Editing Soviet–Afghan War (section)

== Soviet occupation, 1980–1985 ==

=== Soviet military operations against Afghan guerrillas ===
{{See also|Panjshir offensives}}
[[File:Muja on radio in Munda Dir.jpg|thumb|A [[Mujahideen]] fighter in [[Kunar Province|Kunar]] uses a communications receiver.]]

The war now developed into a new pattern: the Soviets occupied the cities and main axis of communication, while the [[Afghan mujahideen]], which the Soviet Army soldiers called 'Dushman,' meaning 'enemy',<ref name="Schofield, The Russian Elite">Schofield, The Russian Elite</ref> divided into small groups and waged a guerrilla war in the mountains. Almost 80 percent of the country was outside government control.{{sfn|Amstutz|1994|p=127}} Soviet troops were deployed in strategic areas in the northeast, especially along the road from [[Termez]] to Kabul. In the west, a strong Soviet presence was maintained to counter Iranian influence. Incidentally, special Soviet units would have{{clarify|date=February 2011}} also performed secret attacks on Iranian territory to destroy suspected Mujahideen bases, and their helicopters then got engaged in shootings with Iranian jets.<ref>Gregory Feifer, ''The Great Gamble'', pp. 169–170</ref> Conversely, some regions such as [[Nuristan]], in the northeast, and [[Hazarajat]], in the central mountains of Afghanistan, were virtually untouched by the fighting, and lived in almost complete independence. [[Bashgal]], in Nuristan, was additionally a Salafi quasi-state known as the [[Islamic Revolutionary State of Afghanistan]]. Parts of [[Kunar Province|Kunar]], [[Laghman Province|Laghman]] and [[Nangarhar Province|Nangarhar]] were also incorporated into the short-lived [[Islamic Emirate of Kunar]] after the [[Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Heffelfinger |first=Christopher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pKpIAAAAYAAJ |title=Unmasking Terror: A Global Review of Terrorist Activities |date=2005 |publisher=Jamestown Foundation |isbn=978-0-9675009-5-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-05-05 |title=The First Islamic State: A Look Back at the Islamic Emirate of Kunar – Combating Terrorism Center at West Point |url=https://ctc.usma.edu/the-first-islamic-state-a-look-back-at-the-islamic-emirate-of-kunar/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505081119/https://ctc.usma.edu/the-first-islamic-state-a-look-back-at-the-islamic-emirate-of-kunar/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2022-05-05 |access-date=2025-01-26 }}</ref>

Periodically the Soviet Army undertook multi-[[division (military)|divisional]] offensives into Mujahideen-controlled areas. Between 1980 and 1985, nine [[Panjshir offensives|offensives]] were launched into the strategically important [[Panjshir Valley]], but government control in the area did not improve.<ref>Russian General Staff, Grau & Gress, ''The Soviet-Afghan War'', p. 26</ref> Heavy fighting also occurred in the provinces neighbouring Pakistan, where cities and government outposts were constantly besieged by the Mujahideen. Massive Soviet operations would regularly break these sieges, but the Mujahideen would return as soon as the Soviets left.<ref name="bear">{{cite book|last=Yousaf, Mohammad & Adkin, Mark|title=Afghanistan, the bear trap: the defeat of a superpower|year=1992|publisher=Casemate|isbn=0-9711709-2-4|page=159}}</ref> In the west and south, fighting was more sporadic, except in the cities of [[Herat]] and [[Kandahar]], which were always partly controlled by the resistance.<ref>{{cite book|last=Roy|title= Islam and resistance in Afghanistan|page=191}}</ref>

[[File:August 1984 - captured field guns in Jaji, Paktia.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Mujahideen with two captured artillery field guns in [[Jaji District|Jaji]], 1984]]

