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Afghanistan was the beginning of the end for the USSR. Something like Soviet Vietnam due to its high cost in lives and the poor progress made. Many countries before, and some still today, have come across an irreducible land and political and religious puzzles to which no one, not even the locals, has been able to find a solution. With that arrogance so characteristic of great empiresAt the end of the 1970s, the USSR sent its special forces to assassinate the president of the Asian country, believing that victory began here. They couldn’t be more wrong: the war was going to last 14 years.
Hafizullah Amin was for a time the right-hand man of the famous president of Afghanistan Mohammed Tarakithe founder of the Afghan Communist Party
and the man who led the country towards a certain progressivism. On September 14, 1978, a shootout at the government palace between Amin’s bodyguards and Taraki’s bodyguards led to a clash of accusations between his supporters and the arrest of the president days later. Although the circumstances of Taraki’s death were never clarified, what is evident is that Amin replaced him in power and that his execution was carried out by him.
Target: Tajbeg Palace
By taking over the reins of the country, Jafizulá Amin showed totalitarian airs and distanced himself from the USSR. During the 104 days of his rule, the Afghan politician came close to pakistan orbit and the United States. A political change that the USSR saw from the beginning with suspicion and that finally forced its military intervention. In a resounding coup, Moscow put on the board on December 27, 1979 a special command to seize the main installations and government buildings in Kabul. In a few hours, up to 13 strategic points were occupied by the Soviets, including the buildings of the Ministry of the Interior, the Internal Security building and the Darul Aman palace. Not in vain, the main objective was to take Amin out of the equation and finish his brief government.
The operation against the tajbeg palace, where Amin lived, is remembered as one of the most successful moments in the history of Russian special units, the mythologized “spetsnaz”. Although the term “spetsnaz” refers to all special Russian units, in this Afghan scenario the command chosen to lead the attack was the Alpha Group, specialized today in counterterrorism and subordinate to the Ministry of the Interior. Created in 1974 at the initiative of the then head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, this elite unit experienced its baptism of blood during the assault on the palace, as explained Mark Galeotti en su libro ‘Spetsnaz: Russia’s Special Forces’.
The 24 soldiers of the Alpha Group were joined by 30 soldiers from a special KGB group, the Cenith (in charge of collecting evidence of collaboration between Amin and the US); 87 soldiers from the Airborne Company and 520 men from the 154th Separate Spetsnaz Battalion. The latter was a unit known as a “Muslim battalion” because it was made up exclusively of Muslim soldiers. the southern republics of the USSR. In total, there were 600 soldiers dressed in Afghan troop uniforms, without insignia, and identified by white bands on their arms to guard against friendly fire.
Amin, who was unaware that the USSR distrusted him so much, had authorized the presence on Afghan soil of many of these Russian units since the end of November under the pretext that they would help him stabilize the country, which was increasingly in turmoil because of the mujahideen. . In fact, two days before the start of the operation, an Il-76 transport plane crashed near Kabul, killing the crew and the 37 Russian paratroopers it was transporting. What he could not imagine is that the dictator was not included in the Soviet plans for Afghanistan.
45 minute attack
The ultimate target of the Soviet forces was the Tajbeg Palace, built by European architects in 1920 for the Afghan royal family, which boasted imposing defenses. It was only accessible via a steep, winding path, after which T-54 tanks were located and several machine guns. To reach this position, the spetsnaz also had to face Amin’s personal guard, made up of 300 men, and more than a thousand regular soldiers.
-At 19:15 on December 27, Operation Storm-333 (Shtorm-333) began with a strong explosion in Kabul that left government forces incommunicado.
-At 7:30 p.m., the Muslim battalion deployed among the Afghan forces turned their weapons by surprise against the government troops, causing about 200 casualties. Parallel to these events, Spetsnaz Alpha and Cenith launched themselves on Amin’s personal guard and searched the dictator’s palace room by room. In a matter of 45 minutes, the operation concluded without it being clear whether he was executed during the assault or later.
At the beginning of the attack, Amin still believed that the sovietic Union he was on his side: “The Soviets will help us,” he told one of his aides when the shooting began. The aide replied that it was precisely the Soviets who were attacking, which was devastating for the president of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan. The unofficial version described him for the last time dressed in an Adidas shirt and brandishing a gun in a last desperate defense. He was located at 19:45 and shot down along with his son by members of the Alpha Group.
In contrast to the several hundred dead in the Afghan ranks, the Russians recorded hardly any casualties during the assault on the palace. The Alpha Group lost two men, the Cenith lost three, the Airborne Company lost nine, and the Muslim battalion lost five, mainly BMP crewmen transporting the troops to the Palace gates. However, the real bleeding of men had just begun for the Russians.
The USSR defended at all times the legality of the military operations in the Asian country in accordance with the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborhood and Cooperation between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. It was justified that the military intervention was carried out at the request of the Afghan Revolutionary Council, which hours before Amin’s death had met and condemned him for treason.
The Russian soldiers were dressed as Afghans in a plan to pass off the mission as an internal coup in which the Russians played a minor role: the Alpha and Zenith groups were camouflaged in the Muslim battalion, which in turn was supposedly watching for the interests of the president.