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.

However, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, all support to the Democratic Republic was pulled, leading to the toppling of the government at the hands of the mujahideen in 1992 and the start of a second Afghan Civil War shortly thereafter.

[53] Following his return to power, Daoud revived his Pashtunistan policy and for the first time started proxy warring against Pakistan[54] by supporting anti-Pakistani groups and providing them with arms, training and sanctuaries.

[63] After additional meetings Carter signed two presidential findings in July 1979 permitting the CIA to spend $695,000 on non-military assistance (e.g., "cash, medical equipment, and radio transmitters") and on a propaganda campaign targeting the Soviet-backed leadership of the DRA, which (in the words of Steve Coll) "seemed at the time a small beginning.

Following his initial coup against and killing of Taraki, the KGB station in Kabul warned Moscow that Amin's leadership would lead to "harsh repressions, and as a result, the activation and consolidation of the opposition.

The reasons for this complete turnabout are not entirely clear, and several speculative arguments include: the grave internal situation and inability for the Afghan government to retain power much longer; the effects of the Iranian Revolution that brought an Islamic theocracy into power, leading to fears that religious fanaticism would spread through Afghanistan and into Soviet Muslim Central Asian republics; Taraki's murder and replacement by Amin, who the Soviet leadership believed had secret contacts within the American embassy in Kabul and "was capable of reaching an agreement with the United States";[109] however, allegations of Amin colluding with the Americans have been widely discredited and it was revealed in the 1990s that the KGB actually planted the story;[107][105][106] and the deteriorating ties with the United States after NATO's two-track missile deployment decision in response to Soviet nuclear presence in Eastern Europe and the failure of Congress to ratify the SALT II treaty, creating the impression that détente was "already effectively dead.

[113][114] The concerns raised by the Chief of the Soviet Army General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov who warned about the possibility of a protracted guerrilla war, were dismissed by the troika who insisted that any occupation of Afghanistan would be short and relatively painless.

That committee then installed former Deputy Prime Minister Babrak Karmal as head of government, who had been demoted to the relatively insignificant post of ambassador to Czechoslovakia following the Khalq takeover and announced that it had requested Soviet military assistance.

As part of Baikal-79, a larger operation aimed at taking 20 key strongholds in and around Kabul, the Soviet 105th Airborne Division secured the city and disarmed Afghan Army units without facing opposition.

[133][132] According to political scientist Gilles Kepel, the Soviet intervention or invasion was viewed with "horror" in the West, considered to be a fresh twist on the geo-political "Great Game" of the 19th century in which Britain feared that Russia sought access to the Indian Ocean, and posed a threat to Western security, explicitly violating the world balance of power agreed upon at Yalta in 1945.

[...] If the Soviets are encouraged in this invasion by eventual success, and if they maintain their dominance over Afghanistan and then extend their control to adjacent countries, the stable, strategic, and peaceful balance of the entire world will be changed.

Turkey sold their World War II stockpiles to the warlords, and the British and Swiss provided Blowpipe missiles and Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns respectively, after they were found to be poor models for their own forces.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran saw a massive increase in the scarcity and price of oil, adding tens of billions of dollars to the Soviet economy, as it was the major source of revenue for the USSR that spent 40–60% of its entire federal budget (15% of the GDP) on the military.

[155] The disinformation was deployed primarily by "leaking" forged documents, distributing leaflets, publishing nominally independent articles in Soviet-aligned press, and conveying reports to embassies through KGB residencies.

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 Babrak Karmal, after the invasion, promised reforms to win support from the population alienated by his ousted predecessors.

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.

[187] Their efforts were also sometimes counterproductive, as in the March 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.

The more common types of sabotage included damaging power lines, knocking out pipelines and radio stations, blowing up government office buildings, air terminals, hotels, cinemas, and so on.

Kaplan noted that "none of the American TV networks had a bureau for a war",[206] and television cameramen venturing to follow the Mujahideen "trekked for weeks on little food, only to return ill and half starved".

'"[206] 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.

Despite an active support for insurgent groups, Pakistanis remained sympathetic to the challenges faced by the Soviets in restoring the peace, eventually exploring the possibility of setting up an interim system of government under former monarch Zahir Shah, but this was not authorized by President Zia-ul-Haq due to his stance on the issue of the Durand Line.

Two Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts, Michael Johns and James A. Phillips, championed Ahmad Shah Massoud as the Afghan resistance leader most worthy of US support under the Reagan Doctrine.

The relatively young new leader wasn't known that well to the Afghan population at the time, but he made swift reforms to change the country's situation and win support as devised by experts of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Polls in 1987 showed that he was a favored figure to lead a potential coalition between the DRA regime and Mujahideen factions, as well as an opposition to the unpopular but powerful guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was strongly against the King's return.

[63] Negotiations continued and in 1988 through 1989, The Interim Afghan Government was formed in Pekhawar as an alliance of various Mujahadeen groups including Hezbi Islami and Jamiat, and would be involved in Operation Arrow and the siege of Khost.

This operation did not have any lasting effect on the outcome of the conflict nor on the soiled political and military status of the Soviets in the eyes of the West but was a symbolic gesture that marked the end of their widely condemned presence in the country with a victory.

The Stingers did make an impact at first but within a few months flares, beacons, and exhaust baffles were installed to disorient the missiles, while night operation and terrain-hugging tactics tended to prevent the rebels from getting a clear shot.

[240] Stingers also forced Soviet helicopters and ground attack planes to bomb from higher altitudes with less accuracy but did not bring down many more aircraft than Chinese heavy machine guns and other less sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry.

The prisoners fought the Afghan Mujahideen of the Jamiat-e Islami party and the Pakistani XI Corps supported by American CIA advisors in an attempt to escape but the rebellion was squashed and all POWs were killed.

The swift rise to power, from the young Taliban in 1996, 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.