The military conflict in Afghanistan, which began more than thirty years ago, remains today the cornerstone of world security. In pursuit of their ambitions, hegemonic powers not only destroyed a previously stable state, but also crippled thousands of fates.
Afghanistan before the war
Many observers, describing the war in Afghanistan, say that before the conflict it was an extremely backward state, but some facts are silent. Before the confrontation, Afghanistan remained a feudal country in most of the territory, but in large cities such as Kabul, Herat, Kandahar and many others, there was a fairly developed infrastructure, these were full-fledged cultural and socio-economic centers.
The state developed and progressed. There was free medicine and education. The country produced good knitwear. Radio and television broadcast foreign programs. People met in the cinema and libraries. A woman could find herself in public life or run a business.
Fashion boutiques, supermarkets, shops, restaurants, a lot of cultural entertainment existed in the cities. The beginning of the war in Afghanistan, the date of which is interpreted differently in the sources, put an end to prosperity and stability. The country in an instant turned into the center of chaos and devastation. Today, radical Islamist groups have seized power in the country, which benefits from maintaining unrest throughout the territory.
Reasons for the outbreak of war in Afghanistan
To understand the true causes of the Afghan crisis, it is worth recalling the story. In July 1973, the overthrow of the monarchy took place. The coup was carried out by the cousin of King Mohamed Daoud. The general announced the overthrow of the monarchy and appointed himself president of the Republic of Afghanistan. The revolution was held with the assistance of the People's Democratic Party. A course of reforms in the economic and social sphere was announced.
In reality, President Daud did not carry out reforms, but only destroyed his enemies, including PDPA leaders. Naturally, discontent in the circles of the Communists and the PDPA grew, they were constantly subjected to repression and physical violence.
Social, economic, political instability in the country caused a civil war, and the external intervention of the USSR and the USA triggered even more mass bloodshed.
Saurian revolution
The situation was constantly heating up, and on April 27, 1987, the April (Saur) revolution took place, organized by the military units of the country, the PDPA and the Communists. New leaders came to power - N. M. Taraki, H. Amin, B. Karmal. They immediately announced anti-feudal and democratic reforms. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan began to exist. Immediately after the first triumphs and victories of the united coalition, it became clear that there was a discord between the leaders. Amin did not get along with Karmal, and Taraki turned a blind eye to this.
For the USSR, the victory of the democratic revolution was a real surprise. The Kremlin was waiting for what would happen next, but many prudent military leaders and apparatchiks of the Soviets understood that the war in Afghanistan was not far off.
Parties to the military conflict
A month after the bloody overthrow of the Daud government, new political forces were mired in conflict. The Hulk and Parcham groups, like their ideologists, did not find common ground. In August 1978, Parcham was completely removed from power. Karmal travels abroad with his associates.
The new government suffered another setback: the reform was hampered by the opposition. Islamic forces unite in parties and movements. In June, armed protests against revolutionary power begin in the provinces of Badakhshan, Bamyan, Kunar, Paktia and Nangarhar. Despite the fact that historians call 1979 the official date of the armed conflict, hostilities began much earlier. The year the war began in Afghanistan - 1978. The civil war was the catalyst that prompted foreign countries to intervene. Each of the mega-powers pursued its geopolitical interests.
Islamists and their goals
The organization “Muslim youth” was formed in Afghanistan in the early 70s. The members of this community were close to the Islamic fundamentalist ideas of the Arab Muslim Brotherhood, their methods of struggle for power, up to political terror. The supremacy of Islamic traditions, jihad and suppression all sorts of reforms contrary to the Qur'an are the main provisions of such organizations.
In 1975, “Muslim youth” ceased to exist. It was absorbed by other fundamentalists - the Islamic Party of Afghanistan (IPA) and the Islamic Society of Afghanistan (IOA). These cells were led by G. Hekmatyar and B. Rabbani. Members of the organization were trained in military operations in neighboring Pakistan and were sponsored by foreign authorities. After the April Revolution, opposition societies came together. The coup in the country was a kind of signal for armed action.
