title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Ex-king Zahir Shah remained a popular figure to most Afghans. Diego Cordovez of the UN also recognized the king as a potential key to a political settlement to the war after the Soviet troops would leave. Polls in 1987 also showed that he was a favored figure to lead a potential coalition between the DRA regime and Mujahideen factions, as well as an opposition to the unpopular but powerful guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was strongly against the King's return. Pakistan however was against this and refused to grant the ex-king a visa for potential negotiations with Mujahideen. Pakistan's President Zia ul-Haq and his supporters in the military were determined to put a conservative Islamic ally in power in Kabul.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Following lengthy negotiations, the Geneva Accords was signed in 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Supported by the Soviet Union and the United States respectively, the two Asian countries agreed to refrain from any form of interference in each other’s territory and give Afghan refugees in Pakistan to voluntarily return. The two superpowers agreed to halt their interference in Afghanistan, which included a Soviet withdrawal.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The United Nations set up a special Mission to oversee the process. In this way, President Najibullah had stabilized his political position enough to begin matching Moscow's moves toward withdrawal. Among other things the Geneva Accords identified the US and Soviet non-intervention in the internal affairs of Pakistan and Afghanistan and a timetable for full Soviet withdrawal. The agreement on withdrawal held, and on 15 February 1989, the last Soviet troops departed on schedule from Afghanistan.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The promotion of Mikhail Gorbachev to General Secretary in 1985 and his 'new thinking' on foreign and domestic policy was likely an important factor in the Soviets' decision to withdraw. Gorbachev had been attempting to remove the Soviet Union from the economic stagnation that had set in under the leadership of Brezhnev, and to reform the Soviet Union's economy and image with the Glasnost and Perestroika policies. Gorbachev had also been attempting to ease cold war tensions by signing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the U.S. in 1987 and withdrawing the troops from Afghanistan, whose presence had garnered so much international condemnation. Gorbachev regarded confrontation with China and resulting military build ups on that border as one of Brezhnev's biggest mistakes. Beijing had stipulated that a normalization of relations would have to wait until Moscow withdrew its army from Afghanistan (among other things), and in 1989 the first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years took place. At the same time, Gorbachev pressured his Cuban allies in Angola to scale down activities and withdraw even though Soviet allies were faring somewhat better there. The Soviets also pulled many of their troops out of Mongolia in 1987, where they were also having a far easier time than in Afghanistan, and restrained the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea to the point of an all-out withdrawal in 1988. This massive withdrawal of Soviet forces from such highly contested areas shows that the Soviet government's decision to leave Afghanistan was based upon a general change in Soviet foreign policy – from one of confrontation to avoidance of conflict wherever possible.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: In the last phase, Soviet troops prepared and executed their withdrawal from Afghanistan, whilst limiting the launching of offensive operations by those who had not withdrawn yet.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: By mid-1987 the Soviet Union announced that it would start withdrawing its forces. Sibghatullah Mojaddedi was selected as the head of the Interim Islamic State of Afghanistan, in an attempt to reassert its legitimacy against the Moscow-sponsored Kabul regime. Mojaddedi, as head of the Interim Afghan Government, met with then Vice President of the United States George H. W. Bush, achieving a critical diplomatic victory for the Afghan resistance. Defeat of the Kabul government was their solution for peace. This confidence, sharpened by their distrust of the United Nations, virtually guaranteed their refusal to accept a political compromise.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: In September 1988, Soviet MiG-23 fighters shot down two Iranian AH-1J Cobra helicopters, which had intruded into Afghan airspace.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Operation Magistral was one of the final offensive operations undertaken by the Soviets, a successful sweep operation that cleared the road between Gardez and Khost. This operation did not have any lasting effect on the outcome of the conflict nor the soiled political and military status of the Soviets in the eyes of the West, but was a symbolic gesture that marked the end of their widely condemned presence in the country with a victory.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The first half of the Soviet contingent was withdrawn from 15 May to 16 August 1988, and the second from 15 November to 15 February 1989. In order to ensure a safe passage the Soviets had negotiated ceasefires with local Mujahideen commanders, so the withdrawal was generally executed peacefully, except for the operation "Typhoon".


