We explain what the Afghan war (1978-1992) was and who fought against it. We also explain how and why the Soviet Union and the United States intervened.
The mujahideen received support from the United States and Pakistan to confront the communist government.
What was the Afghanistan War?
The Afghan War (1978-1992) was a military conflict that pitted the communist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (supported by the Soviet Union) against various anti-communist groups. The conflict is also known as the Russo-Afghan War or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and should not be confused with the Afghanistan War that occurred between 2001 and 2021.
The conflict began in 1978, when the country’s communist forces with support from the Soviet Union staged a coup d’état and overthrew the government of President Mohammed Daoud. Instead, they founded the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Different opposition groups united against the pro-Soviet regime and started a guerrilla war that lasted more than a decade.thanks to the economic and military support of the United States and Pakistan.
Among the most important opposition groups were the mujahideen, who were guerrilla communities that preached radical Islam. With the crisis and the fall of the Soviet Union, the communist forces in Afghanistan were finally weakened and were defeated by the mujahideen. In 1992, the Islamic State of Afghanistan was founded, which established a system of government based on religious fundamentalism.
The long and intense civil war decimated the Afghan population. Of the thirteen million people who made up Afghan society at the beginning of the war, More than a million people died and more than five million were exiled as refugees in neighboring countries and Europe.
On the other hand, the new fundamentalist regime established a dictatorial government based on religious law that established strict control of the population and annulled basic freedoms.
Background to the Afghanistan War
Since the 1940s, Afghanistan was ruled by King Mohammed Zahir Shah. During his reign, Zahir Shah established a constitutional monarchy and his cousin, General Mohammed Daud Khan, served as Prime Minister.
In 1973, with the support of Afghan communist groups and the Soviet Union, Daud overthrew the king, established a republican government and became president of Afghanistan. During his rule, he nationalized the country’s most important industries, which hurt some of the better-off sectors of society.
Within the framework of the Cold War, the Soviet Union began to have more and more influence within the country through the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Daud sought to neutralize the communist forces and sought other allies to try to control the situation. However, he failed to consolidate his power permanently.
On April 17, 1978, Mir Ali Akbar Kaibar (one of the top communist leaders) was killed by the policeHis funeral turned into a public demonstration against Daud’s government. In the following days, communist leaders were hunted down and arrested. However, on April 27, the PDPA carried out a coup, assassinated Daud and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
The new PDPA government immediately enacted a series of radical measures focusing on reforming land ownership and political institutions (such as equal rights for women).
These measures were repudiated by several social groups, who saw them as an attack on the social and religious customs of Afghan society. The opposition to the government included heterogeneous groups: Islamic fundamentalists, tribal factions, intellectuals and well-off classes..
On the other hand, during the first year of government, different communist factions fought for the leadership of the PDPA. Political instability, the internal weakness of the PDPA and the unpopularity of the reforms led to the emergence of different pockets of armed opposition against the new government.
In December 1979, Soviet troops entered Afghanistan with the aim of deposing President Hafzullah Amin and replaced him with another pro-Soviet communist leader, Babrak Karmal. The presence of a foreign army inside Afghanistan led to the different opposition groups uniting in resistance to the communist regime.
Development of the war in Afghanistan
During the war in Afghanistan, the mujahideen maintained control of mountainous and rural areas.
With the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan in December 1979, the resistance against the communist government took on other dimensions. The war against a central government that threatened the conservative values of Afghan religious society It became a war against a foreign invasion.
In a short time, the Soviet Union brought more than 100,000 war troops into Afghanistan. In the context of the Cold War, the United States government decided to act immediately. He began sending weapons and other resources to assist the different resistance groups.
The resistance to the regime was not organized centrally, but rather integrated dozens of groups of diverse origins that defended different interests. The groups were related through tribal ties, religious networks and political alliances. Furthermore, with the invasion of Soviet troops, many of the officers and soldiers who were part of the government army deserted and turned to the resistance fight.
Among the most important opposition groups were the “mujahideen”, which were Islamic fundamentalist groups that promoted religious war (called “jihad”). Each group was constituted as an independent military faction and their alliances varied over the course of the conflict.
During the war in Afghanistan, the Afghan mujahideen received international military and economic assistance. It is estimated that more than 35,000 jihadists arrived from different parts of the world and that many of them were trained by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency of the United States government).
Among the best-known mujahideen were Gulbudin Hekmatiar (founder of Hezbi Islami), Burhanuddin Rabbani (leader of Jamiati Islami), Muhammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan) and Osama Bin Laden (who in those years founded Al Qaeda, a paramilitary organization that later became known for its terrorism against the United States).
For more than a decade, the war was stuck in a guerrilla situation. The official government and the Soviets occupied most of the cities, while various resistance groups maintained control over rural and mountainous areas. The resolution of the war was linked to changes in the Soviet Union’s international policy and, later, to the final crisis that led to its dissolution and the end of the Cold War.
End of the Afghanistan war
In 1985, negotiations began between the different forces involved in the conflict: the communist regime, the Afghan rebels, the Soviet Union, the United States and Pakistan. The government demanded that the United States and Pakistan stop assisting the rebelswhile Pakistan demanded the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the return of millions of Afghan refugees to their country.
In 1986, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev decided to replace Babrak Karmal with Mohammad Najibullah and to encourage the creation of an Afghan government that would include some leaders of the more moderate opposition. However, these initiatives did not have enough support. Ultimately, The United States and the Soviet Union began negotiations which ended in the signing of the Geneva Accords on April 14, 1988. They agreed on the gradual withdrawal of Soviet troops.
Between May 1988 and January 1989, Soviet troops definitively withdrew from the country. However, the Afghan communist government’s war against the rebels continued, the Soviet Union continued to support Najibullah’s regime with economic and military assistance, as did the United States with the mujahideen.
In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the communist government in Afghanistan was no longer receiving foreign support. Finally, Najibullah’s regime fell in April 1992 and the government was taken over by an alliance of mujahideen leaders, known as the Peshawar Agreement.
Consequences of the war in Afghanistan
After the fall of the communist regime in 1992, mujahideen leaders formed a brief alliance known as the Peshawar Agreement and established the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
However, in the following years, the different factions clashed in another civil war that lasted until 1996. The Taliban faction emerged victorious from this confrontation, imposing an Islamic fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan that was overthrown in 2001 by the United States. Joined.
The war in Afghanistan caused a huge displacement of the Afghan population. It is estimated that almost five million Afghan citizens were exiled as refugees in Pakistan, Iran and other Arab countries.On the other hand, it is estimated that nearly one million people died as a result of the war.
Agreement on the withdrawal of the USSR from Afghanistan
Foreign intervention in the Afghanistan War made it impossible to end the conflict without the cooperation of all those involved. In short, until foreign troops (both Soviet and American) withdrew from the territory, the two opposing Afghan factions would continue to obtain resources and support to continue their fight.
Negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to withdraw from the conflict began in 1985, but it was only when relations between the two countries improved in other areas that they began to reach an agreement. In December 1987, Ronald Reagan (president of the United States) and Mikhail Gorbachev (leader of the USSR) met in Washington to discuss various issues, including how to end the war in Afghanistan.
In February 1988, Gorbachev issued a unilateral statement announcing a date for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The purpose was to accelerate the diplomacy that he had begun in Washington and achieve the signing of a multilateral agreement in March with the different countries involved.
Gorbachev’s statement on the withdrawal of the USSR from Afghanistan
March 1988
The military conflict in Afghanistan has continued for a long time. This is one of the most painful and painful regional conflicts. Now, to…