The Saur Revolution

 In 1978, as President Daoud’s regime approached its fifth year, he realized that the leftists had
grown strong during his rule.
 He began to tack to the right, warming to the United States while relations with Moscow cooled.
 A demonstration after the mysterious death of an Afghan leftist alarmed Daoud, who put the
leading members of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan under house arrest.
 The leaders of that party called for a coup. A relatively small band of leftist army officers, with
some logistical help from Soviet advisors, attacked the palace, killing Daoud and his family.
 The Saur Revolution, an urban coup d’état, marked the birth of the Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan
 After the revolution, Taraki assumed the Presidency, Prime Minister Ship and General Secretary
of the PDPA. The government had close relations with the Soviet Union.
 On July 3, 1979, United States President Jimmy Carter signed the first directive for covert
financial aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
 In February 1979, U.S.-Afghan relations nosedived when radicals in Kabul kidnapped U.S.
Ambassador Adolph “Spike” Dubs. Against American advice, Afghan-led, Soviet-advised rescue
attempt ended up killing the kidnappers and the Ambassador. U.S. aid programs ended and the
diplomatic profile was reduced. Afghanistan’s conscripted army was unstable and not up to
dealing with emerging mujahideen (holy warriors).
 Tensions between Soviet advisors and Afghan commanders also grew. In March 1979, the
insurgency took a drastic turn. A rebel attack against the city of Heart resulted in the massacre
of 50 Soviet officers and their dependents
 The Afghan government requested Soviet troops to provide security and to assist in the fight
against the mujahideen rebels. However, the Soviet government was in no hurry to grant them.
Based on information from 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 President 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.
 President Taraki visited Moscow in September 1979. He was told by the Soviet leadership that
he had to moderate his program and that the major obstacle to change was his power hungry,
radical prime minister, Hafizullah Amin. Taraki hatched a plot, but Amin learned of it and
countered with one of his own.
 Shortly after a photo of Taraki embracing Brezhnev appeared on the front of Pravda, Taraki
was killed by Amin’ henchmen. Amin then took the positions of defense secretary, prime
minister, president, and general secretary of the party.
Soviet invasion
 The Soviet Union decided to intervene on December 24, 1979, when the Red Army invaded its
southern neighbor. Over 100,000 Soviet troops took part in the invasion, which was backed by
 another one hundred thousand Afghan military men. In the meantime, Hafizullah Amin was
killed and replaced by Babrak Karmal ( loyal to soviet).
 Afghan Forces:55,000 Mujahideen:200,000–250,000
Casualties and losses
Soviet Forces: 14,453 Killed (total),9,500 killed in combat,
4,000 died from wounds,1,000 died from
disease and accidents,53,753 Wounded,312
Missing
Afghan Forces: 18,000 killed
Mujahideen: 75,000–90,000 killed, 75,000+wounded
Role of usa

 Generous U.S. contributions to the refugee program in Pakistan played a major part in efforts to
assist Afghan refugees. U.S. efforts also included helping the population living inside
Afghanistan. This cross-border humanitarian assistance program aimed at increasing Afghan
self-sufficiency and helping resist Soviet attempts to drive civilians out of the rebel-dominated
countryside.
 During the period of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the U.S. Saudi Arabia provided about 3
billion US dollars in military and economic assistance to the Mujahideen groups stationed on the
Pakistani side of the Durand Line. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul was closed in January 1989 for
security reasons.
 The United States welcomed the new Islamic administration that came to power in April 1992
after the fall of the former Soviet-backed government. After this, the Mujahideen groups that
won, started a civil war amongst themselves, but the United States's attention was away from
Afghanistan at the time.

Role of Pakistan

 Pakistan became a major training ground for roughly 250,000 foreign mujahideen fighters who
began crossing into Afghanistan on a daily basis to wage war against the communist
Afghanistan and the Soviet forces. ... Relations between the two countries remained hostile
during the Soviet-Afghan War.

World reaction

 People in most countries around the world did not like what the Soviet Union was doing in
Afghanistan. They liked the way the Afghan people were fighting them. Some reactions were
very serious.
 US President Jimmy Carter said that the Soviet action was "the most serious threat to the
peace since the Second World War".
 Carter threatened to boycott the 1980 Olympic Games in Russia unless the Soviet Union
withdrew its forces by February 1980. It did not do this, and therefore the U.S. boycotted the
Games
Withdrawal of Soviet Union

 The arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev on the scene in 1985 and his 'new thinking' on foreign and
domestic policy was probably the most important factor in the Soviets' decision to leave.
 Gorbachev was trying to ease cold war tensions by signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty in 1987 with the U.S. and withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan whose
presence had garnered so much international condemnation.
 Gorbachev proceeded to negotiate first a withdrawal of Soviet forces, which was completed in
February 1989, and then—along with his successors—an ineffective bilateral cutoff of military
aid to all combatants.

CIVIL WAR

 After the fall of the Soviet-backed regime of Mohammad Najibullah in 1992, many Afghan
political parties, but not Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, Hizb-e Wahdat, and Ittihad-i
Islami, in April agreed on a peace and power-sharing agreement, the Peshawar Accord, which
created the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government for a
transitional period; but that Islamic State and its government were paralyzed right from the
start, due to rivalling groups contending for total power over Kabul and Afghanistan.
 Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami party refused to recognize the interim government, and in April
infiltrated Kabul to take power for itself, thus starting this civil war. In May, Hekmatyar started
attacks against government forces and Kabul
 Due to this sudden initiation of civil war, working government departments, police units or a
system of justice and accountability for the newly created Islamic State of Afghanistan did not
have time to form
 Atrocities were committed by individuals inside different factions.[citation needed] Ceasefires,
negotiated by representatives of the Islamic State's newly appointed Defense Minister Ahmad
Shah Massoud, President Sibghatullah Mojaddedi and later President Burhanuddin Rabbani
(the interim government), or officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC), commonly collapsed within days.