Afghanistan by arming the Islamic extremist

Afghanistan by arming the Islamic extremist, and was loudly heard saying: "Kabul must burn! Kabul must burn!".^[113] As for Pakistan, the Soviet war with Islamist mujaheddin was viewed as retaliation for the Soviet Union's long unconditional support of regional rival, India, notably during the 1965 and the 1971 wars, which led the loss of East Pakistan.^[113] Sony VAIO VGN-CS190JTW Battery

After the Soviet deployment, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started accepting financial aid from the Western powers to aid the mujahideen. In 1981, following the election of US President Ronald Reagan, aid for the mujahideen through Zia's Pakistan significantly increased, Sony VAIO VGN-FW11E Battery

mostly due to the efforts of Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos.The early foundations of al-Qaeda were allegedly built in part on relationships and weaponry that came from the billions of dollars in U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen during the war to expel Soviet forces from that country. Sony VAIO VGN-FW11L Battery

^]However, scholars such as Jason Burke, Steve Coll, Peter Bergen, Christopher Andrew, and Vasily Mitrokhin have argued that Osama Bin Laden was "outside of CIA eyesight" and that there is "no support" in any "reliable source" for "the claim that the CIA funded bin Laden or any of the other Arab volunteers who came to support the mujahideen." Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Battery

Pakistan's ISI and Special Service Group (SSG) were actively involved in the conflict. The SSG are widely suspected of participating in Operation Hill 3234, with the mujahideen, according the Soviet military intelligence.

The theft of large sums of aid spurred Pakistan's economic growth, but along with the war in general had devastating side effects for that country. Sony VAIO VGN-FW11S Battery

The siphoning off of aid weapons, in which the weapons logistics and coordination were put under the Pakistan Navy in the port city of Karachi, contributed to disorder and violence there, while heroin entering from Afghanistan to pay for arms contributed to addiction problems.^[116Sony VAIO VGN-FW11ZU Battery

^]The Navy went into covert war and coordinated the foreign weapons into Afghanistan, while some of its high-ranking admirals were responsible for storing the weapons in the Navy depot, later coordinated the weapons supply to mujahideen. Sony VAIO VGN-FW139E/H Battery

In retaliation for Pakistan's assistance to the insurgents, the KHAD Afghan security service, under leader Mohammad Najibullah, carried out (according to the Mitrokhin archives and other sources) a large number of operations against Pakistan. Sony VAIO VGN-FW140AE Battery

In 1987, 127 incidents resulted in 234 deaths in Pakistan. In April 1988, an ammunition depot outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad was blown up killing 100 and injuring more than 1000 people. The KHAD and KGB were suspected in the perpetration of these acts.^[117] Sony VAIO VGN-FW140D Battery

Soviet and Afghan fighters and bombers occasionally bombed Pakistani villages along the Pakistani-Afghan border. These attacks are known to have caused at least 300 civilian deaths and extensive damage. Sometimes they got involved in shootings with the Pakistani jets defending the airspace. Sony VAIO VGN-FW140E Battery

Pakistan took in millions of Afghan refugees (mostly Pashtun) fleeing the Soviet occupation. Although the refugees were controlled within Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan under then-martial law ruler General Rahimuddin Khan, the influx of so many refugees –Sony VAIO VGN-FW140E/H Battery

believed to be the largest refugee population in the world^[– spread into several other regions.

All of this had a heavy impact on Pakistan and its effects continue to this day. Pakistan, through its support for the mujahideen, played a significant role in the eventual withdrawal of Soviet military personnel from Afghanistan. Sony VAIO VGN-FW140E/W Battery

During the Sino-Soviet split, strained relations between China and Soviet Russia resulted in bloody border clashes and mutual backing for the opponents enemies. China and Afghanistan had neutral relations with each other during the King's rule. Sony VAIO VGN-FW140FE Battery

When the pro Soviet Afghan Communists seized power in Afghanistan in 1978, relations between China and the Afghan communists quickly turned hostile. The Afghan pro Soviet communists supported China's enemies in Vietnam and blamed China for supporting Afghan anti communist militants. Sony VAIO VGN-FW140N Battery

China responded to the Soviet war in Afghanistan by supporting the Afghan mujahideen and ramping up their military presence near Afghanistan in Xinjiang. China acquired military equipment from America to defend itself from Soviet attack.^[121] Sony VAIO VGN-FW140N/W Battery

The Chinese People's Liberation Army trained and supported the Afghan mujahideen during the war. The training camps were moved from Pakistan into China itself. Anti-aircraft missiles, rocket launchers and machine guns, valued at hundreds of millions, were given to the mujahideen by the Chinese. Sony VAIO VGN-FW145E Battery

Chinese military advisors and army troops were present with the Mujahidin during training.Between December 25, 1979, and February 15, 1989, a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000–104,000 serving at one time): Sony VAIO VGN-FW145E/W Battery

525,000 in the Army, 90,000 with border troops and other KGB sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations of MVD Internal Troops, and police forces. A further 21,000 personnel were with the Soviet troop contingent over the same period doing various white collar and blue collar jobs. Sony VAIO VGN-FW160AE Battery

