“We have failed to manage and control our resources, with our fragile situation it is really hard to say when Afghanistan should expect any profits from it” says Minister of Mining and Petroleum Shah Saba in an interview with Bloomberg, October 2015.
Afghanistan, a country with rich resources of rare earth metals like gold, copper and cobalt has seen decades of invasions in its past. The country has a potential to become the “Saudi Arabia of Lithium”, an integral part of laptop and smartphone batteries says US Internal Pentagon, but the Government has struggled to extend its authority beyond Kabul, the capital city.
Over 80 years, British fought three wars and lost thousands of its soldiers trying to occupy and control mountainous and arid ranges of Afghanistan. After exhausting its military power in the First World War the British gave up in 1919 granting independence to the country.
With a little hope in 1950s, Afghanistan accepted aid from Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to build its infrastructure such as oil pipelines and roads, and also to develop schools and civil institutions.
During the time, Afghanistan was governed by a newly established government called, People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The government was unstable and had neither public nor military support.
With an aim of expanding its power over entire Middle East, Soviet Union, in 1979, sent troops of 100,000 soldiers to Afghanistan. It overthrew PDPA and elected their puppet leader Babrak Karmal to power.
As a result of this, it faced fierce rebellion from fighters called ‘Mujahidin’; who proclaimed the holy war of ‘Jihad’ against them. Mujahidin saw atheist soviets controlling Afghanistan and believed it was a defilement of Islam and their culture. There was no central place of command for Mujahidins. Instead, they were decentralised and scattered throughout Afghanistan like snakes.
Even the locals supported and housed Mujahidin warriors. Unable to distinguish between the locals and Mujahidin, Soviets bombarded entire villages, burned tons of crops; leaving millions of innocents dead, homeless and starving.
In the war, Mujahidin were backed by US who provided them with weaponry and money. And so, Mujahidin adopted guerrilla warfare tactics against Soviet. US provided them with anti-aircrafts missiles in 1987, which shot dozens of soviet planes and helicopters. Later Pakistan and Saudi Arabia extensively gave their support. All this turned the war in Mujahidin’s favour.
After facing abundant military failures; losing 15,000 Russian soldiers and escalating diplomatic pressure from all around the world, the Soviet leader Gobrachev pulled out his forces out of Afghanistan in 1989. Soviet Union’s fall from invincibility and vast expenditure of money in financing the invasion caused USSR to fall apart in 1990’s.
Soviet Union’s pull out resulted in the establishment of a weak country full of religious hatred and enmity for richer nations; which in turn nurtured a breeding ground for terrorism. The rebel groups looked for revenge against the richer countries who annihilated their families, homes and country. This led to the dawn of Taliban in 1996. Vengeance was the base on which the pyramid of terrorism was built. How did the superpowers react to the uprising of rebels? Did Afghan government ever achieve stability? Find out in the next blog!
