THE WORLD ATLAS

War · 24 December 1979 – 15 February 1989

Soviet–Afghan War

In April 1978 the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan seized power in a coup. Its radical reforms and harsh repression provoked uprisings across the country, and its two factions fought each other.

In December 1979 the Soviet Union sent its 40th Army into Afghanistan, killed the party leader Hafizullah Amin and installed Babrak Karmal. Soviet and Afghan government forces held the cities and main roads, but could not defeat the mujahideen, Islamic resistance groups operating from the mountains and from refugee camps in Pakistan. The United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China and others armed and funded the resistance, with Pakistan's intelligence service distributing the aid. After repeated offensives, mounting losses and the arrival of US Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Mikhail Gorbachev's government sought a way out. Under the Geneva Accords of April 1988 Soviet troops withdrew, the last leaving on 15 February 1989. Najibullah's government survived until 1992, when civil war among the mujahideen followed.

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Dates
24 December 1979 – 15 February 1989
Casualties
An estimated 1 to 3 million Afghans died, most of them civilians, along with 14,453 Soviet soldiers by official count (other estimates reach 26,000); about 5 million Afghans fled abroad.

The sides

Soviet Union and the Afghan communist government

Afghan mujahideen

  • Mujahideen 1987–1989

Timeline of the Soviet–Afghan War

  1. Uprising in Herat

    The communist government that took power in April 1978 pushed land and social reforms by force and arrested and executed thousands of opponents. On 15 March 1979 a popular revolt broke out in the western city of Herat, joined by mutinous soldiers of the army's 17th Division. Communist officials and some Soviet advisers were killed. Government forces retook the city on 20 March and bombed it; estimates of the dead range from 3,000 to 25,000. Taraki asked Moscow for troops, but the Soviet leadership at first refused.

  2. Hafizullah Amin seizes power

    Rivalry within the ruling party ended in September 1979 when Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin overthrew President Nur Muhammad Taraki, who was killed soon afterwards. Amin intensified the repression, while rebellion spread and the army suffered mass desertions and mutinies. Soviet leaders distrusted him, feared that Afghanistan might be lost to Islamist rebels or turn to the West, and began planning an intervention.

  3. Soviet 40th Army enters Afghanistan

    On 24–25 December 1979 Soviet forces began crossing the Amu Darya from the Uzbek SSR and flying troops into Kabul and the Bagram air base. Ground columns moved south along the main highways, and within weeks tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers were in the country. Moscow presented the operation as assistance requested by the Afghan government under a 1978 friendship treaty.

  4. Soviet special forces kill Amin and install Karmal

    On the evening of 27 December Soviet special forces stormed the Tajbeg Palace outside Kabul in Operation Storm-333, killing Amin, while other units seized key buildings in the capital. Babrak Karmal, leader of the party's rival Parcham faction, was installed as head of government. The UN General Assembly condemned the intervention on 14 January 1980 by 104 votes to 18, and the United States responded with sanctions and a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

  5. First Soviet offensive into the Panjshir Valley

    The Panjshir Valley north of Kabul, close to the Salang highway that carried Soviet supplies, was the base of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the most effective mujahideen commander. In April 1980 Soviet and Afghan troops launched the first of nine major offensives there. Each time the guerrillas withdrew into the side valleys and mountains, and returned once the troops left. Further offensives followed in August and December 1980 and September 1981, with the same result.

  6. Panjshir V, the largest offensive yet

    On 16 May 1982 about 12,000 Soviet and Afghan troops attacked the Panjshir with hundreds of armoured vehicles and over 100 helicopters, landing some 4,200 airborne troops behind Massoud's defences. They occupied much of the valley floor and set up garrisons, but most of the mujahideen escaped and kept fighting from the heights. Villages were destroyed and much of the valley's population fled.

  7. Massoud agrees a truce with Soviet forces

    After repeated failed offensives, Massoud negotiated the first Soviet–mujahideen ceasefire directly with a Soviet military intelligence officer in January 1983. Soviet forces withdrew from most of the Panjshir, leaving a small garrison, and Massoud used the pause to extend his influence and organisation into neighbouring regions. The truce did not cover the Salang Pass, where fighting went on. Other resistance leaders criticised the deal, and full-scale fighting in the valley resumed in 1984.

  8. Mujahideen besiege Khost

    In the eastern province of Paktia, near the Pakistani border, mujahideen forces surrounded the garrison town of Khost in July 1983. Its defenders could be supplied only by air for years. The siege symbolised the war's pattern: the government held the towns, while the resistance controlled much of the countryside and the routes to its bases and supply depots in Pakistan.

  9. Panjshir VII offensive

    When the 1983 truce collapsed, Soviet commanders launched the seventh and largest Panjshir offensive on 19 April 1984, preceded by heavy bombing that included high-altitude raids. Massoud, forewarned, had evacuated many civilians and fighters. Troops fought through the valley into September, but the mujahideen again survived, and Soviet forces evacuated the valley in September. Two more offensives followed, in September 1984 and June 1985; the last Soviet and Afghan troops left the lower Panjshir in June 1988.

  10. Najibullah replaces Karmal

    Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader from 1985, wanted to end a costly war. On 4 May 1986 Karmal was replaced as party leader by Mohammad Najibullah, former head of the secret police. In the same year the United States began supplying the mujahideen with Stinger shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, about 2,300 in all, through its covert programme Operation Cyclone, which made Soviet helicopters and aircraft far more vulnerable.

  11. Najibullah launches 'national reconciliation'

    At the start of 1987 Najibullah announced a policy of national reconciliation, offering a ceasefire, power-sharing and an end to the party's monopoly in an effort to win over opponents and prepare for Soviet withdrawal. The main mujahideen parties, based in Peshawar in Pakistan, rejected the offer. Fighting continued, and the government relied ever more on militias paid with Soviet money.

  12. Operation Magistral relieves Khost

    From 19 November 1987 to 10 January 1988 Soviet and Afghan forces fought to reopen the road from Gardez to besieged Khost, cut for months by the mujahideen. Soviet troops entered Khost on 30 December and convoys brought in supplies. It was one of the last big Soviet operations; once the main force pulled back, the mujahideen closed the road again.

  13. Soviet withdrawal begins under the Geneva Accords

    On 14 April 1988 Afghanistan and Pakistan signed the Geneva Accords at the United Nations in Geneva, with the Soviet Union and the United States as guarantors. They set a timetable for Soviet withdrawal, which began on 15 May. Half the troops had left by mid-August. The mujahideen were not party to the accords, and outside powers kept arming both sides.

  14. Last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan

    The second phase of the withdrawal ran from November 1988, and on 15 February 1989 the last Soviet column crossed the Amu Darya bridge into the Uzbek SSR, led by the 40th Army's commander, General Boris Gromov. About 620,000 Soviet personnel had served in Afghanistan. The war had damaged the Soviet economy and the army's prestige, and it is often counted among the causes of the Soviet Union's collapse.

  15. Mujahideen assault on Jalalabad fails

    Expecting Najibullah's government to collapse, mujahideen groups backed by Pakistan's intelligence service attacked the eastern city of Jalalabad on 5 March 1989, joined by Arab volunteers. Government forces held the city, and fighting lasted until the end of June. The defeat divided the resistance and showed that the Afghan army could fight without Soviet troops. Najibullah's government survived until April 1992.

Related

Other wars of the time

Sources