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246-583: The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the protracted Afghan conflict , it saw the Soviet Union and the Afghan military fight against the rebelling Afghan mujahideen . While they were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of the mujahideen's support came from Pakistan ,

492-699: A Khalqist stronghold, controlled the Sarandoy , or officially, the "Defenders of the Revolution", which was a militarized Gendarmerie force. The Ministry of Tribes and Frontiers controlled, until 1983 under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defence, the frontier troops and the tribal militia. According to the Afghan government, the Sarandoy mustered an estimated 115,000 males at its peak. Those who worked in

738-655: 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. 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

984-490: A Vietnamese quagmire? ' " 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." 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

1230-574: A coalition government. The new parliament was bicameral , and consisted of a Senate (Sena) and a House of Representatives ( Wolesi Jirga ). The president was to be indirectly elected to a 7-year term. A parliamentary election was held in 1988 . The PDPA won 46 seats in the House of Representatives and controlled the government with support from the National Front , which won 45 seats, and from various newly recognized left-wing parties, which had won

1476-627: A commission working on a new constitution was established. There were 65 members of this commission, and they came from all walks of life. Due to his death, his constitution was never finished. In April 1980, under Babrak Karmal , the Fundamental Principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan were made law. The constitution was devoid of any references to socialism or communism , and instead laid emphasis on independence, Islam and liberal democracy . Religion

1722-743: A covert operation under MI 's Major-General Naseerullah Babar . 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. According to Baber, Bhutto's operation

1968-587: A deliberate power-sharing between the two bodies; few Presidium members were ministers. It was the PDPA (perhaps with the involvement of the Soviets) which appointed and decided the membership of the Council of Ministers. An Afghan dissident who had previously worked in the office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers reported that all topics up for discussion in the Council of Ministers had to be approved by

2214-494: A inability to equip the estimated 170 thousand strong militias Najibullah set up through his reconciliation policies. In March 1992, Najibullah offered his government's immediate resignation, and following an agreement with the United Nations (UN), his government was replaced by an interim government. In mid-April Najibullah accepted a UN plan to hand power to a seven-man council. A few days later, on 14 April, Najibullah

2460-506: A large percentage of the population remained illiterate. Beginning with the Soviet intervention in 1979, successive wars virtually destroyed the nation's education system. Most teachers fled during the wars to neighboring countries. Afghan refugees are Afghan nationals who have fled their country as a result of the ongoing Afghan conflict . An estimated 6 million people have fled the country, most to neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, making it

2706-461: A member of the front. The National Fatherland Front (NFF) held its founding congress in June 1981, after being postponed on several occasions. The founding congress, which was planned to last four days, lasted only one. Within one month of its founding, 27 senior members had been assassinated by the mujahideen . Due to this, the organisation took time to establish itself; its first Provincial Committee

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2952-691: A military campaign was known as vastatio . Two of the first uses of scorched earth recorded happened in the Gallic Wars . The first was used when the Celtic Helvetii were forced to evacuate their homes in Southern Germany and Switzerland because of incursions of unfriendly Germanic tribes : to add incentive to the march, the Helvetii destroyed everything they could not bring. The second case shows actual military value: during

3198-539: A possible 344th Commando Brigade in 1980. The 26th Airborne Battalion was created from the 242nd and 455th Commando Battalions after the Saur Revolution. They were deemed politically unreliable, and on 5 August 1979, they (along with soldiers from the 444th Commando Brigade) initiated a rebellion against the PDPA government, the Bala Hissar uprising . As a result of the rebellion, the 26th Airborne Battalion

3444-656: A power struggle began between two PDPA factions: the hardline Khalq , led by Taraki and Amin; and the moderate Parcham , led by Babrak Karmal . The Khalqists eventually emerged victorious and subsequently purged the bulk of the Parchamite ranks, while also exiling most of the prominent Parcham leaders to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc . Following the Khalq–Parcham conflict, a power struggle arose within

3690-683: A power struggle developed between them for control of the Afghan Army. Following the 1979 Herat uprising , the Revolutionary Council and the PDPA Politburo established the Homeland Higher Defence Council. Taraki was elected its chairman, while Amin became its deputy. Amin's appointment, and the acquisition of the premiership (as Chairman of the Council of Ministers), was not a step further up

3936-479: A preemptive strike. 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. 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. The concerns raised by

4182-484: A pretext for the Red Army interventions in 1929 and 1930. 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. 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

4428-648: 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." 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

4674-500: 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:

4920-543: A report, that the new government would be ambivalent, or even worse hostile, towards the United States. Almost immediately after the Soviet withdrawal, the Battle of Jalalabad was fought between Afghan government forces and the mujahideen ; the government forces, to the surprise of many, repulsed the attack and won the battle. This trend would not continue, and by the summer of 1990, the Afghan government forces were on

5166-517: A retreat, during which it will necessarily suffer great losses. Wellington's campaign in 1810 and 1811 is a good example. Clausewitz wrote in On War : All that the country yields will be taken for the benefit of the retreating army first, and will be mostly consumed. Nothing remains but wasted villages and towns, fields from which the crops have been gathered, or which are trampled down, empty wells, and muddy brooks. The pursuing army, therefore, from

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5412-514: A scorched earth campaign that threatened the population with starvation and deported many civilians into slavery in Egypt . The fires of burning villages and fields were clearly visible from Allied ships standing offshore. A British landing party reported that the population of Messinia was close to mass starvation. Ibrahim's scorched-earth policy caused much outrage in Europe , which was one factor for

5658-574: A scorched-earth policy and so the Spaniards advanced into a wasteland. Belgrano's army destroyed everything that could provide shelter or be useful to the Royalists. In 1827, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt led an Ottoman-Egyptian combined force in a campaign to crush Greek revolutionaries in the Peloponnese . In response to Greek guerrilla attacks on his forces in the Peloponnese , Ibrahim launched

5904-774: A scorched-earth policy in the Palatinate , Baden and Württemberg . The French were intent on denying enemy troops local resources and on preventing the Germans from invading France. By 20 December 1688, Louvois had selected all the cities, towns, villages and châteaux intended for destruction. On 2 March 1689, the Count of Tessé torched Heidelberg , and on 8 March, Montclar levelled Mannheim . Oppenheim and Worms were finally destroyed on 31 May, followed by Speyer on 1 June, and Bingen on 4 June. In all, French troops burnt over 20 substantial towns as well as numerous villages. In

6150-728: 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 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

6396-407: 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

6642-609: A suitably-rugged container had not yet been invented.) The command was obeyed as a result of French plundering and general ill-treatment of civilians in the previous invasions. The civilians would rather destroy anything that had to be left behind, rather than leave it to the French. When the French armies reached the Lines of Torres Vedras on the way to Lisbon, French soldiers reported that the country "seemed to empty ahead of them". Low morale, hunger, disease and indiscipline greatly weakened

6888-543: A total of 24 seats. Although the election was boycotted by the Mujahideen , the government left 50 of the 234 seats in the House of Representatives, as well as a small number of seats in the Senate, vacant in the hope that the guerrillas would end their armed struggle and participate in the government. The only armed opposition party to make peace with the government was Hizbollah, a small Shi'a party not to be confused with

7134-450: A very close relationship at the beginning, the relationship soon deteriorated. Amin, who had helped to create a personality cult centered on Taraki, soon became disgusted with the shape it took and with Taraki, who had begun to believe in his own brilliance. Taraki began dismissing Amin's suggestions, fostering in Amin a deep sense of resentment. As their relationship turned increasingly sour,

7380-532: Is now Jujuy and Salta Provinces to the south. The Jujuy Exodus was conducted by the patriot forces of the Army of the North , which was battling a Royalist army. Belgrano, faced with the prospect of total defeat and territorial loss, ordered all people to pack their necessities, including food and furniture, and to follow him in carriages or on foot together with whatever cattle and beasts of burden that could endure

7626-635: Is sometimes referred to as "the Soviet Union's Vietnam " in retrospective analyses. In March 1979, there had been a violent uprising in Herat , wherein a number of Soviet military advisers were executed. The ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had determined that it could not subdue the uprising by itself, asked for urgent Soviet military assistance; in 1979, over 20 requests were sent. Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin , declining to send troops, advised in one call to Afghan prime minister Nur Muhammad Taraki to use local industrial workers in