The Soviets did not initially foresee taking on such an active role in fighting the rebels and attempted to play down their role there as giving light assistance to the Afghan army. However, the arrival of the Soviets had the opposite effect as it incensed instead of pacified the people, causing the Mujahideen to gain in strength and numbers.<ref>{{cite book|last=Klass, Rosanne|title=Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited|year=1987|publisher=Freedom House|page=244}}</ref> Originally the Soviets thought that their forces would strengthen the backbone of the Afghan army and provide assistance by securing major cities, lines of communication and transportation.{{sfn|Amstutz|1994|p=43}} The Afghan army forces had a high desertion rate and were loath to fight, especially since the Soviet forces pushed them into infantry roles while they manned the armored vehicles and artillery. The main reason that the Afghan soldiers were so ineffective, though, was their lack of morale, as many of them were not truly loyal to the communist government but simply wanting a paycheck.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}
Once it became apparent that the Soviets would have to get their hands dirty, they followed three main strategies aimed at quelling the uprising.{{sfn|Amstutz|1994|p=144}} Intimidation was the first strategy, in which the Soviets would use airborne attacks and armored ground attacks to destroy villages, livestock and crops in trouble areas. The Soviets would bomb villages that were near sites of guerrilla attacks on Soviet convoys or known to support resistance groups. Local peoples were forced to either flee their homes or die as daily Soviet attacks made it impossible to live in these areas. By forcing the people of Afghanistan to flee their homes, the Soviets hoped to deprive the guerrillas of resources and safe havens. The second strategy consisted of subversion, which entailed sending spies to join resistance groups and report information, as well as bribing local tribes or guerrilla leaders into ceasing operations. Finally, the Soviets used military forays into contested territories in an effort to root out the guerrillas and limit their options. Classic search and destroy operations were implemented using [[Mil Mi-24]] helicopter gunships that would provide cover for ground forces in armored vehicles. Once the villages were occupied by Soviet forces, inhabitants who remained were frequently interrogated and tortured for information or killed.<ref name="Report from Afghanistan">[http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/afghan/report.pdf Report from Afghanistan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170128201614/http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/afghan/report.pdf |date=28 January 2017 }} Claude Malhuret</ref>

{{quote box
| align = right
| width = 30%
| quote = Afghanistan is our [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]]. Look at what has happened. We began by simply backing a friendly regime; slowly we got more deeply involved; then we started manipulating the regime – sometimes using desperate measures – and now? Now we are bogged down in a war we cannot win and cannot abandon. [.,.] but for [[Leonid Brezhnev|Brezhnev]] and company we would never have got into it in the first place. – [[Vladimir Kuzichkin]], a [[KGB]] defector, 1982<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP90-00552R000303410007-5.pdf |title=Coups and Killings in Kabul |magazine=Time |date=22 November 1982 |page=33}}</ref>
}}

To complement their brute force approach to weeding out the insurgency, the Soviets used [[KHAD]] (Afghan secret police) to gather intelligence, infiltrate the Mujahideen, spread false information, bribe tribal militias into fighting and organize a government militia. While it is impossible to know exactly how successful KHAD was in infiltrating Mujahideen groups, it is thought that they succeeded in penetrating a good many resistance groups based in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.<ref>{{cite book|last=Urban, Mark|title=War in Afghanistan|year=1990|publisher=St. Martin's Press|page=149}}</ref> KHAD is thought to have had particular success in igniting internal rivalries and political divisions amongst the resistance groups, rendering some of them completely useless because of infighting.<ref name="Girardet, Edward 1985 129">{{cite book|last=Girardet, Edward|title=Afghanistan: The Soviet War|year=1985|publisher=St. Martin's Press|page=129}}</ref> KHAD had some success in securing tribal loyalties but many of these relationships were fickle and temporary. Often KHAD secured neutrality agreements rather than committed political alignment.<ref>{{cite book|last=Girardet, Edward|title=Afghanistan: The Soviet War|year=1985|publisher=St. Martin's Press|page=133}}</ref>

