40th Army in Tajbeg Palace, Kabul, 1987. Before the Soviet intervention, the building was the presidential palace, where Hafizullah Amin was assassinated.
The Amin government, having secured a treaty in December 1978 that allowed them to call on Soviet forces, repeatedly requested the introduction of troops in Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 1979. They requested Soviet troops to provide security and to assist in the fight against the mujahideen ("Those engaged in jihad") rebels. After the killing of Soviet technicians in Herat by rioting mobs, the Soviet government sold several Mi-24 helicopters to the Afghan military. On 14 April 1979, the Afghan government requested that the USSR send 15 to 20 helicopters with their crews to Afghanistan, and on 16 June, the Soviet government responded and sent a detachment of tanks, BMPs, and crews to guard the government in Kabul and to secure the Bagram and Shindand air bases. In response to this request, an airborne battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel A. Lomakin, arrived at Bagram on 7 July. They arrived without their combat gear, disguised as technical specialists. They were the personal bodyguards for General Secretary Taraki. The paratroopers were directly subordinate to the senior Soviet military advisor and did not interfere in Afghan politics. Several leading politicians at the time such as 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.
We should tell Taraki and Amin to change their tactics. They still continue to execute those people who disagree with them. They are killing nearly all of the Parcham leaders, not only the highest rank, but of the middle rank, too.
– Kosygin speaking at a Politburo session.[91]
Based on information from the KGB, Soviet leaders felt that Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin's actions had destabilized the situation in Afghanistan. Following his initial coup against and killing of Taraki, the KGB station in Kabul warned Moscow that Amin's leadership would lead to "harsh repressions, and as a result, the activation and consolidation of the opposition."[92]
The Soviets established a special commission on Afghanistan, comprising the KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, Boris Ponomarev from the Central Committee and Dmitry Ustinov, the Minister of Defence. In late April 1979, the committee reported that Amin was purging his opponents, including Soviet loyalists, that his loyalty to Moscow was in question and that he was seeking diplomatic links with Pakistan and possibly the People's Republic of China (which at the time had poor relations with the Soviet Union). Of specific concern were Amin's supposed meetings with the U.S. chargé d'affaires, J. Bruce Amstutz, which were used as a justification for the invasion by the Kremlin.[93][94][95]
Soviet ground forces in action, supported by Mi-24 helicopters and T-62 tanks, while conducting an offensive operation against the Afghan mujahideen in 1984
Information forged by the KGB from its agents in Kabul provided the last arguments to eliminate Amin. Supposedly, two of Amin's guards killed the former General Secretary Nur Muhammad Taraki with a pillow, and Amin himself was portrayed as a CIA agent. The latter is widely discredited, with Amin repeatedly demonstrating friendliness toward the various delegates of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and maintaining the pro-Soviet line.[96] 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.[97]
During meetings between General Secretary Taraki and Soviet leaders in March 1979, the Soviets promised political support and to send military equipment and technical specialists, but upon repeated requests by Taraki for direct Soviet intervention, the leadership adamantly opposed him; reasons included that they would be met with "bitter resentment" from the Afghan people, that intervening in another country's civil war would hand a propaganda victory to their opponents, and Afghanistan's overall inconsequential weight in international affairs, in essence realizing they had little to gain by taking over a country with a poor economy, unstable government, and population hostile to outsiders. However, as the situation continued to deteriorate from May–December 1979, Moscow changed its mind on dispatching Soviet troops. The reasons for this complete turnabout are not entirely clear, and several speculative arguments include: the grave internal situation and inability for the Afghan government to retain power much longer; the effects of the Iranian Revolution that brought an Islamic theocracy into power, leading to fears that religious fanaticism would spread through Afghanistan and into Soviet Muslim Central Asian republics; Taraki's murder and replacement by Amin, who the Soviet leadership believed had secret contacts within the American embassy in Kabul and "was capable of reaching an agreement with the United States";[98] however, allegations of Amin colluding with the Americans have been widely discredited and it was revealed in the 1990s that the KGB actually planted the story;[96][94][95] and the deteriorating ties with the United States after NATO's two-track missile deployment decision in response to Soviet nuclear presence in Eastern Europe and the failure of Congress to ratify the SALT II treaty, creating the impression that détente was "already effectively dead."[99]
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".[100] By the fall of 1979, the Amin regime was collapsing with morale in the Afghan Army having fallen to rock-bottom levels, while the mujahideen had taken control of much of the countryside. The general consensus amongst Afghan experts at the time was that it was not a question of if, but when the mujahideen would take Kabul.[100]
In October 1979, a KGB Spetsnaz force Zenith covertly dispatched a group of specialists to determine the potential reaction from local Afghans to a presence of Soviet troops there. They concluded that deploying troops would be unwise and could lead to war, but this was reportedly ignored by the KGB chairman Yuri Andropov. A Spetsnaz battalion of Central Asian troops, dressed in Afghan Army uniforms, was covertly deployed to Kabul between 9 and 12 November 1979. They moved a few days later to the Tajbeg Palace, where Amin was moving to.[65]
In Moscow, Leonid Brezhnev was indecisive and waffled as he usually did when faced with a difficult decision.[101] 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.[101] 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.[101] Andropov, Gromyko and Ustinov all argued that if a radical Islamist regime came to power in Kabul, it would attempt to sponsor radical Islam in Soviet Central Asia, thereby requiring a preemptive strike.[101] 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.[101] Contrary to the contemporary view of Brzezinski and the regional powers, access to the Persian Gulf played no role in the decision to intervene on the Soviet side.[102][103]
The concerns raised by the Chief of the Soviet 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.[101] Most notably, though 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 country, such information rarely filtered through to the decision-makers in Moscow who viewed Afghanistan more in the context of the Cold War rather than understanding Afghanistan as a subject in its own right.[104] The viewpoint that it was the United States that was fomenting the Islamic insurgency in Afghanistan with the aim of destabilizing Soviet-dominated Central Asia tended to downplay the effects of an unpopular Communist government pursuing policies that the majority of Afghans violently disliked as a generator of the insurgency and strengthened those who argued some sort of Soviet response was required to a supposed "outrageous American provocation."[104] It was assumed in Moscow that because Pakistan (an ally of both the United States and China) was supporting the mujahideen that therefore it was ultimately the United States and China who were behind the rebellion in Afghanistan.
Amin's revolutionary government had lost credibility with virtually all of the Afghan population. A combination of chaotic administration, excessive brutality from the secret police, unpopular domestic reforms, and a deteriorating economy, along with public perceptions that the state was atheistic and anti-Islamic, all added to the government's unpopularity. After 20 months of Khalqist rule, the country deteriorated in almost every facet of life. The Soviet Union believed that without intervention, Amin's government would have been disintegrated by the resistance and the country would have been "lost" to a regime most likely hostile to the USSR.[105]