Civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992)

The 1989 to 1992 phase of the Afghan Civil War began after the Soviet withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving the Afghan communists to fend for itself against the Mujahideen. After several years of fighting, the government fell in 1992.

War against the Afghan communist Najibullah-regime

Military assets of the Afghan communists

After the Soviet withdrawal in February 1989, the U.S. intelligence agencies expected the PDPA regime to collapse within three to six months.

However, this estimation did not take into account several assets available to the government. The first of these was the large quantities of military hardware donated by the Soviet Union. In 1989, the army and pro-government militias still had 1568 tanks, 828 armoured personnel carriers, 4880 artillery pieces, 126 modern fighter-bombers and 14 attack helicopters. Also, the DRA continued to receive massive aid from the Soviet Union, valued between two and six billion dollars a year, and Soviet military advisors were still present in Afghanistan.Marshall, A.(2006); Phased Withdrawal, Conflict Resolution and State Reconstruction; Conflict research Studies Centre; ISBN 1-905058-74-8 The government forces also came to rely on the use of large quantities of Scud missiles: between 1988 and 1992 more than 2000 of these were fired inside Afghanistan, the largest amount of ballistic missiles used since World War II. This considerable amount of firepower...
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