Post-Korea Activities: Afghanistan Takeover

The Soviet-Afghan war is often seen as the Soviet's Vietnam in international response, dubious begingings, and ultimate failure. The topic of the site is strictily dubious begingings however, and so we will breifly cover the actions of the Soviets and USA leading up to the war.

The Arab nations would be a turbulate place during the Cold War, the United States would have a fair bit of success in finding nations to ally with, the USSR would not, and Iran would eventually declare a struggle or "jihad" against both superpowers. The Soviets wanted a proxy nation in the middle east and eventually settled on making it Afghanistan. There was a pushback against the Afghan government and its leader, Prime Minister Amin, that was crushed by a Soviet backed military police force. A Soviet official named Brezhnev began to trust the Prime Minister less and less though, Amin began to gain control over his own government again by staffing it with his relatives and he had an political rival killed. The Soviets wanted Amin out and he made the mistake of asking their military for more assistance in structuring.

Two units of the "Muslim Battalion" Spetsnaz Special Forces was dressed in Afghani uniforms and sent to gain intelligence in Kabul, findng thirteen different objectives to take in the takeover of the government. Brezhnev and others then agreed on a plan after much deliberation, and signed into effect a strategy where the KGB would assisnate Amin and place a new leader in charge of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. This assassination allowed Russia to retain proxy control of the nation and quell neighboring anti-Afghani attempts.

In response, the CIA went to Afghanistan and secretly trained Muslim fighters known as the Mujahideen to combat the Russia army. These two actions of the main Cold War intelligence agencies lead to a costly and ineffective COIE war for the Soviets. Members of the Mujahideen would later form their own groups.

Sources:

Dick Camp - "Boots On the Ground: The Fight to Liberate Afghanistan from Al-Qeada and the Taliban, 2001-2002"