Soviet invasion

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 by troops from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union intervened in support of the Afghan communist government in its conflict with anti-communist Muslim guerrillas during the Afghan War (1978–92) and remained in Afghanistan until mid-February 1989.



Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

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Date: 

December 1979Location: AfghanistanParticipants: Soviet Union

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In April 1978 Afghanistan's centrist government, headed by Pres. Mohammad Daud Khan, was overthrown by left-wing military officers led by Nur Mohammad Taraki. Power was thereafter shared by two Marxist-Leninist political groups, the People's (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party—which had earlier emerged from a single organization, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan—and had reunited in an uneasy coalition shortly before the coup. The new government, which had little popular support, forged close ties with the Soviet Union, launched ruthless purges of all domestic opposition, and began extensive land and social reforms that were bitterly resented by the devoutly Muslim and largely anti-communist population. Insurgencies arose against the government among both tribal and urban groups, and all of these—known collectively as the mujahideen (Arabic mujāhidūn, "those who engage in jihad")—were Islamic in orientation.

These uprisings, along with internal fighting and coups within the government between the People's and Banner factions, prompted the Soviets to invade the country on the night of December 24, 1979, sending in some 30,000 troops and toppling the short-lived presidency of People's leader Hafizullah Amin. The aim of the Soviet operation was to prop up their new but faltering client state, now headed by Banner leader Babrak Karmal, but Karmal was unable to attain significant popular support. Backed by the United States, the mujahideen rebellion grew, spreading to all parts of the country. The Soviets initially left the suppression of the rebellion to the Afghan army, but the latter was beset by mass desertions and remained largely ineffective throughout the war.



Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Afghan War

Afghan resistance fighters returning to a village destroyed by Soviet forces, 1986.

U.S. Department of Defense

The Afghan War quickly settled down into a stalemate, with more than 100,000 Soviet troops controlling the cities, larger towns, and major garrisons and the mujahideen moving with relative freedom throughout the countryside. Soviet troops tried to crush the insurgency by various tactics, but the guerrillas generally eluded their attacks. The Soviets then attempted to eliminate the mujahideen's civilian support by bombing and depopulating the rural areas. These tactics sparked a massive flight from the countryside; by 1982 some 2.8 million Afghans had sought asylum in Pakistan, and another 1.5 million had fled to Iran. The mujahideen were eventually able to neutralize Soviet air power through the use of shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles supplied by the Soviet Union's Cold War adversary, the United States.



Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

Soviet helicopter and tank operations in the Afghan War, Afghanistan, 1984.

U.S. Department of Defense

The mujahideen were fragmented politically into a handful of independent groups, and their military efforts remained uncoordinated throughout the war. The quality of their arms and combat organization gradually improved, however, owing to experience and to the large quantity of arms and other war matériel shipped to the rebels, via Pakistan, by the United States and other countries and by sympathetic Muslims from throughout the world. In addition, an indeterminate number of Muslim volunteers—popularly termed "Afghan-Arabs," regardless of their ethnicity—traveled from all parts of the world to join the opposition.



Afghan War

Soviet paratroopers rolling through Kabul, Afghanistan, in armoured combat vehicles, 1986.

U.S. Department of Defense

The war in Afghanistan became a quagmire for what by the late 1980s was a disintegrating Soviet Union. (The Soviets suffered some 15,000 dead and many more injured.) Despite having failed to implement a sympathetic regime in Afghanistan, in 1988 the Soviet Union signed an accord with the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and agreed to withdraw its troops. The Soviet withdrawal was completed on February 15, 1989, and Afghanistan returned to nonaligned status.



Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Afghan War

A convoy of Soviet armoured vehicles crossing a bridge at the Soviet-Afghan border, February 15, 1989, during the withdrawal of the Red Army from Afghanistan.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Michael Ray.

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Egyptian Islamic Jihad

Egyptian extremist organization

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Alternate titles: Islamic Jihad, al-Jihad

By Erica Pearson • Edit History

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Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), also called al-Jihad, Egyptian extremist organization that originated in the late 1970s and developed into a powerful force in the 1980s and 1990s. Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) allied with the al-Qaeda network in the late 1990s, and the two groups merged in 2001.

Date: 

c. 1978 - 2001Areas Of Involvement: Islam terrorism extremism jihadRelated People: Ayman al-Zawahiri Saif al-Adel

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EIJ coalesced out of a variety of smaller militant groups in the late 1970s under the leadership of Muhammad Abd al-Salam Faraj. His treatise Al-Farīḍah al-ghāʾibah (1981; The Neglected Duty), which urged Muslims to use violence for the purpose of creating an Islamic state, became the group's ideological platform. On October 6, 1981, EIJ members disguised as soldiers assassinated Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat, shooting him in front of Egyptian television cameras during a military parade. A crackdown followed that saw most of the organization's leaders imprisoned. During that period, fractures within EIJ worsened, and the group's Upper Egyptian wing broke away to form an independent organization, al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmiyyah ("the Islamic Group"), under the leadership of Omar Abdel Rahman.

In the 1980s many members of EIJ left Egypt to participate in the Afghan guerrilla war against the occupation that followed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It was in Peshawar, Pakistan, that EIJ's leaders Sayyid Imam al-Sharif and Ayman al-Zawahiri became acquainted with the Saudi financier and organizer Osama bin Laden, who founded the al-Qaeda network in the late 1980s.

Soon after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, Sharif, Zawahiri, and other EIJ leaders joined bin Laden in Khartoum, where he was hosted by Sudan's government. Ties between EIJ and al-Qaeda continued to deepen. Veterans of EIJ came to constitute a large portion of al-Qaeda's senior leadership, while EIJ relied on al-Qaeda for the planning and execution of its armed operations against the Egyptian government. EIJ claimed responsibility for foiled assassination attempts on Interior Minister Hassan al-Alfi in August 1993 and Prime Minister Atef Sedky in November 1993. Those attacks, along with EIJ's failed attempt to assassinate Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak during a visit to Ethiopia in June 1995, provoked a crushing repression of the group inside Egypt, forcing the group to find targets abroad. EIJ's deadliest attack was its bombing of Egypt's embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, in November 1995, which killed 17 people. However, EIJ was largely overshadowed by al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmiyyah, which waged a far-bloodier campaign inside Egypt, killing numerous officials, civilians, and foreign tourists.

EIJ and al-Qaeda announced a formal alliance in 1998, and the two groups merged fully in 2001. Zawahiri became Osama bin Laden's deputy and was affiliated with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

In mid-2007, as part of a "deradicalization" program, Egypt released more than 130 jailed members of EIJ in exchange for their renouncing violence. That year also saw a series of publications by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif renouncing terrorism as un-Islamic. Sharif's writings drew a lengthy rebuttal from Zawahiri.