The [[Sarandoy]] were a centrally-commanded government paramilitary group placed under the control of the [[Ministry of Interior Affairs (Afghanistan)|Ministry of Interior Affairs]], before being placed under the control of the unified Ministry of State Security ([[KHAD|WAD]]) in 1986.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lansford |first=Tom |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RgCejwEACAAJ |title=Afghanistan at War: From the 18th-Century Durrani Dynasty to the 21st Century |date=2017-02-16 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-59884-759-8}}</ref> They had mixed success in the war, as [[Osama bin Laden]] and the [[Mujahideen|Arab mujahideen]] fought the Sarandoy's 7th Operative Regiment, only to fail and sustain massive casualties. The label “Sarandoy” additionally included traffic police, provincial officers and corrections/labor facility officers.<ref>{{Cite web| title=Building Afghanistan's Security Forces in Wartime - The Soviet Experience | publisher=RAND ARROYO CENTER | first=Olga | last=Oliker | url=https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1078.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141020234331/http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/RAND_MG1078.pdf | archive-date=2014-10-20}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Roy Gutman |url=http://archive.org/details/howwemissedstory00gutm |title=How we missed the story |date=2008 |publisher=US Inst Peace Pr |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-1-60127-024-5}}</ref> Large salaries and proper weapons attracted a good number of recruits to the cause, even if they were not necessarily "pro-communist". The problem was that many of the recruits they attracted were in fact Mujahideen who would join up to procure arms, ammunition and money while also gathering information about forthcoming military operations.<ref name="Girardet, Edward 1985 129" /> By the end of 1981, there were reports of [[Bulgarian Armed Forces]] present in [[Mazar-i-Sharif]], the [[Warsaw Pact]] and the [[Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces]] all operating in [[Afghanistan]]. A fighter of the [[Mujahideen]], describing the [[Cubans]] in combat, said they were "big and black and shout very loudly when they fight. Unlike the [[Russians]] they were not afraid to attack us in the open".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Seekins |first1=Donald M. |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001292656 |title=Afghanistan: a country study |last2=Nyrop |first2=Richard F. |last3=American University (Washington |first3=D.C.). |date=1986 |publisher=The Studies : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O. |series=DA pam;550-65 |location=Washington, D.C.}}</ref>

In 1985, the size of the LCOSF (Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces) was increased to 108,800 and fighting increased throughout the country, making 1985 the bloodiest year of the war. However, despite suffering heavily, the Mujahideen were able to remain in the field, mostly because they received thousands of new volunteers daily, and continued resisting the Soviets

=== Reforms of the Karmal administration ===
[[Babrak Karmal]], after the invasion, promised reforms to win support from the population alienated by his ousted predecessors. A temporary constitution, the Fundamental Principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, was adopted in April 1980. On paper, it was a [[Democracy|democratic]] constitution including "right of free expression" and disallowing "torture, persecution, and punishment, contrary to human dignity". Karmal's government was formed of his fellow Parchamites along with (pro-Taraki) Khalqists, and a number of known non-communists/leftists in various ministries.<ref name="cdlib" />

Karmal called his regime "a new evolutionary phase of the glorious April Revolution", but he failed at uniting the PDPA. In the eyes of many Afghans, he was still seen as a "[[puppet]]" of the Soviet Union.<ref name="cdlib" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Grau |first=Lester W. |date=1 March 2004 |title=The Soviet–Afghan War: A Superpower Mired in the Mountains |journal=The Journal of Slavic Military Studies |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=129–151 |doi=10.1080/13518040490440692 |s2cid=144778383}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Vietnam |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2003/04/2008410113842420760.html |website=www.aljazeera.com}}</ref>{{sfn|Amstutz|1994|p=127}}