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: General Yazov, the Defense Minister of Soviet Union, ordered the 40th Army to violate the agreement with Ahmed Shah Masood, who commanded a large force in the Panjshir Valley, and attack his relaxed and exposed forces. The Soviet attack was initiated to protect Najibullah, who did not have a ceasefire in effect with Masood, and who rightly feared an offensive by Masood's forces after the Soviet withdrawal. General Gromov, the 40th Army Commander, objected to the operation, but reluctantly obeyed the order. "Typhoon" began on 23 January and continued for three days. To minimize their own losses, the Soviets abstained from close-range fight; instead they used long-range artillery, surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles. Numerous civilian casualties were reported. Masood had not threatened the withdrawal to this point, and did not attack Soviet forces after they breached the agreement. Overall, the Soviet attack represented a defeat for Masood's forces, who lost 600 fighters killed and wounded.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: After the withdrawal of the Soviets, the DRA forces were left fighting alone and had to abandon some provincial capitals, and it was widely believed that they would not be able to resist the Mujahideen for long. However, in the spring of 1989 DRA forces inflicted a sharp defeat on the Mujahideen at Jalalabad. The United States, having achieved its goal of forcing the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan, gradually disengaged itself from the country.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Some of the causes of the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan leading to the Afghanistan regime's eventual defeat include


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: After the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the government of Mohammad Najibullah remained in power until April 15, 1992. Najibullah stepped down as Mujahideen guerrilla forces moved into Kabul. He attempted to fly to India under the protection of the U.N., but was blocked from leaving at the airport. He then took refuge at a United Nations compound in Kabul. After a bloody, four-year power struggle between different factions of the victorious anti-Najibullah forces, the Taliban took Kabul. They stormed the U.N. compound on September 26, 1996, then tortured and killed Najibullah.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Soviet Union and Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force jet fighters and bombers would occasionally cross into Pakistani airspace to target Afghan refugees camps in Pakistan. To counter the Soviet jets, the United States started providing F-16 jets to Pakistan. These F-16 jets lacked the capability to fire radar-guided beyond-visual range missiles, and thus they were required to get close to their opponents in order to use their AIM-9P and more advanced AIM-9L Sidewinder heat-seeking or their 20-millimeter Vulcan cannons. On 17 May 1986, two Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16 jets intercepted two Su-22M3K belonging to Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force (DRAAF) near the Pakistani airspace. Pakistani officials insisted that both the fighter jets belonging to DRAAF were shot down while Afghan officials confirmed loss of only one fighter jet. Following the engagement, there was a major decline in the number of attacks on Afghan refugees camps in Pakistan. On 16 April 1987, a group of PAF F-16s again chased down two DRAAF Su-22 and managed to shoot down one of them and capture its pilot. In 1987, the Soviet Union reported that Pakistani fighter jets were roaming in Afghan airspace, harassing attempts to aerial resupply the besieged garrisons like the one in Khost. On 30 March 1987, two PAF F-16s shot down an An-26 cargo plane, killing all 39 personnel on board the aircraft. In the coming years, PAF claimed credit for shooting down several Mi-8 transport helicopters, and another An-26 which was on a reconnaissance mission in 1989. Also in 1987, two PAF F-16 jets ambushed four Mig-23 which were bombing Mujahideen supply bases. In the clash, one PAF F-16 was lost after it was accidentally hit by an AIM-9 Sidewinder fired by the second PAF F-16. The PAF pilot landed in Afghanistan territory and was smuggled back to Pakistan along with wreckage of his aircraft by the Mujahideen. However, some Russian sources claim that the F-16 was shot down by a Mig-23, though the Soviet Mig-23 were not carrying air-to-air missiles.