Soviet War in Afghanistan (Greater Cold War)

The Soviet War in Afghanistan was an armed conflict and guerilla war fought between the Islamic Mujahideen insurgency and the communist government of Afghanistan supported by the Soviet Union in a military intervention and occupation from 1979 to early 1985. The war saw the deaths of up to 482,000 - 1,480,000 Afghan civilians and thousands of Afghan security forces and Mujahideen fighters dead along with over 8,000 Soviet troops dead. The war saw the communist government of Afghanistan remaining in power and Soviet communist influence retained.

Prior to the war, the communist Afghan politican Nur Muhammad Taraki had secured control over the country in a military coup in 1978 and Taraki siezed power as the country's president. A series of radical reformations were impleamented which alienated much of the country's conservative and deeply traditional religious population who formed the Mujahideen to overthrow him and the communist regime. Fearing the spread of the ideals of the Islamic revolution from Iran, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sent Soviet troops into Afghanistan and occupied the country from late 1979 until the withdraw in early 1985 to supress the Mujahideen insurgency and maintain the communist regime in Afghanistan.