Word: massoud
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Soviet army's seventh and most punishing assault on Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley this spring was in many respects an exercise in frustration. Moscow was determined to bring down Ahmad Shah Massoud, 30, a resourceful leader of the mujahedin, who have been defying the Soviets ever since they invaded the country in 1979. But only five days before the beginning of the Soviet operation, code-named Goodbye Massoud, the mujahedin commander suddenly slipped away from his headquarters and went into hiding. The following week the Soviets claimed Massoud was dead. Within hours, the rebel leader's voice...
...mujahedin had some special help that enabled them to resist the formidable assault so well. Three weeks before the Soviet tanks began to roll, American spy satellites detected movements that allowed agents to warn the rebels of the impending attack. Massoud's radio performance was made possible by the use of more than 40 CIA-supplied portable transmitters. In response to a specific request from Massoud, the CIA also arranged to send hundreds of land mines by plane, ship, truck, camel and pony across three continents and through several intermediaries, so that they got into rebel hands just before...
...thwarting of Goodbye Massoud was the most recent, and perhaps the most daring, success of the CIA's operation to assist the embattled guerrillas. Like most of the world, the U.S. was outraged when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and proceeded to transform it into a puppet state. That shock, together with widespread sympathy for the mujahedin, has not abated as Moscow has tried to consolidate its tenuous control over the nation by resorting to carpet bombing, chemical warfare and outright massacre of civilians...
Afghanistan fight the Russians." As soon as Massoud requested the mines, U.S. Army ordnance depots...
...many as 12,000 Soviet lives during the 52-month campaign. TIME has also learned that U.S. officials received reports last week that the insurgents managed to shoot down at least one enemy bomber. Meanwhile, they remain in control of nearly all of the countryside. In the Panjshir Valley, Massoud's men had reportedly sustained a healthy economy through a clandestine trade in semiprecious stones, while keeping their strongholds well stocked with munitions and food...