General Muslim of the Mujahideen tells of the tactics employed in the Panjshir Valley to frustrate the attacks by the Russian Special Forces.
At home, the Soviets tried to conceal the failures and brutality of this occupation. The public was told the Soviets were popular, were helping the Afghan people and that the rebels were only a small minority of terrorists.
After many years of occupation Mikhail Gorbachev admits that Afghanistan cannot be won and signals the withdrawal of Russian Forces. A Russian Climbdown.
The Afghan war may not have brought down the Soviet Empire, but the war had dealt it a major blow, both financially and to its prestige. And the Politburo was embarrassed even now the sacrifice of its soldiers.
General Elphinstone is forced to surrender on an assurance of safe passage. However passage in the the Jaws of Hell is not safe and all are slaughtered.
For Afghans, this has confirmed that they were a warrior nation, one even capable of seeing off a great power like Britain, but Western historians point to another legacy that resonates today.
The arrogance and insensitivity of the British in usurping the Afghan leader could only result in retribution and jihad and the death of Alexander Burnes.
Burnes’ home, his paradise where he’d entertained for so long, the Kabul that he loved, had become a death trap.
The Battle of Maiwand was a decisive victory for the Afghans over the British. It’s the stuff of legend and is still a part of an Afghan child’s upbringing.
Alexander Burnes was the first undercover operative in Afghanistan before the Russians got there. He wrote the book ‘Travels to Bukhara’ after his journey.
The British now remember it, thanks to Rudyard Kipling’s later writing, as The Great Game.
We visit an Afghan Restaurant in London to get the local perspective , then turn to Professor Akbar Ahmed in Boston to get the low-down on 9/11.
Sensing that these two empires would collide in Afghanistan, the British government was hungry for intelligence on this blank space.
King Abdur Rahman stabilised Afghanistan, but is was King Amanullah that would be the modernising force trying to bring radical change to the country.
King Amanullah had a love for Western technology, especially Rolls Royce motor cars, but this westernising influence drove him into exile when the Afghan people rejected his reforms.
Afghanistan has been invaded on numerous occasions, all with the same outcome. The infidels get a seriously bloodied nose!
Whether it be the British, Russians or, indeed, the Americans; they all got their ass kicked.
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