The total irrecoverable personnel losses of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier, and internal security troops came to 14,453. Soviet Army formations, units, and HQ elements lost 13,833, KGB sub-units lost 572, MVD formations lost 28, and other ministries and departments lost 20 men. Sony VAIO VGN-FW160D Battery

During this period 312 servicemen were missing in action or taken prisoner; 119 of these were later freed, of whom 97 returned to the USSR and 22 went to other countries.Of the troops deployed, 53,753 were wounded, injured, or sustained concussion and 415,932 fell sick. A high proportion of casualties were those who fell ill. Sony VAIO VGN-FW160E Battery

This was because of local climatic and sanitary conditions, which were such that acute infections spread rapidly among the troops. There were 115,308 cases of infectious hepatitis, 31,080 of typhoidfever, and 140,665 of other diseases. Sony VAIO VGN-FW160E/H Battery

Of the 11,654 who were discharged from the army after being wounded, maimed, or contracting serious diseases, 10,751 men, were left disabled.

Estimates of Afghan civilian deaths vary from 850,000 to 1,500,000.5–10 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, 1/3 of the prewar population of the country, and another 2 million were displaced within the country. Sony VAIO VGN-FW160F/E Battery

In the 1980s, half of all refugees in the world were Afghan.

Felix Ermacora, the UN Special Rapporteur to Afghanistan, said that heavy fighting in combat areas cost the lives of more than 35,000 civilians in 1985, 15,000 in 1986, and around 14,000 in 1987. Sony VAIO VGN-FW170J/H Battery

Ermacora also noted that armed attacks by anti-government forces, such as rocket attacks on Kabul's residential areas, caused more than 4000 civilian deaths in 1987.^[125] R.J. Rummel, an analyst of political killings, Sony VAIO VGN-FW180AE Battery

estimated that Soviet forces were responsible for 250,000 democidal killings during the war and that the government of Afghanistan was responsible for 178,000 democidal killings.^[126]Along with fatalities were 1.2 million Afghans disabled (mujahideen, government soldiers and noncombatants) and 3 million maimed or wounded (primarily noncombatants).^[127] Sony VAIO VGN-FW180D Battery

Irrigation systems, crucial to agriculture in Afghanistan's arid climate, were destroyed by aerial bombing and strafing by Soviet or government forces. In the worst year of the war, 1985, well over half of all the farmers who remained in Afghanistan had their fields bombed, Sony VAIO VGN-FW180E Battery

and over one quarter had their irrigation systems destroyed and their livestock shot by Soviet or government troops, according to a survey conducted by Swedish relief experts.

The population of Afghanistan's second largest city, Kandahar, was reduced from 200,000 before the war to no more than 25,000 inhabitants, Sony VAIO VGN-FW180E/H Battery

following a months-long campaign of carpet bombing and bulldozingby the Soviets and Afghan communist soldiers in 1987.^[128] Land mines had killed 25,000 Afghans during the war and another 10–15 million land mines, most planted by Soviet and government forces, were left scattered throughout the countryside.^[129] Sony VAIO VGN-FW180FU Battery

 The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated in 1994 that it would take 4,300 years to remove all the Soviet land mines in Afghanistan.

A great deal of damage was done to the civilian children population by land mines.^[132] Sony VAIO VGN-FW190EBH Battery

A 2005 report estimated 3–4% of the Afghan population were disabled due to Soviet and government land mines. In the city of Quetta, a survey of refugee women and children taken shortly after the Soviet withdrawal found child mortality at 31%, and over 80% of the children refugees to be unregistered. Sony VAIO VGN-FW190ECH Battery

Of children who survived, 67% were severely malnourished, with malnutrition increasing with age.^[133]

There have also been numerous reports of chemical weapons being used by Soviet forces in Afghanistan, often indiscriminately against civilians.^[134][135] Sony VAIO VGN-FW190EDH Battery

Critics of Soviet and Afghan government forces describe their effect on Afghan culture as working in three stages: first, the center of customary Afghan culture, Islam, was pushed aside; second, Soviet patterns of life, especially amongst the young, were imported; Sony VAIO VGN-FW190NAH Battery

third, shared Afghan cultural characteristics were destroyed by the emphasis on so-called nationalities, with the outcome that the country was split into different ethnic groups, with no language, religion, or culture in common.^[136]

The Geneva Accords of 1988, which ultimately led to the withdrawal of the Soviet forces in early 1989, Sony VAIO VGN-FW190NBH Battery

left the Afghan government in ruins. The accords had failed to address adequately the issue of the post-occupation period and the future governance of Afghanistan. The assumption among most Western diplomats was that the Soviet-backed government in Kabul would soon collapse; Sony VAIO VGN-FW190NCH Battery

however, this was not to happen for another three years. During this time the Interim Islamic Government of Afghanistan (IIGA) was established in exile. The exclusion of key groups such as refugees and Shias, combined with major disagreements between the different mujaheddin factions, meant that the IIGA never succeeded in acting as a functional government. Sony VAIO VGN-FW190NDH Battery

