Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Such were the sounds of the Soviet spring offensive, vintage 1983, perhaps the most savage assault since the invasion. There are, according to Western estimates, some 105,000 Soviet troops now in Afghanistan. Using tanks, helicopters and fighter-bombers, these forces pounded villages throughout the Shomali region. Their objective, presumably, was to obliterate guerrilla strength around the crucial 50-mile stretch of highway leading from Kabul toward the Soviet border, along which the invaders transport their supplies. Meantime, according to Western intelligence reports, Soviet bombers were attacking targets near Herat in the west and around Kandahar in the south. They...
They could destroy Afghanistan in two hours. But if we believe God has promised us victory because we are right, it becomes quite feasible." That determination has won some battles. Only last week one Western analyst claimed that guerrillas killed some 200 government soldiers during a three-day battle, while forcing the rest of the unit to desert. Elsewhere, one young fighter claimed to have knocked out two Soviet tanks in a single day; another boasted that on the same day he had killed five enemy soldiers. Declared a guerrilla radio operator named Mirojadeen: "We will fight until our blood...
...units organized along village lines, each loosely affiliated with one of the six major resistance groups. Based in Pakistan, the leaders of most of those groups are quite unable to control events at the front. The divisions are so deep, moreover, that in the absence of a foreign enemy, Afghanistan might be plunged into civil...
...moment, the Soviet strategy has tipped the scales in Moscow's favor. Largely as a result of widespread devastation-which has brought high prices in the wake of shortages of labor, fuel, fertilizer and seed-Afghanistan's agriculture is fast deteriorating. According to one estimate, wheat production was five times greater in 1978 than it was last year. In the Logar province and in isolated villages around the country, entire settlements have been reduced to ghost towns...
...lord of the Panjshir Valley is unquestionably the charismatic commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. A former engineering student, Massoud, 29, has remained in Afghanistan and worked tirelessly to galvanize support. He has managed to mobilize virtually all 100,000 inhabitants of the valley, while collecting his own taxes, running his own schools and organizing his own food-rationing scheme. He has even used captured Soviet trucks to establish daily bus service in the valley. Massoud is also prudent enough to avoid needless risks. He travels with four gun-wielding bodyguards and packs a 9-mm automatic under his jacket. In order...