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: On 8 August 1988, Colonel Alexander Rutskoy was leading a group of Sukhoi Su-25 fighter jets to attack a refugee camp in Miramshah, Pakistan. His fighter jet was intercepted and shot down by two PAF F-16. Colonel Alexander Rustkoy landed in Pakistani territory and was captured. He was later exchanged back to the Soviet Union. A month later, around twelve Mig-23 crossed into Pakistani airspace with the aim to lure into ambush the Pakistani F-16s. Two PAF F-16s flew towards the Soviet fighter jets. The Soviet radars failed to detect the low flying F-16s, and the Sidewinder fired by one of the F-16s damaged one of the Mig-23. However, the damaged Mig-23 managed to return home. Two Mig-23 engaged the two PAF F-16s. The Pakistani officials state that both the Mig-23 were shot down. However, Soviet records show that no additional aircraft were lost that day. The last aerial engagement took place on 3 November 1988, in which one Su-2M4K belonging to DRAAF was shot down by a Pakistani Air Force jet.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: During the conflict, Pakistan Air Force F-16 had shot down ten aircraft, belonging to Soviet Union, which had intruded into Pakistani territory. However, the Soviet record only confirmed five kills (three Su-22s, one Su-25 and one An-26). Some sources show that PAF had shot down at least a dozen more aircraft during the war. However, those kills were not officially acknowledged because they took place in Afghanistan's airspace and acknowledging those kills would mean that Afghan airspace was violated by PAF. In all, Pakistan Air Force F-16s had downed several MiG-23s, Su-22s, an Su-25, and an An-24 while losing only one F-16.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Whether the introduction of the personal, portable, infrared-homing surface-to-air "Stinger" missile in September 1986 was a turning point in the war is disputed.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Many Western military analysts credit the Stinger with a kill ratio of about 70% and with responsibility for most of the over 350 Soviet or Afghan government aircraft and helicopters downed in the last two years of the war. Some military analysts considered it a "game changer" and coined the term "Stinger effect" to describe it.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Wilson claimed that before the Stinger the Mujahideen never won a set piece battle with the Soviets, but after it was introduced, the Mujahideen never again lost one.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: However, these statistics are based on Mujahideen self-reporting, which is of unknown reliability. A Russian general claimed the United States "greatly exaggerated" Soviet and Afghan aircraft losses during the war. According to Soviet figures, in 1987–1988, only 35 aircraft and 63 helicopters were destroyed by all causes. The Pakistan Army fired twenty-eight Stingers at enemy aircraft without a single kill.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Many Russian military analysts tend to be dismissive of the impact of the Stinger. Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev decided to withdraw from Afghanistan a year before the Mujahideen fired their first Stinger missiles; Gorbachev was motivated by U.S. sanctions, not military losses. The Stingers did make an impact at first but within a few months flares, beacons, and exhaust baffles were installed to disorient the missiles, while night operation and terrain-hugging tactics tended to prevent the rebels from getting a clear shot. By 1988 the Mujahideen had all but stopped firing them. Stingers also forced Soviet helicopters and ground attack planes to bomb from higher altitudes with less accuracy, but did not bring down many more aircraft than Chinese heavy machine guns and other less sophisticated anti-aircraft weaponry. Gorbachev stated in an interview in 2010 that the Stinger did not influence his decision-making process.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Human Rights Watch concluded that the Soviet Red Army and its communist-allied Afghan Army perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, intentionally targeting civilians and civilian areas for attack, and killing and torturing prisoners. Several historians and scholars went further, stating that the Afghans were victims of genocide by the Soviet Union. These include American professor Samuel Totten, Australian professor Paul R. Bartrop, scholars from Yale Law School including W. Michael Reisman and Charles Norchi, writer and human rights advocate Rosanne Klass, and scholar Mohammed Kakar.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Helen Fein notes that charges of the U.S. committing genocide during the Vietnam War were repeated by several prominent intellectuals, yet comparatively little attention was paid to the allegations of Soviet genocide against the Afghan people. However, Fein argues that the claims against the Soviets have considerably stronger evidentiary support. Fein states that 9% of the Afghan population perished under Soviet occupation (compared to 3.6% of the 1960 population of Vietnam during the U.S. war and approximately 10% of non-Jewish Poles during the Nazi occupation of Poland) and almost half were displaced, with one-third of Afghans fleeing the country. (By contrast, the sustained refugee flows out of Vietnam occurred after the 1975 defeat of South Vietnam, although millions of Vietnamese were internally displaced by the war.) Furthermore, statements