Foreign support to the radicals
We must not lose sight of the fact that the start of the war in Afghanistan, the date of which in modern sources is 1979–1989, was planned as much as possible by the foreign powers participating in the NATO bloc and some Islamic states. If earlier the American political elite denied any involvement in the formation and financing of extremists, then the new century brought very interesting facts to this story. Former CIA officers left a ton of memoirs that exposed their own government’s policies.
Even before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA financed the Mujahideen, set up training bases for them in neighboring Pakistan, and supplied the Islamists with weapons. In 1985, President Reagan personally received the Mujahideen delegation at the White House. The United States' most important contribution to the Afghan conflict has been the recruitment of men throughout the Arab world.
Today there is information that the war in Afghanistan was planned by the CIA as a trap for the USSR. Caught in it, the Union had to see all the failure of its policy, deplete resources and “fall apart”. As we see, it happened. In 1979, the outbreak of war in Afghanistan, or rather, the introduction of a limited contingent of the Soviet Army, became inevitable.
USSR and PDPA support
There are opinions that the April Revolution of the USSR prepared several years. Andropov personally oversaw this operation. Taraki was an agent of the Kremlin. Immediately after the coup, the friendly assistance of the Soviets to fraternal Afghanistan began. Other sources claim that the Saur revolution was a complete surprise to the Soviets, albeit a pleasant one.
After the successful revolution in Afghanistan, the Soviet government began to closely monitor developments in the country. The new leadership in the person of Taraki showed loyalty to friends from the USSR. KGB intelligence constantly informed the "leader" of instability in the neighboring region, but a decision was made to wait. The USSR took the beginning of the war in Afghanistan calmly, the Kremlin was aware of the United States sponsoring the opposition, did not want to give up the territory, but the Kremlin did not need another Soviet-American crisis. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was not going to stand aside, yet Afghanistan is a neighboring country.
In September 1979, Amin killed Taraki and proclaimed himself president. Some sources indicate that the final discord with respect to former comrades-in-arms was due to President Taraki’s intention to request the USSR to enter the military contingent. Amin and his associates were against it.
The entry of Soviet troops
Soviet sources claim that they sent about 20 requests from the government of Afghanistan with a request to send troops. The facts suggest the opposite - President Amin was opposed to the introduction of the Russian contingent. A resident in Kabul sent data on US attempts to drag the USSR into a regional conflict. Even then, the leadership of the USSR knew that Taraki and the PDPA were residents of the United States. Amin was the only nationalist in this company, and yet from Taraki they did not share the $ 40 million paid by the CIA for the April coup, which was the main reason for his death.
Andropov and Gromyko did not want to listen to anything. In the early days of December, KGB general Paputin flew to Kabul with the task of persuading Amin to call in the troops of the USSR. The new president was implacable. Then, on December 22, an incident occurred in Kabul. Armed "nationalists" broke into the house where Soviet citizens lived and cut off the heads of several dozen people. Having mounted them on spears, armed "Islamists" carried them along the central streets of Kabul. The police who arrived at the scene opened fire, but the criminals fled. On December 23, the government of the USSR sent a message to the government of Afghanistan, informing the president that Soviet troops would soon be in Afghanistan in order to protect the citizens of their country. While Amin was pondering how to dissuade the troops of his "friends" from the invasion, they had already landed at one of the country's airfields on December 24. The start date of the war in Afghanistan is 1979-1989. - will open one of the most tragic pages in the history of the USSR.
Operation Storm
Parts of the 105th Airborne Guards Division landed 50 km from Kabul, and the KGB special unit "Delta" surrounded the president’s palace on December 27. As a result of the capture, Amin and his bodyguards were killed. The world community “gasped”, and all the puppeteers of this venture lost their hands. The USSR was hooked. Soviet paratroopers seized all the main infrastructure located in large cities. Over 10 years, more than 600 thousand Soviet soldiers fought in Afghanistan. The year the war began in Afghanistan was the beginning of the collapse of the USSR.
