Soviets in Afghanistan

On this day 16 years ago... (15 Feb 1989)

Last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan

Liz Thurgood and Jonathan Steele in Kabul
Thursday February 16, 1989
The Guardian

As the last Soviet soldier marched out of Afghanistan yesterday, apparently wiping away tears, Pravda said in Moscow that in future decisions to send troops abroad should not be taken by a small conclave but by the Soviet Parliament. Nine years and seven weeks of Kremlin military involvement ended five minutes before noon, when the Soviet forces commander, Lieutenant-General Boris Grosmov, walked across 'Friendship Bridge' linking the Afghan border town of Hayratan with Termez, in the Soviet Union.

Hours afterwards, the Kremlin appealed for an immediate ceasefire and an end to arms shipments by all countries. The statement said that the withdrawal of Soviet troops under last April's Geneva accords could provide a basis for restoring peace in Afghanistan.

But the absence of Soviet troops could now touch off a bloodbath between the two heavily-armed Afghan sides, poised for a decisive struggle.

The Afghan government confirmed its fear of a bloody struggle yesterday by revealing that it had considered asking Moscow to halt the withdrawal of Soviet troops.

The government said it would have been entitled to ask them to stay. It accused the United States of not only failing to end its support of the Mojahedin operations out of Pakistan, but said that Washington had actually increased 'the quantity and sophistication of weapons being sent across the border'.

This amounted to 'a brutal trampling underfoot' of the agreements signed in Geneva.

Kabul was quiet yesterday, with no new rebel rocket attacks after the ones which killed five people on Tuesday. People showed no signs either of panic or jubilation as the decade-long Soviet intervention came to an end.

It was a day of quiet, but without the peace which many Afghans a few months ago had almost miraculously expected to see by now.

The government sought to appeal for international support by saying its position had 'enhanced the UN's authority, which Pakistan and the US were undermining'. It also poured scorn on the shura (gathering) which is still limping along in Islamabad, saying that 'the real forces inside Afghanistan were not represented'.

In Islamabad, Afghan rebels said an interim government for their country was presented for approval on Wednesday to the shura. Mr Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf, spokesman for the shura, said the proposed government would be headed by the US-educated engineer, Mr Ahmad Shah, a fundamentalist Muslim. Mr Sayyaf said that a new list would be drawn up if the shura rejected the proposed cabinet.

Kabul accused Pakistan of trying to annex Afghanistan under the aegis of a Pakistan-Afghan confederation, and described as 'ominous' Islamabad's purported decision to send armed forces into Afghanistan to aid the Mojahedin.

Afghanistan would take all necessary defensive measures, based on the UN Charter and the Soviet-Afghan treaty. this may have been a hint of requests for air strikes from Soviet territory on rebel concentrations.

General Gromov was the last of some 103,000 Soviet troops to be withdrawn.

Asked what he felt as he walked the last few steps on to Soviet territory, he replied: 'Joy, that we carried out our duty and came home. I did not look back.

'The day that millions of Soviet people have waited for has come,' General Gromov told an army rally afterwards. 'In spite of our sacrifices and losses, we have fulfilled our internationalist duty totally.'