KABUL: Soldiers marched, tanks lumbered down the streets and helicopters hovered in the sky as Afghanistan marked the 13th anniversary on Thursday of the defeat of its last communist government.
The victory by Mujahideen holy warriors over President Najibullah’s government in 1992 marked the final chapter of Soviet involvement, but also the beginning of years of vicious factional battles that ultimately saw the Taliban sweep to power.
Wearing the traditional civilian garb of a shalwar and kamiz baggy shirt and trousers, hundreds of disarmed former faction members took part in Thursday’s parade as thousands of people looked on.
The Soviets murdered 3.5 million Afghan people in 10 years (that’s around 50,000 people per week) and the Afghans never gave up. How come the Americans have started dreaming that everything will be allright in just 2/3 years in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Total population of Afghanistan is??? according to the rate of attrition given above, mathematically speaking the entire Afghan population sud have been wiped out…
Soviet tactics utilized the following military and economic efforts.
The deployment of the 40th Soviet Army (over 100,000 ground troops). With air support, logistics, MVD troops, and other miscellaneous troops, the total number is estimated by some observers at approximately 175,000 troops total. This represented almost 20% of the category 1 (front-line) divisions possessed by the Soviet Union at the time.
More than 20 million anti-personnel mines were dropped by the Soviet Union.
Russian costs (in 1986 dollars) were approximately US$20 Billion / yr.
These tactics accomplished the following results:
Approximately 90,000 Afghan combatants killed (mujahadeen and government), and 90,000 wounded. Including civilian casualities, estimates are that 10% of the total population and 13.5% of the male population was killed, 1.5 million killed overall.
Approximately 22,000 Soviets were killed and 75,000 wounded.
Approximately 6 million refugees were driven into surrounding countries.
Damages of approximately $50 Billion US to Afghanistan, about 1/3 to 1/2 the net worth of the country.
Agricultural production reduced by 50%, livestock losses of 50%.
70% of paved roads destroyed.
Of 15,000 villages in the country, 5,000 were destroyed outright or made economically unsupportable by destruction of all economic resources such as fields, wells or roads