=== Mujahideen insurrection ===
{{Main|Afghan mujahideen}}
[[File:Evstafiev-spetsnaz-prepare-for-mission.jpg|thumb|A Soviet [[Spetsnaz]] (special operations) group prepares for a mission in Afghanistan, 1988.]]
In the mid-1980s, the Afghan resistance movement, assisted by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, Egypt, the People's Republic of China and others, contributed to Moscow's high military costs and strained international relations. The U.S. viewed the conflict in Afghanistan as an integral Cold War struggle, and the CIA provided assistance to anti-Soviet forces through the [[Pakistani intelligence services]], in a program called [[Operation Cyclone]].<ref name=1986-1992-CIA-AND-BRITISH-RECRUIT-AND-TRAIN-MILITANTS-WORLDWIDE-TO-HELP-FIGHT-AFGHAN-WAR>{{cite web|title=1986–1992: CIA and British Recruit and Train Militants Worldwide to Help Fight Afghan War|url=http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a86operationcyclone|publisher=History Commons|access-date=9 January 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080912195929/http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a86operationcyclone|archive-date=12 September 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Pakistan's [[Khyber Pakhtunkhwa|North-West Frontier Province]] became a base for the Afghan resistance fighters and the [[Deobandi]] ulama of that province played a significant role in the Afghan 'jihad', with [[Darul Uloom Haqqania]] becoming a prominent organisational and networking base for the anti-Soviet Afghan fighters.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Haroon|first=Sana|year=2008|title=The Rise of Deobandi Islam in the North-West Frontier Province and Its Implications in Colonial India and Pakistan 1914–1996|jstor=27755911|journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society|volume=18|issue=1|pages=66–67|doi=10.1017/s1356186307007778|s2cid=154959326}}</ref> As well as money, Muslim countries provided thousands of volunteer fighters known as "[[Afghan Arabs]]", who wished to wage [[jihad]] against the [[Atheism|atheist]] communists. Notable among them was a young Saudi named [[Osama bin Laden]], whose [[Arab]] group eventually evolved into [[al-Qaeda]].<ref name="books.google.com" />{{rp|5–8}}<ref name="DID-THE-US-CREATE-OSAMA-BIN-LADEN">{{cite web|url = http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-318760.html|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081201020923/http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-318760.html|archive-date = 1 December 2008|title = Did the U.S. "Create" Osama bin Laden?(2005-01-14)|publisher = [[US Department of State]]|access-date = 28 March 2007}}</ref><ref name="Marshall">{{cite news|last = Marshall|first = Andrew|url = https://www.independent.co.uk/news/terror-blowback-burns-cia-1182087.html|title = Terror 'blowback' burns CIA (November 1, 1998)|work = The Independent|location = London|access-date = 1 July 2010|date = 1 November 1998|archive-date = 24 June 2011|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110624103834/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/terror-blowback-burns-cia-1182087.html|url-status = dead}}</ref> Despite their numbers,<ref name=NPR>{{cite news|last1=Temple-Raston|first1=Dina|title=Western Fighters Answer Mideast Extremists' Clarion Call|url=https://www.npr.org/2014/06/28/326313364/western-fighters-answer-mideast-extremists-clarion-call|newspaper=NPR|access-date=5 October 2014|ref=28 June 2014|quote=The last great call to arms for Muslim fighters was in the 1980s, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. About 20,000 foreign fighters traveled there, most of them from the Gulf states.}}</ref><ref name="Commins-174" /><ref name=rashid-129>Rashid, Ahmed, ''Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia'' (New Haven, 2000), p. 129.</ref> the contribution has been called a "curious sideshow to the real fighting,"<ref>Wright, Lawrence, ''Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11'', by Lawrence Wright, NY, Knopf, 2006, p.107</ref> with only an estimated 2000 of them fighting "at any one time", compared with about 250,000 Afghan fighters and 125,000 Soviet troops.<ref>interview with Arab Afghan fighter Abullah Anas and Afghan CIA station chief Milt Berden. Wright, Lawrence, ''Looming Tower'', Knopf, 2006, p.105</ref>

Their efforts were also sometimes counterproductive, as in the March 1989 [[Battle of Jalalabad (1989)|battle for Jalalabad]], when they showed the enemy the fate awaiting infidels in the form of  a truck filled with dismembered bodies of their comrades chopped to pieces after surrendering to radical non-Afghan salafists.<ref>Akram, Assen, ''Histoire de la Guerre d'Afghanistan'', Paris Editions Balland, 1996: p.227-277</ref> Though demoralized by the abandonment of them by the Soviets, the Afghan Communist government forces rallied to break the siege of Jalalabad and to win the first major government victory in years. "This success reversed the government's demoralization from the withdrawal of Soviet forces, renewed its determination to fight on, and allowed it to survive three more years."<ref name="books.google.com" />{{rp|58–59}}

[[Maoist]] guerrilla groups were also active, to a lesser extent compared to the religious Mujahideen. A notable Maoist group was the [[Liberation Organization of the People of Afghanistan]] (SAMA), whose founder and leader Abdul Majid Kalakani was reportedly arrested in 1980.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/context-culture/six-days-that-shook-kabul-the-3-hut-uprising-first-urban-protest-against-the-soviet-occupation/|title=Six Days That Shook Kabul: The '3 Hut uprising', first urban protest against the Soviet occupation|date=22 February 2015|website=Afghanistan Analysts Network - English}}</ref>