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7872-745: 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 ). It is also known as the Afghan jihad , especially by the non-Afghan volunteers of the Mujahideen. In the 19th century, the British Empire was fearful that the Russian Empire would invade Afghanistan and use it to threaten

8118-520: Is the deliberate destruction, whether partial or complete, of a fortification without opposition. Sometimes, such as during the Wars of Scottish Independence and the English Civil War , it was done to render the structure unusable as a fortress. In England, adulterine (unauthorised) castles would usually be slighted if captured by a king. During the Wars of Scottish Independence , Robert

8364-488: The 1978 April coup in Afghanistan 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 ". 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

8610-583: The Afghan Air Force and heavy artillery regiments that lasted until June. As with the army, the majority of officers in the Afghan Air Force were Khalqists , but Parchamites held all the senior positions. Many in the Air Force were given education and training in the Soviet Union. The Air Force had throughout its history always been smaller than the Army. The Afghan Air Force was considered

8856-703: The American embassy in Kabul and "was capable of reaching an agreement with the United States "; 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; 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

9102-776: 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. By 1926–1928, the Basmachis were mostly defeated by the Soviets, and Central Asia was incorporated into the Soviet Union. In 1929, the Basmachi rebellion reignited, associated with anti- forced collectivization riots. Basmachis crossed over into Afghanistan under Ibrahim Bek , which gave

9348-524: 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. 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

9594-432: The Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, and one-child families or low earners. Unfortunately for the government, most people tried to evade conscription. So the government was forced to send army or police gangs to recruit civilians to service. Even so, some people carried fake papers so they could evade conscription. A side effect of the lack of recruits was that veterans were forced into longer service, or re-recruited. Of

9840-734: The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , and Alexei Kosygin , the Soviet Chairman of the Council of Ministers , congratulated Karmal on his "election" as leader, before any Afghan state or party organ had elected him to anything. When he came to power, Karmal promised an end to executions, the establishment of democratic institutions and free elections,

10086-747: The Great Gallic War the Gauls under Vercingetorix planned to lure the Roman armies into Gaul and then trap and obliterate them. They thus ravaged the countryside of what are now the Benelux countries and France. This caused immense problems for the Romans, but the Roman military triumphs over the Gallic alliance showed that the ravaging alone was not to be enough to save Gaul from subjugation by Rome. In

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10332-401: The Great Powers ( United Kingdom , the Kingdom of France and the Russian Empire ) decisively intervening against him in the Battle of Navarino . In the American Civil War , Union forces under Philip Sheridan and William Tecumseh Sherman used the policy widely: supplies within the reach of Confederate armies I regarded as much contraband as arms or ordnance stores. Their destruction

10578-465: The Homeland Party government in Kabul. The last Soviet aid came in October, with all Russian aid being cut by the new President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin in January 1992. Correctly fearing that a Mujahedeen victory could lead to the new government backing Islamists against the former Soviet Central Asian republics, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan provided food aid to the Najibullah government. The end of weapon exports however led to

10824-402: The Iroquois decisively during the American Revolutionary War with the Sullivan Expedition . General John Sullivan used a scorched earth campaign by destroying more than 40 Iroquois villages and their stores of winter crops resulting in many deaths by starvation and cold in the following winter. In a letter to Jean-Jacques Dessalines , Toussaint Louverture outlined his plans for defeating

11070-425: 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." The Soviets established a special commission on Afghanistan, comprising

11316-435: The KGB Chairman , supported this position. This stance, if implemented, would be a betrayal of the Geneva Accords just signed. Najibullah was against any type of Soviet withdrawal. A few Soviet troops remained after the Soviet withdrawal; for instance, parachutists who protected the Soviet embassy staff, military advisors and special forces and reconnaissance troops still operated in the "outlying provinces", especially along

11562-425: 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

11808-426: The Kar faction led by Dastagir Panjsheri , who later became a Khalqist, and Settam-e-Melli formed and led by Tahir Badakhshi . The Settam-e-Melli was a part of the insurgency against the PDPA government. In 1979, a Settam-e-Melli group killed Adolph Dubs , the United States Ambassador to Afghanistan . Ideologically Settam-e-Melli was very close to the Khalqist faction, but Settam-e-Melli opposed what they saw as

12054-447: 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 . 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. The British Raj also came to an end, and

12300-419: The Maratha Empire , Shivaji Maharaj had introduced scorched-earth tactics, known as Ganimi Kava . His forces looted traders and businessmen from Aurangzeb 's Mughal Empire and burnt down his cities, but they were strictly ordered not to rape or hurt the innocent civilians and not to cause any sort of disrespect to any of the religious institutes. Shivaji's son, Sambhaji Maharaj , was detested throughout

12546-514: The Muslim world and the Western Bloc , the country rapidly destabilized, resulting in widespread civilian casualties and the creation of millions of refugees , most of whom fled to Pakistan and Iran. In April 1980, the "Fundamental Principles" (comprising a constitution) were introduced by Karmal's administration, and several non-PDPA members were allowed into the government to broaden the country's support base. However, these policies ultimately failed to bring peace to Afghanistan, and in 1986, Karmal

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12792-406: The Northern Alliance during the Third Afghan Civil War before collapsing to the United States invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. This Islamic Emirate would be re-established after the end of the War in Afghanistan in August 2021. Mohammad Daoud Khan , the President of the Republic of Afghanistan from 1973 to 1978, was ousted during the Saur Revolution (April Revolution) following

13038-517: The PDPA Central Committee . Under him was Babrak Karmal , the leader of the Parcham faction, as Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Amin as Council of Ministers deputy chairman and Minister of Foreign Affairs , and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar as Council of Ministers deputy chairman. The appointment of Karmal, Amin and Watanjar as Council of Ministers deputy chairmen proved unstable, and it led to three different governments being established within

13284-424: 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. "We only need one million people to make the revolution. It doesn't matter what happens to the rest. We need the land, not the people." — Announcement from Khalqist radio-broadcast after

13530-411: The Roman Senate also elected to use this method to permanently destroy the Carthaginian capital city, Carthage (near modern-day Tunis ). The buildings were torn down, their stones scattered so not even rubble remained, and the fields were burned. However, the story that they salted the earth is apocryphal . The system of punitive destruction of property and subjugation of people when accompanying

13776-464: The Second Sino-Japanese War . The retreating Chinese forces burned crops and destroyed infrastructure including cities to sabotage the logistics of the advancing Japanese forces. Clausewitz wrote in Principles of War : In defensive just as in offensive warfare, it is necessary to pursue a great aim: the destruction of the enemy army, either by battle or by rendering its subsistence extremely difficult. Thus we shall disorganize it and force it into

14022-443: The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and then in the Indian Wars of the Great Plains . When General Ulysses Grant 's forces broke through the defenses of Richmond, Virginia , Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered the destruction of Richmond's military supplies. The resulting fires quickly spread to other buildings, as well as to the Confederate warships docked on the James River . Civilians in panic were forced to escape

14268-466: The Soviet military , under the command of Leonid Brezhnev , moved into Afghanistan to support the Afghan administration that had been installed during Operation Storm-333 . Debate over their presence in the country soon ensued in international channels, with the Muslim world and the Western Bloc classifying it as an invasion, while the Eastern Bloc asserted that it was a legal intervention. Nevertheless, numerous sanctions and embargoes were imposed on

14514-498: The Soviet–Afghan War . It collapsed by the end of the First Afghan Civil War in April 1992, having lasted only four months after the dissolution of the Soviet Union . The PDPA began ruling Afghanistan after ousting the unelected autocrat Mohammad Daoud Khan , who had become president by leading the 1973 Afghan coup d'état ; he was succeeded by Nur Muhammad Taraki as the head of state and government on 30 April 1978. Both Taraki and his successor Hafizullah Amin , who had organized

14760-436: The Tajbeg Palace , where Amin was moving to. In Moscow, Leonid Brezhnev was indecisive and waffled as he usually did when faced with a difficult decision. 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 . The principal reasons for

15006-405: The United States (as part of Operation Cyclone ), the United Kingdom , China , Iran , and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf , in addition to a large influx of foreign fighters known as the Afghan Arabs . American and British involvement on the side of the mujahideen escalated the Cold War , ending a short period of relaxed Soviet Union–United States relations . Combat took place throughout