On the night of December 27, B. Karmal arrived from Moscow and announced by radio the second stage of the revolution. Thus, the beginning of the war in Afghanistan - 1979.
Events 1979-1985
After the successful Storm operation, Soviet troops captured all major industrial centers. The Kremlin’s goal was to strengthen the communist regime in neighboring Afghanistan and push back the dushmans who controlled the countryside.
The constant clashes between Islamists and SA troops led to numerous casualties among the civilian population, but the mountainous terrain completely disoriented the fighters. In April 1980, the first large-scale operation took place in Panjshir. In June of the same year, the Kremlin ordered the withdrawal of some tank and missile units from Afghanistan. In August of the same year, a battle took place in the Mashhad Gorge. SA troops were ambushed, 48 fighters were killed and 49 wounded. In 1982, on the fifth attempt, the Soviet troops managed to occupy the Panjshir.
During the first five years of the war, the situation developed in waves. SA occupied heights, then ambushed. The Islamists did not carry out full-scale operations; they attacked food columns and individual units of troops. The SA tried to push them away from major cities.
During this period, Andropov met several times with the President of Pakistan and members of the UN. The representative of the USSR said that the Kremlin was ready for a political settlement of the conflict in exchange for guarantees from the United States and Pakistan to stop funding the opposition.
1985-1989
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the first secretary of the USSR. He was constructive, wanted to reform the system, outlined the course of "perestroika". The protracted conflict in Afghanistan hindered the process of resolving relations with the United States and European countries. Active hostilities were not carried out, but nevertheless, Soviet soldiers died in enviable constancy on Afghan territory. In 1986, Gorbachev announced a course towards a phased withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In the same year, B. Karmal was replaced by M. Najibullah. In 1986, the leadership of the SA came to the conclusion that the battle for the Afghan people was lost, since the SA could not take control of the entire territory of Afghanistan. On January 23–26, a limited contingent of Soviet troops carried out their last operation “Typhoon” in Afghanistan in the province of Kunduz. On February 15, 1989, all the troops of the Soviet Army were withdrawn.
The reaction of world powers
After the media announced the seizure of the presidential palace in Afghanistan and the assassination of Amin, the entire world community was in a state of shock. The USSR immediately began to be regarded as a total evil and an aggressor country. The outbreak of war in Afghanistan (1979–1989) for the European powers signaled the beginning of the isolation of the Kremlin. The President of France and the Chancellor of Germany personally met with Brezhnev and tried to persuade him to withdraw the troops, Leonid Ilyich was adamant.
In April 1980, the US government authorized $ 15 million in aid to Afghanistan’s opposition forces.
The US and European countries called on the world community to ignore the Olympics-80, which is taking place in Moscow, but due to the presence of Asian and African countries, this sporting event still took place.
The Carter Doctrine was compiled precisely during this period of aggravation of relations. Third world countries by a majority vote condemned the actions of the USSR. On February 15, 1989, the Soviet state, in accordance with agreements with UN countries, withdrew its troops from Afghanistan.
Result of the conflict
The beginning and end of the war in Afghanistan are conditional, because Afghanistan is an eternal hive, as her last king said about his country. In 1989, a limited contingent of Soviet troops “organized” crossed the border of Afghanistan - this was reported to senior management. In fact, in Afghanistan there were thousands of prisoners of war of the SA, forgotten companies and border detachments that covered the withdrawal of that same 40th Army.
After a decade of war, Afghanistan was plunged into absolute chaos. Thousands of refugees fled the borders of their country, fleeing war.
Even today, the exact number of dead Afghans remains unknown. Researchers voice the figure of 2.5 million dead and wounded, mostly civilians.
The SA during the ten years of the war lost about 26 thousand soldiers. The USSR lost the war in Afghanistan, although some historians claim the opposite.
The economic expenses of the USSR in connection with the Afghan war were disastrous. $ 800 million was allocated annually to support the Kabul government, and $ 3 billion to arm the army.
The outbreak of war in Afghanistan was the end of the USSR, one of the largest world powers.