Soviet Afghan War - a brief history and rare footage by K.E.N.

The Soviet Afghan War started in December of 1979 and lasted to February of 1989. The roots of the War started when the communist party in Afghanistan seized power in 1978, forming the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

As the communist party started many social reforms and modernization, they made many enemy's. Tensions were high and armed groups started rebelling. In the unrest and chaos even the president wasn't safe, Nur Mohammad Taraki, the president of the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was assassinated and replaced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs -Hafizullah Amin. The Soviet Union was worried that they might lose their new communist ally, so they sent in their 40th Army. The 40th Army wasn't any average conscripted army, they had fought in World War 2 in many important victories like the Battle of Kursk. The 40th Army would become the main core of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the war. When they reached the capital Kabu, they killed Hafizullah Amin and replaced him with Babrak Karmal. The UN passed a resolution that protested the Soviet Union's intervention into Afghanistan and the armed groups were starting to receive weapons and military training from the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and the United States. The Soviets along with the small armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and a poorly disciplined tribal militia known as "Defenders of the Revolution" seized all the major cities and towns. As the newly trained and equipped Mujahideen took control of the rural countryside waging a guerrilla war. In the 1980's thing went from bad to worse, as this conflict became a proxy war. The U.S.A. were defeated in Vietnam in 1975 in the last proxy war, so they wanted to make Afghanistan the Soviet Union's "Vietnam". In western Afghanistan the Soviet's had a large force in order to counter Iranian influence. Iran supported and armed a Shia Mujahideen called Al-Nasr, this militant group would attack the Soviet forces stationed in western Afghanistan. On top of Iran entering the proxy war, China supported and armed a Maoist insurgent group called Liberation Organization of the People of Afghanistan, SAMA for short, they mainly attacked Soviet convoys in the Parwan Province. Once a group of SAMA fighters dressed up in army uniforms broke into a military base, stole its weapons, and kidnapped a Soviet general.

With the Soviet's fighting all these factions they did receive some "military advisers" from East Germany....they weren't much help as the war was going very badly for the Soviets and their Afghan allies. By the end of the Soviet Afghan War it's estimated that 13,000 to 15,000 Soviet personnel had died. Along with hundreds of helicopters and thousands of convoy trucks. The Afghan people suffered terribly , the UN reported that over 3,021 Afghan civilians were killed and over 5 million Afghans became refugees. When the Soviets left in defeat, the violence didn't stop. Afghanistan quickly fell into a bloody civil war. With the communist party still in power (barely), the Mujahideen kept fighting and eventually took control the capital. We all know what Afghanistan is like today. I feel for the people of Afghanistan, decades of non stop war is inconceivable.

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