by Soviet soldiers and DRA officials (e.g., "We don't need the people, we need the land!"; "if only 1 million people were left in the country, they would be more than enough to start a new society") and the actual effect of Soviet military actions suggest that depopulation of rural, predominantly Pashtun areas was carried out deliberately in order to deprive the mujahideen of support: 97% of all refugees were from rural areas; Pashtuns decreased from 39% to 22% of the population. The U.S. likely committed war crimes in Vietnam through inconsistent application of its rules of engagement and disproportionate bombardment, but it at least attempted to hold individual soldiers accountable for murder, especially in the case of the only confirmed large-scale massacre committed by U.S. troops (the Mỹ Lai massacre). By contrast, Fein cites two dozen "corroborated" massacres perpetrated by the Soviets in Afghanistan, which went unpunished, adding that in some instances "Soviet defectors have said that there were sanctions against not killing civilians." This policy went beyond collective punishment of villages thought to house mujahideen insurgents—which could itself be a war crime—extending even to the targeting of refugee caravans. Fein concludes that regardless of motive, the Soviets evinced an "intent to destroy the Afghan people" and plausibly violated sections a, b, c, and e of Article II of the 1951 Genocide Convention.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The army of the Soviet Union killed large numbers of Afghans to suppress their resistance. In one notable incident the Soviet Army committed mass killing of civilians in the summer of 1980. To separate the Mujahideen from the local populations and eliminate their support, the Soviet army killed many civilians, drove many more Afghans from their homes, and used scorched-earth tactics to prevent their return. They used booby traps, mines, and chemical substances throughout the country. The Soviet army indiscriminately killed combatants and non-combatants to terrorize local populations into submission. The provinces of Nangarhar, Ghazni, Laghman, Kunar, Zabul, Kandahar, Badakhshan, Logar, Paktia and Paktika witnessed extensive depopulation programmes by the Soviet forces.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Soviet forces abducted Afghan women in helicopters while flying in the country in search of Mujahideen. In November 1980 a number of such incidents had taken place in various parts of the country, including Laghman and Kama. Soviet soldiers as well as KhAD agents kidnapped young women from the city of Kabul and the areas of Darul Aman and Khair Khana, near the Soviet garrisons, to rape them. Women who were taken and raped by Soviet soldiers were considered 'dishonoured' by their families if they returned home. Deserters from the Soviet Army in 1984 also reported the atrocities by Soviet troops on Afghan women and children, including rape.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Irrigation systems, crucial to agriculture in Afghanistan's arid climate, were destroyed by aerial bombing and strafing by Soviet or government forces. In the worst year of the war, 1985, well over half of all the farmers who remained in Afghanistan had their fields bombed, and over one quarter had their irrigation systems destroyed and their livestock shot by Soviet or government troops, according to a survey conducted by Swedish relief experts. Everything was the target in the country, from cities, villages, up to schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, factories and orchards. Soviet tactics included targeting areas which showed support for the Mujahideen, and forcing the populace to flee the rural territories the communists were unable to control. Half of Afghanistan's 24,000 villages were destroyed by the end of the war.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: There have also been numerous reports of illegal chemical weapons, including mycotoxins, being used by Soviet forces in Afghanistan, often indiscriminately against civilians.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Amnesty International concluded that the communist-controlled Afghan government used widespread torture against inmates (officials, teachers, businessmen and students suspected of having ties to the rebels) in interrogation centers in Kabul, run by the KHAD, who were beaten, subjected to electric shocks, burned with cigarettes and that some of their hair was pulled out. Some died from these harsh conditions. Women of the prisoners were forced to watch or were locked up in the cells with the corpses. The Soviets were accused of supervising these tortures.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Soviet soldiers were looting from the dead in Afghanistan, including stealing money, jewelry and clothes. During the Red Army withdrawal in February 1989, 30 to 40 military trucks crammed with Afghan historical treasures crossed into the Soviet Union, under orders from General Boris Gromov. He cut an antique Tekke carpet stolen from Darul Aman Palace into several pieces, and gave it to his acquaintances.