On October 31, 1979, Soviet informants under orders from the inner circle of advisors under Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev relayed information to the Afghan Armed Forces for them to undergo maintenance cycles for their tanks and other crucial equipment. This event began a brutal, decade-long attempt by Moscow to subdue the Afghan civil war and maintain a friendly and socialist government … Late in 1985, the groups were active in and around Kabul, unleashing rocket attacks and conducting operations against the communist government. [146] The viewpoint that it was the United States that was fomenting the Islamic insurgency in Afghanistan with the aim of destabilizing Soviet Central Asia tended to downplay the effects of an unpopular Communist government pursuing policies that the majority of Afghans violently disliked as a generator of the insurgency and strengthened those who argued some sort of Soviet response was required to what seen as an outrageous American provocation. [210] He was later exchanged back to Russia. [276] The most notable of these was the Blowpipe missile launchers. [124][122] Pakistani Pashtuns were also not interested in having their areas being annexed by Afghanistan. The country was already in the grip of a civil war. As the war produced leaders of reputation, "commander" was conferred on leaders of fighting units of all sizes, signifying pride in independence, self-sufficiency, and distinct ties to local communities. In an effort to foment unrest and rebellion by the Islamic populations of the Soviet Union, starting in late 1984 Director of CIA William Casey encouraged Mujahedin militants to mount violent sabotage raids inside the Soviet Union, according to Robert Gates, Casey's executive assistant and Mohammed Yousef, the Pakistani ISI brigadier general who was the chief for Afghan operations. [128][129] The rebellion began to take hold in the cities: in March 1979 in Herat, rebels led by Ismail Khan revolted. Primary advocates for supporting Massoud included two Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts, Michael Johns and James A. Phillips, both of whom championed Massoud as the Afghan resistance leader most worthy of US support under the Reagan Doctrine.[199][200][201]. After the Saur Revolution in 1978, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was formed on April 27, 1978. 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. The mujahideen were fragmented politically into a handful of independent groups, and their military efforts remained uncoordinated throughout the war. [323][324], The CIA World Fact Book reported that as of 2004, Afghanistan still owed $8 billion in bilateral debt, mostly to Russia,[325] however, in 2007 Russia agreed to cancel most of the debt. [228], After the Soviet deployment, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started accepting financial aid from the Western powers to aid the mujahideen. [83] It has left a mixed legacy in the former Soviet Union and in Afghanistan. Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, became convinced by mid-1979 that the Soviets were going to invade Afghanistan regardless of U.S. policy due to the Carter administration's failure to respond aggressively to Soviet activity in Africa. Neither had been favored in the ideology of the former Afghan state. [188], Reader's Digest took a highly positive view of the mujahideen, a reversal of their usual view of Islamic fighters. [275], During the Sino-Soviet split, strained relations between China and the USSR resulted in bloody border clashes and mutual backing for the opponent's enemies. That’s longer than World War I, World War II and the Korean War combined. [115] 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". However, despite suffering heavily, the mujahideen were able to remain in the field, mostly because they received thousands of new volunteers daily, and continued resisting the Soviets. Britain also directly trained Afghan forces, much of which was contracted out to private security firms, a policy cleared by the British Government. As many as 35,000 non-Afghan Muslim fighters went to Afghanistan between 1982 and 1992. [141], 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. Mr. MacEachin was an officer-in-residence at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, from 1995 to 1997, subsequently becoming a senior at the Kennedy School. Ironically, until demoralized by the defections of its senior officers, the Afghan Army had achieved a level of performance it had never reached under direct Soviet tutelage. [242] This was first supplied in 1986; Wilson's good contact with Zia was instrumental in the final go-ahead for the Stinger introduction. After they received their mission to kill certain government officials, they busied themselves with studying his pattern of life and its details and then selecting the method of fulfilling their established mission. Soviet Army