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15252-399: The shahada , an Islamic creed. Taraki's Government initiated a land reform on 1 January 1979, which attempted to limit the amount of land a family could own. Those whose landholdings exceeded the limit saw their property requisitioned by the government without compensation. The Afghan leadership believed the reform would meet with popular approval among the rural population while weakening

15498-407: The 1950s and 1960s. The USSR began to import Afghan gas from 1968 onwards. Between 1954 and 1977, the Soviet Union provided Afghanistan with economic aid worth of about 1 billion rubles. 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

15744-399: The 1979 census) is estimated to have been killed over the course of the Soviet–Afghan War. The decade-long confrontation between the mujahideen and the Soviet and Afghan militaries inflicted grave destruction throughout Afghanistan and has also been cited by scholars as a significant factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991; it is for this reason that the conflict

15990-407: The 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside, as most of the country's cities remained under Soviet control. The conflict resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000,000 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

16236-448: The 1988 Geneva Accords , and the Soviet Union and the United States signed as guarantors; the treaty specifically stated that the Soviet military had to withdraw from Afghanistan by 15 February 1989. During a Politburo meeting Eduard Shevardnadze said "We will leave the country in a deplorable situation", and talked further about economic collapse, and the need to keep at least 10,000 to 15,000 troops in Afghanistan. Vladimir Kryuchkov ,

16482-498: The 60 people who graduated from Kabul University in 1982, (few male Afghans attended Kabul University between 1980 and 1983), 15 of them fled to Pakistan or began working for the mujahideen. The army's approach to conscription was carrot-and-stick . This policy was partially successful, and each year the government managed to induce 10,000 to 18,000 into the army. A general amnesty was announced in 1980 to army draft deserters from previous administrations. In 1982, students who served in

16728-400: The 666th Commando Brigade would be entirely decimated during the Battle of Khost in 1991. In 1980, the DRA also introduced three special forces battalions, one for each of the army corps. The 203rd Special Purpose Battalion was tied to the 1st Central Army Corps in Kabul , the 213th Special Purpose Battalion was tied to the 2nd Army Corps in Kandahar and the 230th Special Purpose Battalion

16974-414: 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. 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

17220-413: The Afghan government and the Soviet military decided to solve the conflict militarily. The change from a political to a military solution came gradually. It began in January 1981: Karmal doubled wages for military personnel, issued several promotions, and one general and thirteen colonels were decorated. The draft age was lowered, the obligatory length of military duty was extended, and the age for reservists

17466-420: The Afghan government, and the Soviet military—the degeneration of training for new military recruits; new recruits were being rushed into service, because the Afghan government and the Soviet military feared a total collapse of the government. Western analysts expected the Afghan Army to lose the Battle of Jalalabad , but contrary to their expectations, managed to repel the Mujahideen and Pakistani forces (who had

17712-474: 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. Daoud Khan's irredentist foreign policy to reunite the Pashtun homeland caused much tension with Pakistan, a state that allied itself with

17958-406: The Afghan people. The red star, the book and communist symbols in general, were removed from the flag in 1987 under Najibullah. The new emblem, which replaced Daoud's eagle emblem, was introduced together with the flag in 1978. When Karmal introduced a new emblem in 1980, he said "it is from the pulpit that thousands of the faithful are led to the right path." The book depicted in the emblem (and

18204-543: The Afghans would use the weapons against Pakistan. 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. 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,

18450-707: The Afghan–Soviet border. Pakistan, under Zia ul-Haq , continued to support the Afghan mujahideen even though it was a contravention of the Geneva Accords. At the beginning most observers expected the Najibullah government to collapse immediately, and to be replaced with an Islamic fundamentalist government. Following the Soviet withdrawal the morale of the Afghan Military was said to have actually increased. The Central Intelligence Agency stated in

18696-457: The Air Force. Other Soviet equipment and weapons were used by the government. The Czech L-39 jet trainers were the only non-Soviet equipment. The IL-28 bombers remained in very limited service, with their roles mostly being replaced by the Su-17 and Su-22 MiG-17s remained grounded by the end of the 1980s with the more modern MiG-21s taking on the mantle. The Ministry of Interior Affairs ,

18942-789: The Amin/Taraki period in response to the revolts. 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. 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

19188-838: The Bruce adopted a strategy of slighting Scottish castles to prevent them from being occupied by the invading English. A strategy of slighting castles in Palestine was also adopted by the Mamlukes during their wars with the Crusaders . Stephen the Great used scorched earth in the Carpathians against the Ottoman Army in 1475 and 1476. In 1462, a massive Ottoman army, led by Sultan Mehmed II , marched into Wallachia. Vlad

19434-695: 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. Most notably, though the diplomats of the Narkomindel at the Embassy in Kabul and the KGB officers stationed in Afghanistan were well informed about

19680-526: The Czechoslovak StB ; files from January 1979 revealed information that Afghanistan sent AGSA spies to Czechoslovakia to find and assassinate Karmal. 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. The government brooked no opposition to

19926-565: The Duke of Pomerania, the imperial general permitted his troops, upon his retreat, to exercise every barbarity on the unfortunate inhabitants of Pomerania, who had already suffered but too severely from his avarice. On pretence of cutting off the resources of the Swedes, the whole country was laid waste and plundered; and often, when the Imperialists were unable any longer to maintain a place, it

20172-481: The French army and compelled the forces to retreat, see also Attrition warfare against Napoleon . In 1812, Emperor Alexander I was able to render Napoleon's invasion of Russia useless by using a scorched-earth policy. As Russians withdrew from the advancing French army, they burned the countryside over which they passed ( and allegedly Moscow ), leaving nothing of value for the pursuing French army. Encountering only desolate and useless land Napoleon's Grande Armée

20418-589: The French in the Haitian Revolution starting in 1791 using scorched-earth: "Do not forget, while waiting for the rainy reason which will rid us of our foes, that we have no other resource than destruction and fire. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest sustenance. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the foundations, burn and annihilate everything in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes

20664-404: The Herat revolt. Some 100 Soviet citizens and their families were killed. By August 1979, up to 165,000 Afghans had fled across the border to Pakistan. The main reason the revolt spread so widely was the disintegration of the Afghan army in a series of insurrections. The numbers of the Afghan army fell from 110,000 men in 1978 to 25,000 by 1980. The U.S. embassy in Kabul cabled to Washington the army

20910-551: The Impaler retreated to Transylvania . During his departure, he conducted scorched-earth tactics to ward off Mehmed's approach. When the Ottoman forces approached Tirgoviste , they encountered over 20,000 people impaled by the forces of Vlad the Impaler, creating a "forest" of dead or dying bodies on stakes. The atrocious, gut-wrenching sight caused Mehmed to withdraw from battle and send instead Radu, Vlad's brother, to fight Vlad

21156-578: The Impaler. Further use of scorched-earth policies in war was seen during the 16th century in Ireland , where it was used by English commanders such as Walter Devereux and Richard Bingham . The Desmond Rebellions were a famous case in Ireland. Much of the province of Munster was laid waste. The poet Edmund Spenser left an account of it: In those late wars in Munster ; for not withstanding that

21402-480: The Khalq faction itself, as Taraki and Amin increasingly contested each other's influence. Amin gained the upper hand among the Khalqists and later had Taraki killed on his orders. Due to his earlier reforms, however, Amin's rule proved to be unpopular throughout most of Afghanistan, with the country's emerging instability prompting the Soviet government to begin planning for a direct military intervention in favour of

21648-472: The Khalq faction's "Pashtun chauvinism." Settam-e-Melli followed the ideology of Maoism . When Karmal ascended to power, the Settamites relationship with the government improved, mostly due to Karmal's former good relationship with Badakhshi, who was killed by government forces in 1979. In 1983, Bashir Baghlani , a Settam-e-Melli member, was appointed Minister of Justice . Karmal had first mentioned

21894-469: The Khalqis to eliminate their rivals so the Soviets would have no other choice but to back them. Within the PDPA, conflicts resulted in exiles , purges and executions of Parcham members. The Khalq state executed between 10,000 and 27,000 people, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison , prior to the Soviet intervention. Political scientist Olivier Roy estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 people disappeared during

