| Conflict: | Raids inside Soviet union during Soviet Afghan war |
| Partof: | the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan and Operation Cyclone |
| Date: | 1984–1988 |
| Place: | Uzbek SSR, Tajik SSR and Turkmen SSR |
| Result: | Mujahideen victory
|
| Combatant1: | Soviet Union Democratic Republic of Afghanistan |
| Combatant2: | Afghan mujahideenSupported by: Pakistan
|
| Units1: | Soviet Armed Forces |
| Units2: | Afghan mujahideen Pakistan
|
| Casualties1: | 1 Train destroyed 1 Factory destroyed 1 bridge destroyed Several barges destroyed One airfield damaged Unknown killed |
| Casualties2: | Unknown |
The raids inside Soviet Union during Soviet Afghan War were an effort to foment unrest and rebellion by the Islamic populations of the Soviet Union, starting in late 1984 Director of CIA William Casey encouraged Mujahideen militants to mount sabotage raids inside the Soviet Union, according to Robert Gates, Casey's executive assistant and Mohammed Yousef, the Pakistani ISI brigadier general who was the chief for Afghan operations. The rebels began cross-border raids into the Soviet Union in spring 1985.[1]
In August 1985 Afghan Mujahideen bombed a Soviet military airbase in Krasnovodsk, Turkmenistan. Three soldiers were killed.[2]
In January 1987 a bomb exploded on a Moscow-bound train in northwestern Uzbekistan, killing 3 citizens. The attack was likely meant to target Soviet troops.[3]
In April 1987 three separate teams of Afghan rebels were directed by the ISI to launch coordinated raids on multiple targets across the Soviet border and extending, in the case of an attack on an Uzbek factory, as deep as over 10order=flipNaNorder=flip into Soviet territory.
One of the most notable attacks launched by the Mujahideen inside the Soviet Union was the 1988 attack on the town of Kushka. The Afghan Mujahideen captured the town and held it for several days before being forced to withdraw.[4]
Pakistan's ISI requested limpet mines from Britain in the hope of attacking Soviet transport barges on the South bank of the Amu Darya River. MI6 facilitated the attacks which included the Limpets. In this they were successful in destroying a number of barges as well as damaging the bridge pylons spanning the river near Termez.
The Soviet paratroopers found that the Afghan mujaheddin actually wore the black uniforms with rectangular black-yellow-red stripes, and suspected to be Pakistan Army Special Service Group personnel; Pakistan's government has officially denied their involvement. The American author, Aukai Collins, identified the elements as "Black Storks" who crossed the border to join the Afghan mujahideen – a claim also backed by American author, David Campbell.[5]
CIA director William Casey secretly visited Pakistan numerous times to meet with the ISI officers managing the mujahideen,[6] and personally observed the guerrillas training on at least one occasion.[7] Coll reports that
Casey startled his Pakistani hosts by proposing that they take the Afghan war into enemy territory—into the Soviet Union itself. Casey wanted to ship subversive propaganda through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union's predominantly Muslim southern republics. The Pakistanis agreed, and the CIA soon supplied thousands of Korans, as well as books on Soviet atrocities in Uzbekistan and tracts on historical heroes of Uzbek nationalism, according to Pakistani and Western officials.
CIA also supplied Mujahideen with Weapons and Ammunition as well as Financial aid and this proved to be a crucial factor in the success of these raids.
See main article: United Kingdom in the Soviet–Afghan War. The UK's role in the Soviet Afghan war entailed direct military involvement not only in Afghanistan but the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union. From 1984 in conjunction with the CIA and ISI, MI6 helped organize and execute "scores" of guerrilla-style attacks. These included rocket attacks on villages in Tajikistan and raids on Soviet airfields, troop supplies and convoys in Uzbekistan which flowed through these areas, some 25 kilometers in these territories.
These were the first direct Western attacks on the Soviet Union since the 1950s and they reached their peak in 1986. MI6 directly remitted money into an account of Pakistani leader of Jamaat-e-Islami Qazi Hussain Ahmad who had close links with Hekmatyar & Massoud. MI6's aim was for Ahmad to spread radical and anti-Soviet Islamic literature in the Soviet republics in the hope of rebellions against their Communist governments. These went as far as Chechnya and Bosnia. The uprisings did not occur but the Soviets were concerned about potential uprisings during the war and even threatened retaliation with bombings in Pakistan.
The Mujahideen attacks inside the Soviet Union had a significant impact on the Soviet war effort. The attacks forced the Soviet Union to divert resources away from the front lines and to focus on protecting its borders. The attacks also damaged the morale of the Soviet troops and contributed to the Soviet decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989.
United States