Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Soviets, however, were not anxious to cause any trouble on the third anniversary of that cold day in late December 1979 when Soviet paratroopers landed at Kabul airport and began a prolonged, costly and so far unsuccessful campaign to control Afghanistan. Babrak Karmal, 53, the Kremlin's hand-picked leader, remains in power, but the Soviet Union's 105,000 troops have failed in rooting out the mujahedin, the ragtag but stubborn guerrillas who control most of the countryside. Neither side has gained or lost much ground over the past three years, and all signs point...
...anniversary prompted a worldwide chorus of statements and demonstrations calling for an end to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. "The United States does not intend to forget these brave people and their struggle," President Ronald Reagan said last week. The Socialist government of French President Francois Mitterrand did not mention the Soviet Union by name, but it "denounced all foreign intervention in Afghanistan's internal affairs." West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher was blunter, pledging support for "the Afghan people in their demand for freedom." In Tehran several hundred protesters marched outside the Soviet embassy...
...also have substantial problems. They are split into half a dozen major factions. The mujahedin have been unable to unite under a joint commander, and sometimes they battle each other. "If the six groups could get together, they just might force the Soviets to rethink staying on in Afghanistan," says a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad. "But their infighting inevitably encourages the Soviets to hang...
Moscow cannot subjugate Afghanistan without sending in more troops, 1 million in the view of Pentagon analysts. But neither do the mujahedin have the firepower or numbers to defeat the Soviet army. That leaves the Kremlin two options if it wants to avoid an indefinite stalemate: escalate or pull out. There is no sign that the Soviets are prepared to do either...
...costing the Kremlin in economic terms. Some Western diplomatic sources believe that Moscow is forcing the Afghans not only to house and feed the Soviet troops but to pay for their own military equipment. That would leave Moscow only the cost of transporting men and materiel to Afghanistan. The Soviet Union may also be profiting from Afghanistan's natural resources: it has apparently tapped the country's water supply for Soviet farms in neighboring Uzbekistan...