22140-551: The King in a bloodless coup , and established the first Afghan republic . Following his return to power, Daoud revived his Pashtunistan policy and for the first time started proxy warring against Pakistan by supporting anti-Pakistani groups and providing them with arms, training and sanctuaries. The Pakistani government of prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was alarmed by this. The Soviet Union also supported Daoud Khan's militancy against Pakistan as they wanted to weaken Pakistan, which

22386-665: The Knights, the Maltese militia and a Spanish relief force. In 1630, Field-Marshal General Torquato Conti was in command of the Holy Roman Empire 's forces during the Thirty Years' War . Forced to retreat from the advancing Swedish army of King Gustavus Adolphus , Conti ordered his troops to burn houses, destroy villages and cause as much harm generally to property and people as possible.: To revenge himself upon

22632-498: The Mughal Empire for his scorched-earth tactics until he and his men were captured by Muqarrab Khan and his Mughal Army contingent of 25,000. On 11 March 1689, a panel of Mughal qadis indicted and sentenced Sambhaji to death on accusations of casual torture , arson , looting and massacres but most prominently for giving shelter to Sultan Muhammad Akbar, the fourth son of Aurangzeb, who had sought Sambhaji's aid in winning

22878-590: The Mughal throne from the emperor, his father. Sambhaji was particularly condemned for the three days of ravaging committed after the Battle of Burhanpur. During the Great Northern War , Russian Emperor Peter the Great 's forces used scorched-earth tactics to hold back Swedish King Charles XII 's campaign towards Moscow in 1707–1708. In 1779 Congress decided to defeat the four British allied nations of

23124-665: The NFF had amassed 700,000 members after its founding, which later increased to one million. The majority of its members were already members of affiliated organisations, such as the Women's Council , the Democratic Youth Organisation and the trade unions, all of which were controlled by the PDPA. The membership numbers were in any case inflated . In 1984 the NFF had 67,000 members, and in 1986 its membership peaked at 112,209. In 1985 Zeary stepped down as NFF leader, and

23370-494: The PDPA Politburo. The Karmal government was "a new evolutionary phase of the great Saur Revolution ." The Fundamental Principles was not implemented in practice, and it was replaced by the 1987 constitution in a loya jirga under Muhammad Najibullah but did not have support of opposition parties. Islamic principles were embedded in the 1987 constitution. For instance, Article 2 of the constitution stated that Islam

23616-597: The PDPA agenda included: massive land reform program; the abolition of bride price; and raising the marriage age to 16 for girls and to 18 for boys. However, the mullahs and tribal chiefs in the interiors viewed compulsory education, especially for women, as going against the grain of tradition, as anti-religious, and as a challenge to male authority. This resulted in an increase in shootings of women in Western clothes, killing of PDPA reformers in rural areas, and general harassment of women social workers. Despite improvements,

23862-477: 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 Democratic Republic was pulled, leading to the toppling of the government at the hands of the mujahideen in 1992 and the start of a second Afghan Civil War shortly thereafter. In Afghanistan,

24108-425: The PDPA government reformed the education system; education was stressed for both sexes, and widespread literacy programmes were set up. By 1988, women made up 40 percent of the doctors and 60 percent of the teachers at Kabul University; 440,000 female students were enrolled in different educational institutions and 80,000 more in literacy programs. In addition to introducing mass literacy campaigns for women and men,

24354-411: The PDPA government's attempt to introduce state atheism . It was shown to the public for the first time in an official rally in Kabul. The red flag introduced under Taraki was replaced in 1980, shortly after the Soviet intervention, to the more traditional colours black, red and green. The PDPA flag, which was red with a yellow seal, was retained to emphasise the difference between the party and state to

24600-648: 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 . 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. More importantly, the radical Khalq faction believed in rapidly transforming Afghanistan, if necessary even using violence, from

24846-549: 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 . The mysterious circumstances of Khyber's death sparked massive anti-Daoud demonstrations in Kabul , which resulted in the arrest of several prominent PDPA leaders. 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. The Finnish scholar Raimo Väyrynen wrote about

25092-491: The Parchamites, the term Parcham was, according to Taraki, a word synonymous with factionalism. On 27 June, three months after the revolution, Amin managed to outmaneuver the Parchamites at a Central Committee meeting. The meeting decided that the Khalqists had the exclusive right to formulate and decide policy, which left the Parchamites impotent. Karmal was exiled. Later, a coup planned by the Parchamites and led by Karmal

25338-528: The Parchamites. On 27 December 1979, the Soviet Union launched Operation Storm-333 , assaulting the Tajbeg Palace in Kabul and assassinating Amin, who was then replaced by Karmal. The Karmal era, which lasted from 1979 to 1986, was marked by the height of the Soviet–Afghan War. As the Soviet and Afghan militaries fought against the Afghan mujahideen , which had been bolstered by military aid from

25584-548: The Persian Achaemenid Empire , led by King Darius the Great , during his European Scythian campaign . The Scythians, who were nomadic herders, evaded the Persian invaders and retreated into the depths of the steppes after they had destroyed food supplies and poisoned wells . The Greek general Xenophon recorded in his Anabasis that the withdrawing enemy burnt up the grass and everything else that

25830-674: The Sarandoy were paid 162 dollars a month, a wage which was higher than that of Deputy Minister of National Defence before the Saur Revolution . However, the militia was less disciplined than the regular Afghan Army and were sometimes described as ruthless thugs. KhAD also had their own paramilitary forces and elite units. KhAD ran a program of creating tribal militias. Notable militias include that of General Abdul Jabar Qahraman 's Helmand and Paktia militia, General Ismatullah Muslim Achakzai Kandahar Militia and General Abdul Rashid Dostum 's Junbish Militia . During communist rule,

26076-519: The Saur Revolution as the General Secretary of the PDPA, introduced several contentious reforms during their time in office, such as land and marriage reforms and an enforced policy of de- Islamization vis-à-vis the promotion of socialism . Amin, in particular, built upon Khan's reforms with even more radical legislation for Afghanistan's conservative Muslim society, such as universal education and equal rights for women . Soon afterwards,

26322-471: 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 . 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

26568-508: 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,

26814-472: The Soviet Union by the international community shortly after the beginning of the conflict. 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,

27060-454: The Soviet Union continued, as did bilateral trade. He also encouraged the development of the private sector in industry. The Five-Year Economic and Social Development Plan, which was introduced in January 1986, continued until March 1991, one year before the government's fall. According to the plan, the economy, which had grown less than 2 percent annually until 1985, would grow 25 percent under

27306-402: The Soviet Union to give economic, military and political assistance. Even if Karmal indeed wanted all this, it would be impossible to put it into practice in the presence of the Soviet Union. Most Afghans mistrusted the government at this time. Many still remembered that Karmal had said he would protect private capital in 1978, a promise later proven to be a lie. When a political solution failed,

27552-450: The Soviet Union until the very end, despite the deterioration of official relations with the Soviet Union. When the Afghan intelligence service handed Amin a report that the Soviet Union would invade the country and topple him, Amin claimed the report was a product of imperialism . His view can be explained by the fact that the Soviet Union, after several months, decided to send troops into Afghanistan. Contrary to normal Western beliefs, Amin

27798-404: The Soviet Union, and of them, between 5 and 10 percent were members of the PDPA or communists. By the time of the Soviet intervention, the officer corps had decreased to 1,100 members. This decrease can be explained by the number of purges centered on the armed forces. The purge of the military began immediately after the PDPA took power. According to Mohammad Ayub Osmani, an officer who defected to

28044-555: The Soviet Union, the Special Commission of the Politburo on Afghanistan, which consisted of Yuri Andropov , Andrei Gromyko , Dmitriy Ustinov and Boris Ponomarev , wanted to end the impression that the Soviet government supported Amin's leadership and policies. Andropov fought hard for Soviet intervention, telling Leonid Brezhnev that Amin's policies had destroyed the military and the government's capability to handle

28290-625: 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,

28536-417: 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 infrastructure through tactics of scorched earth . The Soviet government had initially planned to swiftly secure Afghanistan's towns and road networks, stabilize the PDPA, and withdraw all of their military forces in