[[File:Afghanistan insurgency 1985.png|thumb|left|The areas where the different Mujahideen forces operated in 1985]]

Afghanistan's resistance movement was born in chaos, spread and triumphed chaotically, and did not find a way to govern differently. Virtually all of its war was waged locally by regional warlords. As warfare became more sophisticated, outside support and regional coordination grew. Even so, the basic units of Mujahideen organization and action continued to reflect the highly segmented nature of Afghan society.<ref name="loc1">[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+af0101) The Path to Victory and Chaos: 1979–92 – Library of Congress country studies](Retrieved Thursday 31, 2007)</ref>

[[File:Вадим Чуприна-Кабул VADIM CHUPRINA © Kabul 09.jpg|thumb|left|[[Darul Aman Palace]] in 1982, general headquarters of the Afghan Army]]
[[Olivier Roy (professor)|Olivier Roy]] estimates that after four years of war, there were at least 4,000 bases from which Mujahideen units operated. Most of these were affiliated with the seven expatriate parties headquartered in Pakistan, which served as sources of supply and varying degrees of supervision. Significant commanders typically led 300 or more men, controlled several bases and dominated a district or a sub-division of a province. Hierarchies of organization above the bases were attempted. Their operations varied greatly in scope, the most ambitious being achieved by [[Ahmad Shah Massoud]] of the [[Panjshir valley]] north of [[Kabul]]. He led at least 10,000 trained troopers at the end of the Soviet war and had expanded his political control of [[Tajiks|Tajik]]-dominated areas to Afghanistan's northeastern provinces under the Supervisory Council of the North.<ref name="loc1" />

[[File:August 1985 Muja.jpg|thumb|Three mujahideen in [[Asmar, Afghanistan|Asmar]], 1985]]
Roy also describes regional, ethnic and sectarian variations in Mujahideen organization. In the [[Pashtun people|Pashtun]] areas of the east, south and southwest, tribal structure, with its many rival sub-divisions, provided the basis for military organization and leadership. Mobilization could be readily linked to traditional fighting allegiances of the tribal ''lashkar'' (fighting force). In favorable circumstances such formations could quickly reach more than 10,000, as happened when large Soviet assaults were launched in the eastern provinces, or when the Mujahideen besieged towns, such as [[Khost]] in [[Paktia]] province in July 1983.<ref>The siege was ended only in November 1987 through the conduct of Operation Magistal'</ref> But in campaigns of the latter type the traditional explosions of manpower—customarily common immediately after the completion of harvest—proved obsolete when confronted by well dug-in defenders with modern weapons. Lashkar durability was notoriously short; few sieges succeeded.<ref name="loc1" />

Mujahideen mobilization in non-Pashtun regions faced very different obstacles. Prior to the intervention, few non-Pashtuns possessed firearms. Early in the war they were most readily available from army troops or [[gendarmerie]] who defected or were ambushed. The international arms market and foreign military support tended to reach the minority areas last. In the northern regions, little military tradition had survived upon which to build an armed resistance. Mobilization mostly came from political leadership closely tied to Islam. Roy contrasts the social leadership of religious figures in the [[Persian language|Persian]]- and [[Turkic languages|Turkic]]-speaking regions of Afghanistan with that of the Pashtuns. Lacking a strong political representation in a state dominated by Pashtuns, minority communities commonly looked to pious learned or charismatically revered ''[[pir (Sufism)|pirs]]'' (saints) for leadership. Extensive [[Sufi]] and [[maraboutic]] networks were spread through the minority communities, readily available as foundations for leadership, organization, communication and indoctrination. These networks also provided for political mobilization, which led to some of the most effective of the resistance operations during the war.<ref name="loc1" />

The Mujahideen favoured [[sabotage]] operations. The more common types of sabotage included damaging [[electric power transmission|power lines]], knocking out [[Pipeline transport|pipelines]] and radio stations, blowing up government [[office building]]s, [[air terminal]]s, hotels, cinemas, and so on. In the border region with Pakistan, the Mujahideen would often launch 800 [[rocket]]s per day. Between April 1985 and January 1987, they carried out over 23,500 [[shell (projectile)|shelling]] attacks on government targets. The Mujahideen surveyed firing positions that they normally located near villages within the range of Soviet artillery posts, putting the villagers in danger of death from Soviet retaliation. The Mujahideen used [[land mines]] heavily. Often, they would enlist the services of the local inhabitants, even children.
[[File:Mujahideen prayer in Shultan Valley Kunar, 1987.jpg|thumb|Mujahideen praying in Shultan Valley, 1987]]

