Soviet+invasion+of+Afghanistan

 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a 10-year war fought between the Soviet Army and rebels in Afghanistan. The war is generally held to have started December 24, 1979. Soviet troops ultimately withdrew from the area between May 15, 1988 and February 2, 1989. The Soviet Union officially announced that all of its troops had left Afghanistan on February 15, 1989.

In 1979, the USSR took control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, and tried through the following decade to gain control over the whole country and its people. The invasion was a failure, costing thousands of lives and having serious consequences still felt today. To better understand the reason for the Soviet invasion and failure, first one must understand the geography and culture in Afghanistan. The land is mountainous and arid. Jagged, impassable ranges divide the country and make travel difficult. Due to these physical divisions, the people are extremely provincial, with more loyalty to their specific clan or ethnic group than to a government or a country. The people are Muslims, and extremely religious and conservative. The majority ethnic group is the Pashtun, but there are over ten minority groups. Starting in the 1950s, the USSR began giving aid to Afghanistan. The Soviets built roads, irrigation and even some oil pipelines. In the 1970s, a Communist party overthrew the monarchy and tried to institute social reforms. The rural populations saw land distribution and women's rights as alien to their traditional Islamic culture, a culture in which polygamy, covering of women, and blood for blood practices are accepted. The Communist governments in Kabul in the 1970s lacked the popular support of the rural population.
 * Background **

** The Soviets sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979 for a number of reasons. First, they wished to expand their influence in Asia. They also wanted to preserve the Communist government that had been established in the 1970s, and was collapsing because of its lack of support other than in the military. Third, the Soviets wanted to protect their interests in Afghanistan from Iran and western nations. The Soviets brought in over one hundred thousand soldiers, secured Kabul quickly and installed Babrak Karmal as their puppet leader. However, they were met with fierce resistance when they ventured out of their strongholds into the countryside. Resistance fighters, called mujahidin, saw the Christian or atheist Soviets controlling Afghanistan as a defilement of Islam as well as of their traditional culture. Proclaiming a "jihad"(holy war), they gained the support of the Islamic world. The US gave them weapons and money. The mujahidin employed guerrilla tactics against the Soviets. They would attack or raid quickly, then disappear into the mountains, causing great destruction without pitched battles. The fighters used whatever weapons they could take from the Soviets or were given by the US. Decentralized and scattered around Afghanistan, the mujahidin were like a poisonous snake without a head that could be cut off. There was no one strong central stronghold from which resistance operated.
 * The invasion





Occupation (December 1979 to February 1980)
The first phase began with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and their first battles with various opposition groups. Soviet troops entered Afghanistan along two ground routes and one air corridor, quickly taking control of the major urban centers, military bases and strategic installations. However, the presence of Soviet troops did not have the desired effect of pacifying the country. On the contrary, it exacerbated a nationalistic feeling, causing the rebellion to spread even more. Babrak Karmal, Afghanistan's new president, charged the Soviets with causing an increase in the unrest, and demanded that the 40th Army step in and quell the rebellion, as his own army had proved untrustworthy. Thus, Soviet troops found themselves drawn into fighting against urban uprisings, tribal armies (called //lashkar//), and sometimes against mutinying Afghan Army units. These forces mostly fought relatively in the open, and Soviet air power and artillery made short work of them.

Damage to Afghanistan
Over 1 million Afghans were killed. 5 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, 1/3 of the prewar population of the country. Another 2 million Afghans were displaced within the country. In the 1980s, one out of two refugees in the world was an Afghan. Along with fatalities were 1.2 million Afghans disabled (mujahideen, government soldiers and noncombatants) and 3 million maimed or wounded (primarily noncombatants). .The 1989 to 1992 phase of the civil war in Afghanistan began after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving the Democratic republic of Afghanistan to fend for itself against the Mujahideen. After several years of fighting, the government fell in 1992 Historical forces and movements are Nationalism, Religion, communism Website about US prospective over the war and invasion. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/1999/12/991226-afghan1.htm

Map of region in war [|www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/afghanistan.jpg] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Afghanistan_insurgency_1985.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/SovietInvasionAfghanistanMap.png

Book on the Afghanistan war http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft7b69p12h&brand=eschol

You tube videos on the Afghanistan war from US prospective http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D20KhOHjBA&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYCkDhowbp8&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhZ4sQ1myGw&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PXjD1H9NR8&feature=related