28782-440: The Soviets were afraid that they would contact the enemy. In Afghan helicopter flights a Soviet adviser was always present, and commanded the Afghan pilot who flew the helicopter. Among the fixed-wing aircraft in use were MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighters, Su-7 , Su-17 , and Su-22 fighter-bombers, IL-28 bombers and An-2 , An-24 and An-26 transport aircraft. MI-2 , MI-4 , MI-8 , MI-24 and MI-35 helicopters were used by

29028-569: The Soviets. Under Karmal, the Khalqist's were purged and replaced by the Parcham majority in the Council of Ministers. Of the 24 members of the Council of Ministers under Karmal's chairmanship, only four were Khalqists. The PDPA constitution was written during the party's First Congress in 1965. The constitution regulated all party activities and modelled itself after the Leninist party model;

29274-673: The Supreme Commander, who also held the posts of PDPA General Secretary and head of state. The order of precedence continued with the Minister of National Defense , the Deputy Minister of National Defence, Chief of General Staff , Chief of Army Operations, Air and Air Defence Commander and ended with the Chief of Intelligence. Of the 8,000 strong officer corps in 1978, between 600 and 800 were communists . An estimated 40 to 45 percent of these officers were educated in

29520-511: The Taraki–Amin period: There is only one leading force in the country – Hafizullah Amin. In the Politburo, everybody fears Amin. 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. 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

29766-614: 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

30012-619: 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

30258-592: The United Kingdom, such as using it as a base for a revolutionary advance towards British-controlled India . 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) . The Basmachi movement had originated in a 1916 revolt against Russian conscription during World War I , bolstered by Turkish general Enver Pasha during

30504-576: The United States. The policy had also angered the non-Pashtun population of Afghanistan, and similarly, the Pashtun population in Pakistan were also not interested in having their areas being annexed by Afghanistan. In 1951, the U.S. State Department urged Afghanistan to drop its claim against Pakistan and accept the Durand Line. In 1954, the United States began selling arms to its ally Pakistan, while refusing an Afghan request to buy arms, out of fear that

30750-626: The Vikings successfully. In the Harrying of the North , William the Conqueror 's solution to stop a rebellion in 1069 was the brutal conquest and subjugation of northern England . William's men burnt whole villages from the Humber to Tees and slaughtered the inhabitants. Food stores and livestock were destroyed so that anyone surviving the initial massacre would soon succumb to starvation over

30996-471: The appointment of military officers to the PDPA leadership, altered his position; he now supported their elevation. The PDPA Politburo voted in favour of giving membership to the military officers; the victors (the Khalqists) portrayed the Parchamites as opportunists (they implied that the Parchamites had ridden the revolutionary wave, but not actually participated in the revolution). To make matters worse for

31242-669: The bigger party in Iran. The Council of Ministers was the Afghan cabinet, and its chairman was the head of government. It was the most important government body in PDPA Afghanistan, and it ran the governmental ministries. The Council of Ministers was responsible to the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council, and after the adoption of the 1987 constitution, to the President and House of Representatives. There seems to have been

31488-498: The carrions, happy where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast. In early 1565, Grandmaster Jean Parisot de Valette ordered

31734-635: The civil war. Muawiyah also sent Sufyan ibn Awf to Iraq to burn the crops and homes of Ali's supporters. During the Viking invasion of England , the Viking chieftain Hastein tried to occupy the ruined Roman fortress of Chester in late summer 893, planning to raid northern Mercia from the refortified fortress. But the Mercians destroyed all crops and livestock in the surrounding countryside and expelled

31980-486: The country's infrastructure was destroyed, and normal patterns of economic activity were disrupted. The gross national product (GNP) fell substantially during Karmal's rule because of the conflict; trade and transport were disrupted along with the loss of labor and capital. In 1981 the Afghan GDP stood at 154.3 billion Afghan afghanis , a drop from 159,7 billion in 1978. GNP per capita decreased from 7,370 in 1978 to 6,852 in 1981. The most dominant form of economic activity

32226-413: The creation of a constitution, the legalisation of parties other than the PDPA, and respect for individual and personal property. Prisoners incarcerated under the two previous governments would be freed in a general amnesty. He even promised that a coalition government was going to be established that was not going to espouse socialism . At the same time, he told the Afghan people that he had negotiated with

32472-435: The crisis between Pakistan and Afghanistan was resolved and Pakistan re-opened the trade routes. 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, which angered the Soviet Union. In 1973, Daoud Khan, supported by Soviet-trained Afghan Army officers and a large base of the Afghan Commando Forces , seized power from

32718-402: The crisis by use of mass repression. The plan, according to Andropov, was to assemble a small force to intervene and remove Amin from power and replace him with Karmal. The Soviet Union declared its plan to intervene in Afghanistan on 12 December 1979, and the Soviet leadership initiated Operation Storm-333 (the first phase of the intervention ) on 27 December 1979. Amin remained trustful of

32964-437: The death of Mir Akbar Khyber , a Parchamite politician from the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), who died under mysterious circumstances. Hafizullah Amin , a Khalqist , was the coup's chief architect. Nur Muhammad Taraki , the leader of the Khalqists, was elected Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council , Chairman of the Council of Ministers and retained his post as General Secretary of

33210-419: The defector's properties. Belgrano labored to win the support of the populace and later reported that most of the people had willingly followed him without the need for force. The exodus started on 23 August and gathered people from Jujuy and Salta . People travelled south about 250 km and finally arrived at the banks of the Pasaje River, in Tucumán Province in the early hours of 29 August. They applied

33456-427: The defensive again. By the beginning of 1991, the government controlled only 10 percent of Afghanistan, the eleven-year Siege of Khost had ended in a mujahideen victory and the morale of the Afghan military slumped. In 1991 a coup led by members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to remove Gorbachev failed resulting in the removal of many Soviet politicians and military officers that favored continuing aid to

33702-415: 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. 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

33948-437: The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Najibullah government was unable to sustain itself and ultimately lost the First Afghan Civil War in April 1992, which, in turn, triggered the Second Afghan Civil War . A distinct faction known as the Taliban emerged from among the mujahideen's ranks during this period and eventually seized most of the country, establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan , which fought

34194-482: The early stages of PDPA rule. One of the main reasons for the small size was that the Soviet military were afraid the Afghan army would defect en masse to the enemy if total personnel increased. There were several sympathisers of the mujahideen within the Afghan Armed Forces . Even so, there were several elite units under the command of the Afghan army, such as the 37th, 38th, 444th, 466th, 666th, 84th, 85th Commando Brigades. Additionally, there could have also been

34440-415: 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." It was assumed in Moscow that because Pakistan (an ally of both the United States and China) was supporting the mujahideen that therefore it

34686-411: The enemies of the revolution, and millions of people had to be eliminated in order to secure the victory of the October Revolution . 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

34932-461: The enemy territory to damage its infrastructure. Robert the Bruce counselled using scorched earth to frustrate the invasion of Scotland by Edward I of England , according to an anonymous 14th-century poem: in strait places gar keep all store, And byrnen ye plainland them before, That they shall pass away in haist What that they find na thing but waist. ... This is the counsel and intent Of gud King Robert's testiment. A slighting

35178-415: The enemy, of the 282 Afghan officers who attended the Malinovsky Military Armored Forces Academy in Moscow, an estimated 126 were executed by the authorities. Most of the officer corps, during the Soviet war and the ensuing civil war, were new recruits. The majority of officers were Khalqists, but after the Parchamites' ascension to power, Khalqists held no position of significance. The Parchamites, who were

35424-502: The enthusiasm of a people who prefer their independence to their property; or by the rigor of an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety without submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice. During the First Fitna (656–661), Muawiyah I sent Busr ibn Abi Artat to a campaign in the Hejaz and Yemen to ravage territory loyal to Muawiyah's opponent Ali ibn Abi Talib . According to Tabari , 30,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed during that campaign of

35670-448: 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 . According to former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official Robert Gates , "the Carter administration turned to CIA ... to counter Soviet and Cuban aggression in

35916-428: The failure of Congress to ratify the SALT II treaty, creating the impression that détente was "already effectively dead." 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". By

36162-425: 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. In October 1979, a KGB Spetsnaz force Zenith covertly dispatched a group of specialists to determine

36408-442: The fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the approach of the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they moved ... the cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of a smoking and naked desert. This desperate but effectual method of defence can only be executed by