They concentrated on both civilian and military targets, knocking out bridges, closing major roads, attacking [[convoy]]s, disrupting the electric power system and industrial production, and attacking police stations and Soviet military installations and air bases. They assassinated government officials and PDPA members, and laid siege to small rural outposts. In March 1982, a bomb exploded at the [[Ministry (government department)|Ministry]] of Education, damaging several buildings. In the same month, a widespread [[power failure]] darkened Kabul when a pylon on the transmission line from the Naghlu power station was blown up. In June 1982 a column of about 1,000 young [[communist party]] members sent out to work in the Panjshir valley were ambushed within 30&nbsp;km of Kabul, with heavy loss of life. On 4 September 1985, insurgents shot down a domestic Bakhtar Airlines plane as it took off from Kandahar airport, killing all 52 people aboard.

Mujahideen groups used for assassination had three to five men in each. After they received their mission to kill certain government officials, they busied themselves with studying his pattern of life and its details and then selecting the method of fulfilling their established mission. They practiced shooting at automobiles, [[Drive-by|shooting out of automobiles]], laying mines in government accommodation or houses, using poison, and rigging explosive charges in transport.

In May 1985, the seven principal rebel organizations formed the [[Seven Party Mujahideen Alliance]] to coordinate their military operations against the Soviet Army. Late in 1985, the groups were active in and around Kabul, unleashing rocket attacks and conducting operations against the communist government.

==== Raids inside Soviet territory ====
{{Main|Raids inside Soviet Union during Soviet Afghan War}}
In an effort to foment unrest and rebellion by the Islamic populations of the Soviet Union, starting in late 1984 [[Director of the Central Intelligence Agency|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 [[Inter-Services Intelligence|ISI]] brigadier general who was the chief for Afghan operations. The rebels began cross-border raids into the Soviet Union in spring 1985.{{sfn|Coll|2004|p=104}}<ref name="LSA">{{cite journal |last1=Westermann |first1=Edward B. |date=Fall 1999 |title=The Limits of Soviet Airpower: The Failure of Military Coercion in Afghanistan, 1979–89 |url=https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/4356/5011 |journal=Journal of Conflict Studies |volume=XIX |issue=2 |access-date=3 October 2015}}</ref>{{sfn|Kaplan|2008|p=128|ps=: "... the farmer told Wakhil [Kaplan's translator] about all the irrigation ditches that had been blown up by fighter jets, and the flooding in the valley and malaria outbreak that followed. Malaria, which on the eve of Taraki's Communist coup in April 1978 – was at the point of being eradicated in Afghanistan, had returned with a vengeance, thanks to the stagnant, mosquito-breeding pools caused by the widespread destruction of irrigation systems. Nangarhar [province] was rife with the disease. This was another relatively minor, tedious side effect of the Soviet invasion."}} In April 1987, three separate teams of Afghan rebels were directed by the ISI to launch coordinated raids on multiple targets across the Soviet border and extending, in the case of an attack on an [[Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic|Uzbek]] factory, as deep as over {{convert|10|mi|km|order=flip|0}} into Soviet territory. In response, the Soviets issued a thinly-veiled threat to invade Pakistan to stop the cross-border attacks, and no further attacks were reported.{{sfn|Coll|2004|pp=161–162}}

==== Media reaction ====
{{quote box |align=right|width=30%|quote = Those hopelessly brave warriors I walked with, and their families, who suffered so much for faith and freedom and who are still not free, they were truly the people of God. – Journalist [[Rob Schultheis]], 1992<ref>Schultheis, Rob. "Night Letters Inside Wartime Afghanistan", 1992. p. 155</ref><ref name="pete">[[Peter Bergen|Bergen, Peter]], ''[[Holy War, Inc.]]'', 2001</ref>}}

