Word: barren
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...political ventures were transparent bids for some popular acceptance to complement the Soviets' military support. According to most accounts, Moscow's occupation force effectively controlled all of Afghanistan's major cities and highways, but still faced considerable resistance in rural areas; perhaps 80% of the barren countryside remained in rebel hands. After a four-day lull, attacks by Muslim insurgents flared again in the northeast provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar. Civil unrest, according to U.S. intelligence reports, erupted repeatedly inside Kandahar, an ancient trading center on the edge of the Desert of Death. Soviet forces also found...
...defections. Morale was further eroded by Soviet commanders, who ordered the disarming of Afghan battalions considered to be of suspect loyalty. Consequently, Soviet troops have had to take on an increasing share of the combat against the rebels, who still control about 80% of Afghanistan's barren countryside...
That was Rudyard Kipling's tribute to Afghanistan, a barren moonscape of a land at the "crossroads of the world," and to its proud and savage people. Conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. and by Genghis Khan in the 13th century A.D., Afghanistan in the Victorian era served as a buffer between Imperial Russia and the British raj. The Afghans accepted it all, but they exacted a bloody price. For generations, the Hindus of India prayed for deliverance from "the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger and the vengeance of the Afghan...