36654-446: 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

36900-435: The final fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021. Kabul would suffer destruction following Najibullah's resignation as many factions fought for control . The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan described the Saur Revolution as a democratic revolution signifying "a victory of the honourable working people of Afghanistan" and the "manifestation of the real will and interests of workers, peasants and toilers." While

37146-402: The flag) was generally considered to be Das Kapital , a work by Karl Marx , and not the Quran , the central Islamic text. The last emblem was introduced in 1987 by the Najibullah government. This emblem was, in contrast to the previous ones, influenced by Islam . The Red Star and Das Kapital were removed from the emblem (and the flag). The emblem depicted the mihrab , the minbar and

37392-418: 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. Based on information from

37638-495: 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

37884-544: The government. At the end of 1986, Najibullah called for a six-month ceasefire and talks between the various opposition forces, as part of his policy of National Reconciliation . The discussions, if fruitful, would have led to the establishment of a coalition government and be the end of the PDPA's monopoly on power. The programme failed, but the government was able to recruit disillusioned mujahideen fighters as government militias. The National Reconciliation did lead an increasing number of urban dwellers to support his rule, and to

38130-399: 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. The 1975 rebellion, though unsuccessful, shook President Daoud Khan and made him realize that a friendly Pakistan

38376-402: The government; the Khalq faction was answerable to Amin, the Parchamites were answerable to Karmal and the military officers (who were Parchamites) were answerable to Watanjar. The first conflict between the Khalqists and Parchamites arose when the Khalqists wanted to give PDPA Central Committee membership to military officers who participated in the Saur Revolution. Amin, who previously opposed

38622-410: 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

38868-423: 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. 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

39114-405: The harvesting of all the crops in Malta, including unripened grain, to deprive the Ottomans of any local food supplies since spies had warned of an imminent Ottoman attack. Furthermore, the Knights poisoned all of the wells with bitter herbs and dead animals. The Ottomans arrived on 18 May, and the Great Siege of Malta began. The Ottomans managed to capture one fort but were eventually defeated by

39360-442: The idea of moving Afghanistan toward socialism was proclaimed, completing the task was seen as an arduous road. Thus, Afghanistan's foreign minister commented that Afghanistan was a democratic but not yet socialist republic, while a member of the Politburo of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan predicted that "Afghanistan will not see socialism in my lifetime" in an interview with a British journalist in 1981. Afghanistan

39606-423: The image of the hell which they deserve". During the third Napoleonic invasion of Portugal in 1810, the Portuguese population retreated towards Lisbon and was ordered to destroy all the food supplies the French might capture as well as forage and shelter in a wide belt across the country. (Although effective food-preserving techniques had recently been invented, they were still not fit for military use because

39852-472: The intention of establishing an interim government in Nangarhar Province ) and maintain control of the city. In April 1990, the DRA Armed Forces further proved their ability to fight without direct Soviet assistance when they successfully assaulted a fortified complex in Paghman . The Afghan Army, spearheaded by Junbish-i-Mili , the militia led by Abdul Rashid Dostum , were able to clear mujahideen entrenchments with constant assaults and heavy bombardment from

40098-406: The invasion the army could field 100,000 troops, after the invasion only 25,000. Desertion was pandemic, and the recruitment campaigns for young people often led them to flee to the opposition. To better organise the military, seven military zones were established, each with its own Defence Council. The Defence Council was established at the national, provincial and district level to devolve powers to

40344-443: 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. 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

40590-414: The journey. The rest (houses, crops, food stocks and any objects made of iron) was to be burned to deprive the Royalists of resources. The strict scorched-earth policy made him ask on 29 July 1812 the people of Jujuy to "show their heroism " and to join the march of the army under his command "if, as you assure, you want to be free". The punishment for ignoring the order was execution, with the destruction of

40836-417: The labour force. The balance of payments , which had improved in the pre-communist administration of Mohammed Daoud Khan ; the surplus decreased and became a deficit by 1982, which reached minus $ US70.3 million. The only economic activity that grew substantially during Karmal's rule was export and import . Najibullah continued Karmal's economic policies. The augmenting of links with the Eastern Bloc and

41082-405: The ladder as one might assume; due to constitutional reforms, Amin's new offices were more or less powerless. There was a failed assassination attempt led by the Gang of Four , which consisted of Watanjar , Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy , Sherjan Mazdoryar and Assadullah Sarwari . This assassination attempt prompted Amin to conspire against Taraki, and when Taraki returned from a trip to Havana , he

41328-520: 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. Following Amanullah Khan 's ascent to

41574-418: The largest producer of refugees in the world. Many of these refugees would later be the basis for the Taliban movement. Scorched earth Scorched earth against non-combatants has been banned under the 1977 Geneva Conventions . It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for

41820-416: The latter to enjoy ascendancy over the former. 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." Intense opposition from factions of

42066-417: The lies. At the time of the Parchamite takeover of the state and party, an estimated 80 percent of military officers were Khalqists. In the party's history, only two congresses were held; the founding congress in 1965 and the Second Congress in June 1990, which transformed the PDPA into the Watan Party, which has survived to this today in the shape of the Democratic Watan Party . The Second Congress renamed

42312-420: The local PDPA. It is estimated that the Afghan government spent as much as 40 percent of government revenue on defence. Karmal was forced to resign from his post as PDPA General Secretary in May 1986, due to increasing pressure from the Soviet leadership, and was succeeded by Najibullah, the former Minister of State Security . He continued to have influence in the upper echelons of the party and state until he

42558-424: 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. Even before the revolutionaries came to power, Afghanistan

42804-430: The many civilian casualties, including the killing of 150 men, Brigadier General Thomas Ewing Jr. , Sherman's brother-in-law, issued US Army General Order No. 11 (1863) to order the near-total evacuation of three-and-a-half counties in western Missouri , south of Kansas City, which were subsequently looted and burned by US Army troops. Under Sherman's overall direction, General Philip Sheridan followed that policy in

43050-488: The military, and graduated 10th grade in high school, would pass 11th and 12th grade and be given a scholarship. People who were conscripted after the 12th grade, could, after military service, attend whichever higher education facility they wanted. To stop army desertions, soldiers were quickly promoted to higher ranks. The army consisted of 14 divisions, of these 11 were infantry and another three were armored, which were part of three military corps. While an infantry division

43296-410: The minority, held the positions of power. Of the 1,100 large officer corps, only an estimated 200 were party members. According to Abdul Qadir , one-fifth of military personnel were party members, which meant that, if the military stood at 47,000, 9,000 were members of the PDPA. This number was, according to J. Bruce Amtstutz, an exaggeration. The strength of the Afghan Army was greatly weakened during

43542-408: The months following the coup, Taraki and other party leaders initiated other policies that challenged both traditional Afghan values and well-established traditional power structures in rural areas. Taraki introduced women to political life and legislated an end to forced marriage. The strength of the anti-reform backlash would ultimately lead to the Afghan Civil War . While Amin and Taraki had

43788-474: The most loyal element of the Communist regime. Following the Soviet intervention, the Soviets grounded the Air Force. Afghans were not allowed in security zones at Afghan airports by the Soviets. Afghans were generally not allowed to fly the airplanes of the Afghan Air Force, but the Soviets could. Afghan helicopters were assigned to tasks considered non-sensitive by the Soviets, and the majority of Air Force personnel were not told about missions beforehand, because

44034-474: 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. 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

44280-434: The northeast. Established by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) following the Saur Revolution in April 1978, it came to rely heavily on the Soviet Union for financial and military assistance and was therefore widely considered to be a Soviet satellite state . The PDPA's rise to power is seen as the beginning of the ongoing Afghan conflict , and the majority of the country's years in existence were marked by

44526-605: 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. 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. The Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan 's strength grew considerably after its foundation. In 1967,

44772-465: The opposite of the Soviet Union's; Najibullah was opposed to a Soviet withdrawal, the Soviet Union wanted a withdrawal. This was understandable, since it was thought that the Afghan military was on the brink of dissolution. Najibullah thought his only means of survival was to retain the Soviet presence. In July 1986 six Soviet regiments, up to 15,000 troops, were withdrawn from Afghanistan. The aim of this early withdrawal was, according to Gorbachev, to show

