SUMMARY
Due to the growing threat of Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan and the regional politics of the Cold War, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with military force on 27 December 1979. Claiming that they acted on a request from the Afghan government, the Soviet troops ousted and killed the sitting President Hafizullah Amin, who they suspected of being pro-Western. They then installed the more Soviet-friendly Babrak Karmal on the presidential post.
IN DEPTH
Background to Soviet interests in Afghanistan
The Soviet Union had been a very important actor in Afghan politics since the 1950s. Situated geographically between the Soviet Union and USA’s Asian allies, Afghanistan became a pawn in the power relations between the two superpowers. Initially Kabul tried not to become involved in the dynamics of the Cold War and followed the principle of non-alignment. However, when Pakistan’s relationship with the US got closer, Afghanistan turned to Moscow for military aid. It was important to the Soviet Union that Afghanistan did not become an unfriendly border state with American ties, and the Soviets also had an interest in supporting the pro-Soviet Communist Party in Afghanistan, PDPA (Hizb-i Demokrati-i Khalq-i Afghanistan, People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan)
When PDPA ousted President Mohammed Daoud Khan in the Saur Revolution of 1978, the Soviet Union was the first country to recognise the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and its new president Nur Muhammad Taraki. A close cooperation between the countries was initiated and on 5 December 1978 the Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Friendship was signed, including an agreement on a collective security system.
After an uprising in Herat in March 1979 by the Islamic group Jam’iyyat-i Islami-yi Afghanistan (for more information, see the conflict description for the intrastate conflict in Afghanistan), the Soviet Union increased its military support to the government and provided the Afghan army with tanks, fighter aircrafts and helicopter gunships. The number of military and civilian advisers in Afghanistan increased rapidly.
Growing tensions between Afghan President Taraki and Afghan Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin in the fall of 1979 caused Taraki to seek Soviet support for a disposal of Amin. A meeting at the Presidential Palace in Kabul in September turned into a shoot-out and it was later announced that Taraki was stepping down due to health issues. Amin, who was a more hard-line communist than Taraki, became the new president. In October it was announced that Taraki had died. It is believed that Amin had Taraki killed, a fact that worried the leaders in Moscow.
Amin had never been popular among the Soviet leaders in Moscow. He had been educated at US universities instead of in the USSR, and the Soviet Union suspected him of being secretly pro-Western. PDPA consisted of two factions, Parcham and Khalq, the first being more pro-Soviet than the latter. Neither Taraki nor Amin belonged to the pro-Soviet Parcham-faction, and after the coup in 1978 the stronger Kahlq purged the Parchamis. During the fall of 1979 the Soviets feared that Amin aimed at reducing Afghanistan’s dependence on the Soviet Union. As early as in mid-September 1979, increased activity was registered among Soviet units north of the Afghan-Soviet border and the planning of a military intervention in Afghanistan started. At some point in October, a decision was made to oust Amin, install Babrak Karmal, from the Parcham faction, as president and use Soviet troops to help the new regime to restore order in Afghanistan.
27 December 1979: The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan
Afghan President Hafizullah Amin had never been popular among the Soviet leaders in Moscow. As Afghanistan was strategically important for the Soviet Union in relation to the regional Cold War dynamics (for more information see Background to Soviet interests in Afghanistan), the leadership in Kabul was of considerable interest to the Soviet leaders in Moscow. At some point in October, a decision was made to oust Amin, install Babrak Karmal as president and use Soviet troops to help the new regime to restore order in Afghanistan.
The force that would begin the operation by attacking key targets in Kabul started arriving at Bagram airport, north of Kabul, on 6 and 7 December 1979. During 22-26 December the Soviet military transport aircrafts flew 350 times into Kabul and Bagram. The operation was launched on 27 December when the Soviet troops that had been flown into Kabul performed coordinated attacks on important government installations. One force moved into the Ministry of the Interior and another attacked the Tajbeg palace where Amin was located. When fighting erupted at the palace, the Afghan forces were chanceless and Amin was killed in the battle. At 8.45 p.m a radio station claiming to be the official Radio Kabul broadcasted a message announcing that Babrak Karmal had ousted Amin and that he requested Soviet military assistance. The message was in fact broadcasted from the Soviet border town of Termez (today in Uzbekistan), where the headquarters of the Soviet ground forces were situated. When the request went out, between 15 000 and 20 000 Soviet troops were already on Afghan territory. On 28 December Karmal’s new cabinet was announced and on 31 December he settled in the presidential palace. By 1 January 1980, there were at least 50 000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union started fighting alongside the Afghan government against Moslem rebels and is coded as a secondary warring party in the Afghan intrastate conflict from 1980 to 1989 (for more information, see the conflict description for the intrastate conflict in Afghanistan). In February 1989 Soviet troops finally left Afghanistan.
The Soviet Union tried to explain the invasion by claiming that the government of Afghanistan repeatedly had asked them to supplement troops and instructors because of increasing counterrevolutionary attacks from outside the country. The official story was that Karmal had returned to Afghanistan after being in exile for a year, and had operated secretly in Kabul during the autumn of 1979. Before 27 December, the Revolutionary Council had tried Amin, decided to execute him, and elected Karmal as his successor. This story proved wrong however, as Karmal was not even seen in Afghanistan until on 1 January 1980. Even though some reports claim that he arrived in Kabul on 28 December, most sources agree that he was not in Kabul before his 1 January performance. Before the invasion, the Soviets had made three attempts to eliminate Amin by assassination. It became clear that Moscow had decided to remove Amin with military force, as they had not succeeded in ousting him through neither diplomacy nor conspiracy.
