Mujahideen ground and rocket attacks against Kabul caused renewed Soviet large-scale offensives into the Panjshir and Konar valleys. Over the next several years, bold guerrilla attacks against Soviet and Afghan forces in Khowst, fierce fighting with mujahideen in Kandahar and Herat and the surrounding areas, and the destruction of 20 MiG-21s at Shindand Air Base convinced the Soviets and the Karmal government that a short war with a decisive victory over the guerrillas was not possible. Despite success in several regions, the mujahideen were unable to achieve decisive long-term results either, for several reasons: their inability and/or unwillingness to coordinate activities and operations among themelves; their inability to capitalize on war supply sources in Pakistan; or their inability to get the most from modern technology because of the high illiteracy rate among the Afghans.
The warfare was extremely brutal: both sides killed prisoners, Afghan officials were assassinated, civilians died in terrorist attacks, villages were destroyed, populations were displaced in reprisal, and mines were airdropped by the thousands. At least 5 million Afghans fled to Iran and Pakistan, most settling in refugee camps. Karmal and the Soviets realized that something had to be done quickly to break the developing stalemate in the war.
On 29 March 1985, President Babrak Karmal called for “major socio-political work among the people and the need to raise the social awareness of the masses.” To foster this effort, Babrak wanted the loya jirgas to elect local councils. After the broadcast, the mujahideen threatened to kill anyone who attended a meeting. Having discovered that an imposed military solution had not worked, the Soviets recognized that they needed a different approach—one that would garner support for the government and reduce guerrilla support. Incorporating key religious tenets from the 1964 constitution, the Afghan Revolutionary Council adopted a provisional constitution that guaranteed “respect, observance, and preservation of Islam as a sacred religion.” Seizing on the importance of Islam in Afghanistan, the Soviets and Karmal agreed to establish religious schools and to improve conditions for women. The Afghan president also tried to gain support from the mullahs by providing them with extra food allowances and money to repair existing mosques and to build new ones.
Figure 5. Abandoned MiG at Mazar.
The Russians managed to “retool” this idea by sending 16,000 to 20,000 Afghan children to schools in Warsaw Pact countries to be educated. This blatant effort to indoctrinate Afghan youth caused international outrage. Destroying the bases of support for the mujahideen posed the classic dilemma—identifying the insurgents and isolating them from the general population. The Soviet solution was to drive everyone from the villages, destroy the crops and irrigation systems, and mine the farmland. Although these tactics separated the guerrillas from their support system and deprived the mujahideen of local intelligence, the refugee numbers in the cities greatly increased, as did the insurgents in the urban areas, and resolve in the anti-Soviet factions was strengthened.
Militarily, the Soviet strategy was to employ large garrisons to control the cities and infrastructure, to man series of outposts at critical points along supply routes, and to launch combat operations against the mujahideen from well-protected base camps. Paratrooper, heliborne assault, and Spetsnaz (special operations) units concentrated on securing the high ground along major transportation routes and ambushing mujahideen forces at water points, the favored routes through defiles, and along well-traveled paths or roads. Although successful initially, the guerrillas countered these efforts by doing more reconnaissance. Using local intelligence, they often were able to ambush the ambushers. Over time, the effectiveness of the military counterinsurgency effort diminished considerably.
On 11 March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. During the Communist Party congress in 1986, the new General Secretary characterized Afghanistan as Russia’s “bleeding wound.” Although Communist leaders like Fidel Castro were invited to the congress, President Karmal was conspicuously absent. At a Politburo meeting on 13 November 1986, Gorbachev made it clear that he was dissatisfied with the military situation in Afghanistan, that he had little faith in Karmal, and that the war had to be ended “in the course of one year—at maximum two years.” The military situation could not be fixed quickly, but Karmal was replaceable. After the Central Committee of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan met on 4 May 1987, “the resignation of comrade Babrak Karmal on health grounds” was announced. Mohammad Najibullah, head of the secret police, was named as Karmal’s successor. Gorbachev’s determination to staunch the “bleeding wound” became quite evident when he directed a limited withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Afghanistan on 28 July 1987.
Mujahideen ambushes of convoys, patrols, and outposts and ground and rocket attacks against Soviet garrisons and airfields, however, continued. Fighting was particularly heavy in and around Kandahar. Thousands of mines were laid, the city was devastated, and nearby villages were destroyed. In 1987, the State Department cited Kandahar as “the scene of . . . the heaviest concentration of combat of the war.” When Soviet forces withdrew, the Afghan population was one-eighth of what it had been in 1979.
In a dramatic reversal of the expansionist policy promulgated by his three predecessors— Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantine Chernenko—Gorbachev announced on 8 February 1988 that beginning 15 May, all Soviet forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan in 10 months. On 14 April, in a ceremony in Geneva, Soviet, Afghan, Pakistani, and U.S. representatives signed five accords associated with the Soviet troop withdrawals to be completed by 15 February 1989. The United States and the Soviet Union pledged not to interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Noticeably absent was representation from the mujahideen.
While some Soviet military advisers remained behind, the 40th Army completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan as prescribed on 15 February 1989. It left behind at least 13,833 dead Soviets. A journalist writing in Izvestiia summed up the difficulties the Soviets had faced in Afghanistan: “The foreign intervention stirred patriotism, and the appearance of ‘infidels’ spawned religious intolerance. On such a field, even a tie would have been miraculous.”
Although the infidels had been expelled, peace did not come to Afghanistan. While President Najibullah was attempting to establish a government in Kabul, the two largest ethnic factions turned on each other. Massoud led the Tajiks and their party, the Jamait-i-Islami (Islamic Society). Abdul Haq led the Pashtun Hizb-i-Islami (Party of Islam). Massoud’s battleground had been the Panjshir Valley, while Haq’s had been Kabul. (Although this Party of Islam had the same name as that of Hekmatyar, the two parties were different.) Pakistan’s president had other concerns.
From relative safety across the border, President Zia ul-Haq of Pakistan had long opposed the growing Soviet presence to his north. Zia was concerned about the large number of Pashtun refugees that fled into Pakistan’s frontier provinces. In 1984, he had condoned the creation of the seven-party Islamic Unity of Afghan mujahideen in Peshawar. This multiple-party group included factions led by Hekmatyar, Massoud, and Haq. President Zia and Hekmatyar shared the same fundamentalist Islamic dream of imposing Islamic theocratic governments in the region. With the announced withdrawal of Russian troops, a group of anti-Soviet Afghans who were friendly with Zia formed an Afghan Interim Government (AIG) headed by Sibghatollah Mojadeddi to take control when the Soviet puppet government fell. Even after Zia’s death in a suspicious plane crash 17 August 1988, the U.S. government supported Hekmatyar because he was considered the best alternative to the communist-controlled Najibullah government in Kabul.
The political situation in Afghanistan was very unstable during the Soviet withdrawal. Najibullah had to mediate for tribal factions who were killing each