War in Afghanistan (1978–present)

War in Afghanistan
Part of the Cold War and the War on Terror
Afghanistan - Location Map
Date 27 April 1978 – present (38 years, 10 months, 2 weeks and 5 days) Location Afghanistan Result Ongoing Communist coup (1978) Uprisings against PDPA government Soviet intervention (1979) Resistance against Soviet intervention Soviet withdrawal (1989) Collapse of the PDPA government (1992) Establishment of the Islamic State of Afghanistan (1992) Inter-factional fighting Establishment of the Taliban Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996) Resistance to the Taliban Emirate by the United Front NATO invasion (2001) Fall of the Taliban government and establishment of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2001) Taliban insurgency
Casualties and losses
1,405,111–2,084,468

Ongoing

The war in Afghanistan began on 27 April 1978, when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power in a military coup, known as the Saur Revolution. Most of Afghanistan subsequently experienced uprisings against the PDPA government. The Soviet war in Afghanistan began in December 1979 to replace the existing communist government. Afghanistan's resistance forces, known as the mujahideen, fought against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Some factions received support by the United States, with the Pakistani ISI serving as the U.S. middleman, and Saudi Arabia. The Soviet Union had to withdraw its troops in February 1989. The Soviet-backed Afghan communist government survived for three more years until the fall of Kabul in 1992.

In 1992, the Afghan political parties agreed on the Peshawar Accords which established the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government. Militia leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was opposed to the agreement and with Pakistani support started a bombardment campaign against Kabul. Additionally, three militias who had been able to occupy some suburbs of Kabul engaged in a violent war against each other. Regional powers such as Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and Uzbekistan seeking influence over the geostrategically located Afghanistan each supported and in some cases controlled one of those militias. While Kabul and some other major cities witnessed most of the fighting during that period most of the more rural parts of Afghanistan, which had seen especially massive bombardment by the Soviets and Communists, remained relatively calm. In late 1994/early 1995 as the Islamic State's minister of defense Ahmad Shah Massoud had been able to defeat most of the militias militarily in Kabul and had restored some calm to the capital, the Taliban emerged as a new faction threatening Kabul.

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