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In addition to laying millions of landmines across Afghanistan, the Soviets used their aerial power to deal harshly with both Afghan resistance and civilians, levelling villages to deny safe haven to the mujahideen, destroying vital irrigation ditches and other infrastructure through tactics of scorched earth.
Afghanistan will be turned into a center of terrorism." [12] U.S. troops in 2011 surveying the Salang Pass during the War in Afghanistan, the route used by Soviet forces during the invasion 32 years before. As many as 35,000 non-Afghan Muslim fighters went to Afghanistan between 1982 and 1992. [26]
Pursuant to the Geneva Accords of 14 April 1988, the Soviet Union conducted a total military withdrawal from Afghanistan between 15 May 1988 and 15 February 1989. [2] Headed by the Soviet military officer Boris Gromov, the retreat of the 40th Army into the Union Republics of Central Asia formally brought the Soviet–Afghan War to a close after nearly a decade of fighting.
The Soviets, in mid-1979, initially proclaimed Afghanistan as not merely a progressive ally, but a fully fledged member of the socialist community of nations. In contrast, later Soviet rhetoric invariably referred to the Saur Revolution as a democratic turn, but stopped short of recognizing a socialist society.
Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, became convinced by mid-1979 that the Soviets were going to invade Afghanistan regardless of U.S. policy due to the Carter administration's failure to respond aggressively to Soviet activity in Africa.
Of the 620,000 Soviets who served in Afghanistan, 14,500 were killed or died from wounds, accidents or disease--a low rate of 2.3%, plus 53,800 (11.4%) were wounded or injured. However, the rate of hospitalization was unusually high, as the 470,000 personnel hospitalized represented almost 76% of the men.
In 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev announced his intention of withdrawing the Soviet contingent from Afghanistan. From then on the Soviets were mostly concerned with avoiding losses in the Panjshir sector, and they observed a tacit ceasefire: unprovoked shooting by Soviet troops was forbidden, and the mujahideen refrained from attacking Soviet bases.
The raids inside the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War were an effort to foment unrest and rebellion by the Islamic populations of the Soviet Union, starting in late 1984 Director of CIA William Casey encouraged Mujahideen militants to mount sabotage raids inside the Soviet Union, according to Robert Gates, Casey's executive assistant and Mohammed Yousef, the Pakistani ISI brigadier ...