International journalistic perception of the war varied. Major American television journalists were sympathetic to the Mujahideen. Most visible was CBS News correspondent Dan Rather, who in 1982 accused the Soviet Union of genocide, comparing them to Hitler.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.csmonitor.com/1980/0403/040360.html|title=Dan Rather: more Soviet killing looms in Afghanistan|date=3 April 1980|access-date=3 March 2019|journal=Christian Science Monitor}}</ref> Rather was [[Embedded journalism|embedded]] with the Mujahideen for a ''[[60 Minutes]]'' report.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/04/07/gunga-dan/88e47b5f-49cd-4934-ae0d-aedda4a9d282/|title=Gunga Dan|first=Tom|last=Shales|date=7 April 1980|newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref> In 1987, CBS produced a full documentary special on the war.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-10-05-mn-926-story.html|title=Cameraman, CBS Deny Afghanistan Scenes Were Faked|first=JANE|last=HALL|date=5 October 1989|access-date=3 March 2019|newspaper=Los Angeles Times}}</ref><ref name="TAYLOR-2014">{{cite journal |last1=Taylor |first1=Alan |date=4 August 2014 |title=The Soviet War in Afghanistan, 1979–1989 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/08/the-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-1979-1989/100786/ |journal=The Atlantic |access-date=3 October 2015}}</ref><ref name="nyt-14-8-1988">{{cite news |last1=Pear |first1=Robert |date=14 August 1988 |title=Mines Put Afghans in Peril on Return |work=The New York Times |agency=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/14/world/mines-put-afghans-in-peril-on-return.html |access-date=15 July 2015}}</ref>

''[[Reader's Digest]]'' took a highly positive view of the Mujahideen, a reversal of their usual view of Islamic fighters. The publication praised their martyrdom and their role in entrapping the Soviets in a Vietnam War-style disaster.<ref>{{cite book|first=Joanne P.|last=Sharp|title=Condensing the Cold War: Reader's Digest and American Identity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6ZIJgZ_Li4AC&pg=PA124|year=2001|publisher=University of Minnesota Press|isbn=978-1-4529-0446-7|pages=124–126}}</ref>

Leftist journalist [[Alexander Cockburn]] was unsympathetic, criticizing Afghanistan as "an unspeakable country filled with unspeakable people, sheepshaggers and smugglers, who have furnished in their leisure hours some of the worst arts and crafts ever to penetrate the occidental world. I yield to none in my sympathy to those prostrate beneath the Russian jackboot, but if ever a country deserved rape it's Afghanistan."<ref name=Robin-2012>{{cite news|last1=Robin|first1=Corey|title=Radical writer Alexander Cockburn dead at 71|url=http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/07/201272310391240304.html|access-date=16 July 2015|agency=Al jazeera|date=23 July 2012}}</ref> [[Robert D. Kaplan]] on the other hand, thought any perception of Mujahideen as "barbaric" was unfair: "Documented accounts of mujahidin savagery were relatively rare and involved enemy troops only. Their cruelty toward civilians was unheard of during the war, while Soviet cruelty toward civilians was common."{{sfn|Kaplan|2008|p=120}} Lack of interest in the Mujahideen cause, Kaplan believed, was not the lack of intrinsic interest to be found in a war between a small, poor country and a superpower where a million civilians were killed, but the result of the great difficulty and unprofitability of media coverage. Kaplan noted that "none of the American TV networks had a bureau for a war",{{sfn|Kaplan|2008|p=10}} and television cameramen venturing to follow the Mujahideen "trekked for weeks on little food, only to return ill and half starved".{{sfn|Kaplan|2008|p=14}} In October 1984, the Soviet ambassador to Pakistan, Vitaly Smirnov, told [[Agence France Presse]] "that journalists traveling with the mujahidin 'will be killed. And our units in Afghanistan will help the Afghan forces to do it.{{'"}}{{sfn|Kaplan|2008|p=10}} Unlike Vietnam and Lebanon, Afghanistan had "absolutely no clash between the strange and the familiar", no "rock-video quality" of "zonked-out GIs in headbands" or "rifle-wielding Shiite terrorists wearing Michael Jackson T-shirts" that provided interesting "visual materials" for newscasts.{{sfn|Kaplan|2008|p=15}}