ABSTRACT
The start of the Afghan civil war can reasonably, albeit somewhat arbitrarily, be dated to 1978 when the communist regime in Afghanistan, headed by President Nur Muhammad Taraki, initiated a series of modernising reforms designed to “uproot feudalism” in the country. These reforms proved deeply unpopular in many parts of the country, and by the end of 1978 armed resistance was widespread. In September 1979, Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin removed Taraki from power and attempted to suppress the growing insurgency with increasingly brutal measures. As armed resistance spread from rural areas to the cities during 1979, Amin requested military assistance from the Soviet Union. Small detachments of Soviet forces began to arrive during the summer of 1979, but the main Soviet force did not “invade” Afghanistan until December 1979. Although Amin had repeatedly called for Soviet intervention, the first action of incoming Soviet forces was to assault the presidential palace and kill Amin. Amin’s hard-line approach to quashing the insurgency had been viewed in Moscow with increasing alarm, and he was replaced with the more moderate Babrak Karmal.