formations, units, and HQ elements lost 13,833, KGB sub-units lost 572, MVD formations lost 28, and other ministries and departments lost 20 men. [210], On 8 August 1988, Colonel Alexander Rutskoy was leading a group of Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets to attack a refugee camp in Miramshah, Pakistan. These were the first direct Western attacks on the Soviet Union since the 1950s. These uprisings, along with internal fighting and coups within the government between the People’s and Banner factions, prompted the Soviets to invade the country on the night of December 24, 1979, sending in some 30,000 troops and toppling the short-lived presidency of People’s leader Hafizullah Amin. Select from premium Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan of the highest quality. A Soviet newspaper stated that Egypt and Israel were now "gendarmes of the Pentagon". In September 1988, Soviet MiG-23 fighters shot down two Iranian AH-1J Cobra, which had intruded in Afghan airspace. Over the years Pakistan and Iran have imposed tighter controls on refugees which have resulted in numerous returnees. [97] Immediately after coming to power, the Khalqis began to persecute the Parchamis, not the least because the Soviet Union favored the Parchami faction whose "go slow" plans were felt to be better suited for Afghanistan, thereby leading the Khaqis to eliminate their rivals so the Soviets would have no other choice but to back them. [292], In early 1987 a CIA report estimated that, from 1979 to 1986, the Soviet military spent 18 billion rubles on the war in Afghanistan (not counting other costs incurred to the Soviet state such as economic and military aid to the DRA). [69][70] The Soviets used their air power to deal harshly with both rebels and civilians, levelling villages to deny safe haven to the Mujahideen, destroying vital irrigation ditches, and laying millions of land mines.[71][72][73][74]. One Su-2M4K belonging to DRAAF was shot down by Pakistani airforce jet. To minimize the risk of a coup d'état, they were divided into different branches, each modeled on its Soviet counterpart. On December 24, 1979, soviet troops took control of all the airfields in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Sibghatullah Mojaddedi was selected as the head of the Interim Islamic State of Afghanistan, in an attempt to reassert its legitimacy against the Moscow-sponsored Kabul regime. It had close relations with the Soviet Union. [225], Other countries that supported the mujaheddin were Egypt and China. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 proposed a peace plan in cooperation with leader of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah, for the joint cutoff of Soviet and American aid to the government and guerillas respectively, to result in a ceasefire and peace negotiations. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 151; Marek Sliwinski, "Afghanistan: Decimation of a People". The invasion was also made easier by the existence of a cooperation treaty between the two nations which allowed the Soviet Union to move its troops into the region if Afghanistan … The mujahideen favoured sabotage operations. [278] The mujaheddin were also sent hundreds of thousands of old British army small arms, mostly Lee Enfield rifles, some of which were purchased from old Indian Army stocks. (2005-01-14)", "Terror 'blowback' burns CIA (November 1, 1998)", "Western Fighters Answer Mideast Extremists' Clarion Call", The Path to Victory and Chaos: 1979–92 – Library of Congress country studies, "Dan Rather: more Soviet killing looms in Afghanistan", "Cameraman, CBS Deny Afghanistan Scenes Were Faked", "A history of failed press coverage of Afghanistan", "Radical writer Alexander Cockburn dead at 71", "The campaign for the caves: the battles for Zhawar in the Soviet-Afghan War", "Charlie Wilson's War Was Really America's War", "Breaking contact without leaving chaos: the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan", "Pakistan's F-16s Battled Soviet Jets—and Shot Down the Future Vice President of Russia", "Genocide and the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan", "4 Soviet Deserters Tell of Cruel Afghanistan War", "The war against the Soviets in Afghanistan was run by Zia, not by us", "The real Charlie Wilson: 'War' got it right", "Afghans Down a Pakistani F-16, Saying Fighter Jet Crossed Border", "Amnesty International – Library – Afghanistan: Refugees from Afghanistan: The world's largest single refugee group", "ANATOMY OF A VICTORY: CIA'S COVERT AFGHAN WAR", "Reflections on Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan", "U.S. Increases Fund To Outbid Terrorists For Afghan Missiles", "The Stinger missile and U.S. intervention in Afghanistan", "Declassified files reveal Britain's secret support to Afghan Mujahideen", "UK discussed plans to help mujaheddin weeks after Soviet invasion of Afghanistan". 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