45018-423: The opposition. By 1990, another constitution was introduced, stating that Afghanistan's true nature was that of an Islamic republic and transforming the PDPA into the Watan Party . On the military front, the government still proved to be capable of performing in open combat, as demonstrated in the Battle of Jalalabad . However, with growing internal difficulties, such as the 1990 Khalqist coup d'état attempt , and

45264-457: 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. Lenin taught us to be merciless towards

45510-437: The party and tried to revitalise it by admitting to past mistakes and evolving ideologically. The policy of national reconciliation was given a major ideologically role, since the party now looked for a peaceful solution to the conflict; class struggle was still emphasised. The party also decided to support and further develop the market economy in Afghanistan. Throughout PDPA history there were also other factions, such as

45756-409: The party was based on the principles of democratic centralism and Marxism–Leninism was the party's official ideology. In theory, the Central Committee of the PDPA ruled Afghanistan by electing the members to the Revolutionary Council , Secretariat, and the Politburo of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan , the key decision-making bodies of state and party. After the Soviet intervention,

46002-448: The plan. Industry would grow 28 percent, agriculture 14–16 percent, domestic trade by 150 percent and foreign trade by 15 percent. None of these predictions were successful, and economic growth continued at 2%. The 1990 constitution gave attention to the private sector . Article 20 covered the establishment of private firms, and Article 25 encouraged foreign investment in the private sector. The military 's chain of command began with

46248-435: The political landscape in areas under government control. Political parties could be established as long as they opposed colonialism , imperialism , neo-colonialism , Zionism , racial discrimination , apartheid , and fascism . The Revolutionary Council was abolished, and replaced by the National Assembly of Afghanistan , a democratically elected parliament. The government announced its willingness to share power, and form

46494-442: The possibility of establishing a "broad national front" in March 1980, but given the situation the country was in, the campaign for the establishment of such an organisation began only in January 1981. A "spontaneous" demonstration in support of establishing such an organisation was held that month. The first pre-front institution to be established was a tribal jirga in May 1981 by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. This jirga later became

46740-399: 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

46986-443: The power of the bourgeoisie . The reform was declared complete in mid-1979 and the government proclaimed that 665,000 hectares (approximately 1,632,500 acres) had been redistributed. The government also declared that only 40,000 families, or 4 percent of the population, had been negatively affected by the land reform. Contrary to government expectations the reform was neither popular nor productive. Agricultural harvests plummeted and

47232-423: 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. By mid-1978, a rebellion started, with rebels attacking

47478-472: The powers of the PDPA decreased because of the government's increased unpopularity amongst the masses. Soviet advisers took over nearly all aspects of Afghan administration; according to critics, the Afghans became the advisors and the Soviet became the advised. The Soviet intervention had forced Karmal upon the party and state. While trying to portray the new government as a Khalq – Parcham coalition, most members (the majority of whom were Khalqists), saw through

47724-400: The production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive. The term was found in English in a 1937 report on

47970-443: The province. This was apparently on the belief that these workers would be supporters of the Afghan government. This was discussed further in the Soviet Union with a wide range of views, mainly split between those who wanted to ensure that Afghanistan remained a socialist state and those who were concerned that the unrest would escalate. Eventually, a compromise was reached to send military aid, but not troops. The conflict began when

48216-493: The quartermaster or commissary departments to be issued as if furnished from our Northern depots. But much was destroyed without receipts to owners when it could not be brought within our lines and would otherwise have gone to the support of secession and rebellion. This policy I believe exercised a material influence in hastening the end. General Sherman used that policy during his March to the Sea . Another event, in response to William Quantrill 's raid on Lawrence, Kansas , and

48462-401: The reform itself led to rising discontent amongst Afghans. When Taraki realized the degree of popular dissatisfaction with the reform he quickly abandoned the policy. However, the land reform was gradually implemented under the later Karmal administration, although the proportion of land area affected by the reform is unclear. During the civil war, and the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War , most of

48708-408: The reform, causing agricultural harvests to plummet and rising discontent amongst Afghans. When Taraki realized the degree of popular dissatisfaction with the reform he began to curtail the policy. Afghanistan's long history of resistance to any type of strong centralized governmental control further undermined his authority. Consequently, much of the land reform did not get implemented nationwide. In

48954-493: The reforms 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 Pul-e-Charkhi prison , including many village mullahs and headmen. Other members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment and intelligentsia fled the country. Large parts of the country went into open rebellion. The Parcham Government claimed that 11,000 were executed during

49200-482: The same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the wood and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked Anatomies [of] death, they spoke like ghosts, crying out of their graves; they did eat of

49446-425: The scorched-earth policy came into effect again because even though some large supply dumps had been established on the advance, the route between them had both been scorched and marched over once already. Thus, the French army starved as it marched along the resource-depleted invasion route. In August 1812, Argentine General Manuel Belgrano led the Jujuy Exodus , a massive forced displacement of people from what

49692-457: 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". 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

49938-400: The stabilisation of the Afghan defence forces. While Najibullah may have been the de jure leader of Afghanistan, Soviet advisers still did most of the work after Najibullah took power. As Gorbachev remarked "We're still doing everything ourselves   ... That's all our people know how to do. They've tied Najibullah hand and foot." Fikryat Tabeev, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan ,

50184-481: 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

50430-461: 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

50676-441: The very first day, has frequently to contend with the most pressing wants. Notable historic examples of successful scorched-earth tactics include the failed Swedish , French and German invasion of Russia , Sherman's march to the sea during the American Civil War , Kit Carson 's campaign during the Navajo Wars in 1863 and Lord Kitchener 's methods in the Anglo-Boer War . The Scythians used scorched-earth methods against

50922-474: 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

51168-578: The west, and Afghanistan would be forced into a closer relationship with the Soviet Union. 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. In response to Afghanistan's proxy war, Pakistan started supporting Afghans who were critical of Daoud Khan's policies. Bhutto authorized

51414-417: The winter. The destruction is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry . The survivors were reduced to cannibalism , with one report stating that the skulls of the dead were cracked open so that their brains could be eaten. Between 100,000 and 150,000 perished, and the area took centuries to recover from the damage. During the Hundred Years' War , both the English and the French conducted chevauchée raids over

51660-418: The world that the Soviet leadership was serious about leaving Afghanistan. The Soviets told the United States Government that they were planning to withdraw, but the United States Government didn't believe it. When Gorbachev met with Ronald Reagan during his visit the United States, Reagan called, bizarrely, for the dissolution of the Afghan Military . On 14 April the Afghan and Pakistani governments signed

51906-407: The year CE 363, the Emperor Julian 's invasion of Persia was turned back by a scorched-earth policy: The extensive region that lies between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media ...was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful subsistence from

52152-473: Was "a militarily and politically neutral nation, effectively dependent on the Soviet Union." A treaty, signed in December 1978, allowed the Democratic Republic to call upon the Soviet Union for military support. 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

52398-401: Was accomplished without bloodshed and tended to the same result as the destruction of armies. I continued this policy to the close of the war. Promiscuous pillaging, however, was discouraged and punished. Instructions were always given to take provisions and forage under the direction of commissioned officers who should give receipts to owners, if at home, and turn the property over to officers of

52644-461: Was accused of acting like a Governor General by Gorbachev, and he was recalled from Afghanistan in July 1986. But while Gorbachev called for the end of Soviet management of Afghanistan, he could not resist doing some managing himself. At a Soviet Politburo meeting, Gorbachev said, "It's difficult to build a new building out of old material   ... I hope to God that we haven't made a mistake with Najibullah." As time would prove, Najibullah's aims were

52890-439: 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

53136-418: 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. Pakistan's goal was to overthrow Daoud's regime and establish an Islamist theocracy in its place. The first ever ISI operation in Afghanistan took place in 1975, supporting militants from the Jamiat-e Islami party, led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, attempting to overthrow

53382-417: Was considered by the Soviet Union as a state with a socialist orientation. The Soviets, in mid-1979, initially proclaimed Afghanistan as not merely a progressive ally, but a fully fledged member of the socialist community of nations. In contrast, later Soviet rhetoric invariably referred to the Saur Revolution as a democratic turn, but stopped short of recognizing a socialist society. Under Hafizullah Amin ,