Before the war, Afghanistan was already one of the world's poorest nations. The prolonged conflict left Afghanistan ranked 170 out of 174 in the UNDP's Human Development Index, making Afghanistan one of the least developed countries in the world.^[138] Sony VAIO VGN-FW190NEH Battery

Once the Soviets withdrew, US interest in Afghanistan slowly decreased over the following four years, much of it administered through the DoD Office of Humanitarian Assistance, under the then Director of HA, George M. Dykes III. With the first years of the Clinton Administration in Washington, DC, all aid ceased. Sony VAIO VGN-FW198U/H Battery

The US decided not to help with reconstruction of the country, instead handing the interests of the country over to US allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Pakistan quickly took advantage of this opportunity and forged relations with warlords and later the Taliban, to secure trade interests and routes. Sony VAIO VGN-FW260J/B Battery

From wiping out the country's trees through logging practices, which has destroyed all but 2% of forest cover country-wide, to substantial uprooting of wild pistachio trees for the exportation of their roots for therapeutic uses, to opiumagriculture, the ten years following the war saw much ecological and agrarian destruction.^[139] Sony VAIO VGN-FW280J/H Battery

Captain Tarlan Eyvazov, a soldier in the Soviet forces during the war, stated that the Afghan children's future is destined for war. Eyvazov said, "Children born in Afghanistan at the start of the war... have been brought up in war conditions, this is their way of life." Sony VAIO VGN-FW290JRB Battery

Eyvazov's theory was later strengthened when the Taliban movement developed and formed from orphans or refugee children who were forced by the Soviets to flee their homes and relocate their lives in Pakistan. The swift rise to power, from the young Taliban in 1996, Sony VAIO VGN-FW290JTB Battery

was the result of the disorder and civil war that had warlords running wild because of the complete breakdown of law and order in Afghanistan after the departure of the Soviets.The CIA World Fact Book reported that as of 2004, Afghanistan still owed $8 billion in bilateral debt, mostly to Russia,^[141] however, in 2007 Russia agreed to cancel most of the debt. Sony VAIO VGN-FW290JTH Battery

A massive total of 3.3 million Afghan refugees were housed in Pakistan by 1988, many of whom continue to live in the country up until today. Of this total, about 100,000 were based in the city of Peshawar, while more than 2 million were located in other parts of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then known as the North-West Frontier Province). Sony VAIO VGN-FW290JTW Battery

At the same time, close to two million Afghans were living in Iran. Some also made their way into North America, the European Union, Australia, and other parts of the world. A few thousand Afghan refugees, mostly of Sikh and Hindu origin, settled in India and became Indian citizens over time. Sony VAIO VGN-FW355J/H Battery

The photo of Sharbat Gula placed on National Geographic cover in 1985 became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation.

The civil war continued in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. About 400,000 Afghan civilians had lost their lives in the chaos and civil war of the 1990s.^[148] Sony VAIO VGN-FW373J/B Battery

The Soviet Union left Afghanistan deep in winter, with intimations of panic among Kabul officials. The Afghan mujahideen were poised to attack provincial towns and cities and eventually Kabul, if necessary.

Najibullah's regime, though failing to win popular support, territory, or international recognition, was however able to remain in power until 1992. Sony VAIO VGN-FW30B Battery

Ironically, until demoralized by the defections of its senior officers, the Afghan Army had achieved a level of performance it had never reached under direct Soviet tutelage. Kabul had achieved a stalemate that exposed the mujahideen's weaknesses, political and military. Sony VAIO VGN-FW50B Battery

But for nearly three years, while Najibullah's government successfully defended itself against mujahideen attacks, factions within the government had also developed connections with its opponents.

According to Russian publicist Andrey Karaulov, the main trigger for Najibullah losing power was Sony VAIO VGN-FW51B/W Battery

Russia's refusal to sell oil products to Afghanistan in 1992 for political reasons (the new Yeltsin government did not want to support the former communists), which effectively triggered an embargo. The defection of General Abdul Rashid Dostam and his Uzbek militia, Sony VAIO VGN-FW51MF Battery

in March 1992, further undermined Najibullah's control of the state.In April, Najibullah and his communist government fell to the mujahideen, who replaced Najibullah with a new governing council for the country.

Grain production declined an average of 3.5% per year between 1978 and 1990 due to sustained fighting, Sony VAIO VGN-FW51MF/H Battery

instability in rural areas, prolonged drought, and deteriorated infrastructure.Soviet efforts to disrupt production in rebel-dominated areas also contributed to this decline. During the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Afghanistan's natural gas fields were capped to prevent sabotage. Sony VAIO VGN-FW51ZF Battery

Restoration of gas production has been hampered by internal strife and the disruption of traditional trading relationships following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Sony VAIO VGN-FW51ZF/H Battery,Sony VAIO VGN-FW52JB Battery,Sony VAIO VGN-FW54FB Battery