Civil war in Afghanistan
Civil war in Afghanistan
Date
1978 - present (conflict still ongoing)
Location Afghanistan
Result
Ongoing
Casualties and losses
1,500,000–2,000,000 civilians dead
The
Civil
war
in
Afghanistan
(1978–present), also known as the Afghan
Civil War and several other names, was a
civil war in Afghanistan. The civil war started
when an insurgency broke out against the
People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan,
which had taken power in the Saur Revolu-
tion on 27 April 1978. This event led indir-
ectly to the Soviet military intervention in
Afghanistan.
The new government met with hostility,
which led to the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s anti-government rebels, known
as the mujahideen, found support from a vari-
ety of countries including the United States,
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other Muslim na-
tions. The final Soviet troop withdrawal
began on May 15, 1988, and ended on Febru-
ary 15, 1989. Three years after the withdraw,
the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan col-
lapsed to the mujahideen resistance. Taliban
rose to power after the fall of Kabul in 1996.
In 2001, NATO led by American and Brit-
ish forces invaded Afghanistan as part of the
War on Terror, the name of the operation is
Operation Enduring Freedom. The stated
purpose of the invasion was to capture
Osama bin Laden, destroy al-Qaeda, and re-
move the Taliban regime which had provided
support and safe harbor to al-Qaeda. The Un-
ited States’ Bush Doctrine stated that, as
policy, it would not distinguish between al-
Qaeda and nations that harbor them.
Timeline
Start — Rise and fall of
communism
A Soviet Spetsnaz (special operations) group
prepares for a mission in Afghanistan, 1988.
The emperor of Afghanistan, Shah Mo-
hammed Zahir Shah, was overthrown in 1973
by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan who
established the Daoud Republic of Afgh-
anistan. He proclaimend himself leader of the
new republic but in 1978 a military coup
d’état with help from the People’s Democrat-
ic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) rose to power
after the Sau