53628-472: Was discovered by the Khalqist leadership, prompting a swift reaction; a purge of Parchamites began. Parchamite ambassadors were recalled, but few returned; for instance, Karmal and Mohammad Najibullah stayed in their respective countries. During Taraki's rule, an unpopular land reform was introduced, leading to the requisitioning of land by the government without compensation; it disrupted lines of credit and led to some crop buyers boycotting beneficiaries of

53874-436: Was established in November, and its first jirga in December. It was not until 1983 that the NFF became an active, and important organisation. The aim of the NFF was to establish a pro-PDPA organisation for those who did not support the PDPA ideologically. Its first leader was Salah Mohammad Zeary, a prominent politician within the PDPA. Zeary's selection had wider implications: the PDPA dominated all NFF activities. Officially,

54120-513: Was forced to resign by 4 of his generals, because of the loss of Bagram airbase and the town of Charikar . Abdul Rahim Hatef became acting head of state following Najibullah's resignation. Najibullah, not long before Kabul's fall, appealed to the UN for amnesty, which he was granted. But Najibullah was hindered by Abdul Rashid Dostum from escaping; instead, Najibullah sought haven in the local UN headquarters in Kabul. The war in Afghanistan did not end with Najibullah's ouster, and continued until

54366-429: Was forced to resign from his post of Revolutionary Council Chairman in November 1986, being succeeded by Haji Mohammad Chamkani , who was not a PDPA member. In September 1986 the National Compromise Commission (NCC) was established on the orders of Najibullah. The NCC's goal was to contact counter-revolutionaries "in order to complete the Saur Revolution in its new phase." An estimated 40,000 rebels were contacted by

54612-418: Was good for use in front of the Ten Thousand . During the Second Punic War in 218–202 BCE , both Carthaginians and Romans used the method selectively during Hannibal's invasion of Italy . After the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene , Quintus Fabius Maximus instructed those living in the path of the invading Carthaginians to burn their houses and grain. After the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BCE,

54858-467: Was in his best interests. 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

55104-408: Was increased to thirty-five years of age. In June, Assadullah Sarwari lost his seat in the PDPA Politburo, and in his place were appointed Mohammad Aslam Watanjar , a former tank commander and the then Minister of Communications , Major General Mohammad Rafi , the Minister of Defence and KHAD Chairman Mohammad Najibullah . These measures were introduced due to the collapse of the army; before

55350-561: Was informed of the Soviet decision to send troops into Afghanistan. Amin was killed by Soviet forces on 27 December 1979. Karmal ascended to power following Amin's assassination. On 27 December Radio Kabul broadcast Karmal's pre-recorded speech, which stated "Today the torture machine of Amin has been smashed, his accomplices – the primitive executioners, usurpers and murderers of tens of thousand of our fellow countrymen – fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, children and old people   ...". On 1 January Leonid Brezhnev ,

55596-506: Was laid in ashes, in order to leave the enemy nothing but ruins. In 1688, France attacked the German Electoral Palatinate . The German states responded by forming an alliance and assembling a sizeable armed force to push the French out of Germany. The French had not prepared for such an eventuality. Realising that the war in Germany was not going to end quickly and that the war would not be a brief and decisive parade of French glory, Louis XIV and War Minister Marquis de Louvois resolved upon

55842-470: Was melting away "like an ice floe in a tropical sea". According to scholar Gilles Dorronsoro, it was the violence of the state rather than its reforms that caused the uprisings. 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

56088-451: Was not heard. 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

56334-417: Was not liked by the Afghan people. During his rule, opposition to the communist regime increased, and the government lost control of the countryside. The state of the Afghan Armed Forces deteriorated under Amin; due to desertions the number of military personnel in the Afghan Army decreased from 100,000, in the immediate aftermath of the Saur Revolution, to somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000. Another problem

56580-472: Was ousted, and later suffocated on Amin's orders. During his 104 days in power, Amin became committed to establishing a collective leadership . When Taraki was ousted, Amin promised "from now on there will be no one-man government   ...". Prior to the Soviet intervention , the PDPA executed between 1,000 and 27,000 people, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison . Between 17,000 and 25,000 people were arrested during Taraki's and Amin's rules combined. Amin

56826-463: 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. 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

57072-428: 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

57318-454: Was prevented from using its usual doctrine of living off the lands that it conquered. Pushing relentlessly on despite dwindling numbers, the Grand Army met with disaster as the invasion progressed. Napoleon's army arrived in a virtually-abandoned Moscow , which was a tattered starving shell of its former self, largely because of scorched-earth tactics by the retreating Russians. Having conquered essentially nothing, Napoleon's troops retreated, but

57564-438: 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,

57810-485: Was succeeded by Abdul Rahim Hatef , who was not a member of the PDPA. The ascension of Hatef proved more successful, and in 1985–86 the NFF succeeded in recruiting several "good Muslims". The NFF was renamed the National Front in 1987. On 19 October 1978 the PDPA government introduced a new flag, a red flag with a yellow seal, and it was similar to the flags of the Soviet Central Asian republics. The new flag stirred popular resentment, as many Afghans saw it as proof of

58056-410: Was succeeded by Mohammad Najibullah . Najibullah pursued a policy known as National Reconciliation : a new constitution was introduced in 1987 and democratic elections were held in 1988 , though they were boycotted by the mujahideen. After almost a decade of warfare, the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989, but continued to back the PDPA, which was facing mounting resistance from

58302-456: Was supposed to be composed of 4,000 to 8,000 men, between 1980 and 1983 a division normally mustered between 2,000 and 2,500. The strength of armored divisions in contrast were maintained, and stood at 4,000. During the Soviet war, the Afghan army used light weapons, and used neglected equipment. During the counter-insurgency, heavy equipment, tanks and artillery were most of the time, but not always, used and fired by Soviet soldiers. A problem faced

58548-479: 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." In May 1979, U.S. officials secretly began meeting with rebel leaders through Pakistani government contacts. 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

58794-494: Was that the KGB had penetrated the PDPA, the military and the government bureaucracy. While his position in Afghanistan was becoming more perilous by the day, his enemies who were exiled in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were agitating for his removal. Babrak Karmal , the Parchamite leader, met several leading Eastern Bloc figures during this period, and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar , Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy and Assadullah Sarwari wanted to exact revenge on Amin. Meantime in

59040-446: Was the agricultural sector . Agriculture accounted for 63 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1981; 56 percent of the labour force worked in agriculture in 1982. Industry accounted for 21 percent of GDP in 1982, and employed 10 percent of the labour force. All industrial enterprises were government-owned . The service sector, the smallest of the three, accounted for 10 percent of GDP in 1981, and employed an estimated one-third of

59286-410: Was the state religion , and Article 73 stated that the head of state had to be born into a Muslim Afghan family. In 1990, the 1987 constitution was amended to state that Afghanistan was an Islamic republic , and the last references to communism were removed. Article 1 of the amended constitution said that Afghanistan was an "independent, unitary and Islamic state." The 1987 constitution liberalized

59532-451: Was tied to the 3rd Army Corps in Gardez. Most soldiers were recruited for a three-year term, later extended to four-year terms in 1984. Each year, the Afghan army lost an estimated 15,000 soldiers, 10,000 from desertion and 5,000 from casualties sustained in battle. Everyone between 19 and 39 was eligible for conscription, the only exceptions were certain party members, or party members in certain tasks, Afghans who studied abroad, mostly in

59778-400: Was to be respected, the exception being when religion threatened the security of society. The Fundamental Principles were, in many ways, similar to Mohammad Daoud Khan 's 1977 constitution. While official ideology was de-emphasized, the PDPA did not lose its monopoly on power, and the Revolutionary Council continued to be ruled through its Presidium, the majority of Presidium members were from

60024-406: Was transformed into the 37th Commando Brigade. The Commando Brigades were, in contrast, considered reliable and were used as mobile strike forces until they sustained excessive casualties. After sustaining these casualties, the Commando Brigades were turned into battalions. The airborne capabilities of the Afghan commando brigades would cease in 1988, during the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and

60270-401: Was ultimately the United States and China who were behind the rebellion in Afghanistan. Democratic Republic of Afghanistan The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan , later known as the Republic of Afghanistan , was the Afghan state between 1978 and 1992 . It was bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, by Iran to the west, by the Soviet Union to the north, and by China to

60516-462: 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. 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

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