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Afghan mujahideen were backed primarily by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Kingdom making it a Cold War proxy war. Out of the countries that supported the Mujahideen, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia offered the greatest financial support. However, private donors and religious charities throughout the Muslim world—particularly in the Persian Gulf—raised considerably more funds for the Afghan rebels than any foreign government; Jason Burke recounts that "as little as 25 per cent of the money for the Afghan jihad was actually supplied directly by states." Saudi Arabia was heavily involved in the war effort and matched the United States' contributions dollar-for-dollar in public funds. Saudi Arabia also gathered an enormous amount of money for the Afghan mujahideen in private donations that amounted to about $20 million per month at their peak.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Other countries that supported the Mujahideen were Egypt and China. Iran on the other hand only supported the Shia Mujahideen, namely the Persian speaking Shiite Hazaras in a limited way. One of these groups was the Tehran Eight, a political union of Afghan Shi'a. They were supplied predominately by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but Iran's support for the Hazaras nevertheless frustrated efforts for a united Mujahideen front.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Shortly after the intervention, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq called for a meeting of senior military members and technocrats of his military government. At this meeting, General Zia-ul-Haq asked the Chief of Army Staff General Khalid Mahmud Arif and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Muhammad Shariff to lead a specialized civil-military team to formulate a geo-strategy to counter the Soviet aggression. At this meeting, the Director-General of the "ISI" at that time, Lieutenant-General Akhtar Abdur Rahman advocated for an idea of covert operation in Afghanistan by arming the Islamic extremist. As for Pakistan, the Soviet war with Islamist mujahideen was viewed as retaliation for the Soviet Union's long unconditional support of regional rival, India, notably during the 1965 and the 1971 wars, which led to the loss of Pakistani territory to the new state of Bangladesh.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: After the Soviet deployment, Pakistan's military ruler General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq started accepting financial aid from the Western powers to aid the Mujahideen. In 1981, following the election of US President Ronald Reagan, aid for the Mujahideen through Zia's Pakistan significantly increased, mostly due to the efforts of Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Pakistan Navy were involved in the covert war coordinating foreign weapons being funnelled into Afghanistan. Some of the navy's high-ranking admirals were responsible for storing those weapons in their depots.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: ISI allocated the highest percentage of covert aid to warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar leader of the Hezb-e-Islami faction. This was based on his record as an effective anti-Soviet military commander in Afghanistan. The other reason was that Hekmatyar and his men had "almost no grassroots support and no military base inside Afghanistan", and thus more "dependent on Zia-ul-Haq's protection and financial largesse" than other Mujahideen factions. In retaliation for Pakistan's assistance to the insurgents, the KHAD Afghan security service, under leader Mohammad Najibullah, carried out (according to the Mitrokhin Archives and other sources) a large number of operations against Pakistan. In 1987, 127 incidents resulted in 234 deaths in Pakistan. In April 1988, an ammunition depot outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad was blown up killing 100 and injuring more than 1000 people. The KHAD and KGB were suspected in the perpetration of these acts. Soviet fighters and Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force bombers occasionally bombed Pakistani villages along the Pakistani-Afghan border. The target of Soviet and Afghan fighters and bombers were Afghan refugees camps on Pakistan side of the border. These attacks are known to have caused at least 300 civilian deaths and extensive damage. Sometimes they got involved in shootings with the Pakistani jets defending the airspace.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Many secular Pakistanis outside of the government were worried about fundamentalists guerrillas in Afghanistan, such as Hekmatyar, receiving such a high amount of aid, would lead to bolster conservative Islamic forces in Pakistan and its military.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Pakistan took in millions of Afghan refugees (mostly Pashtun) fleeing the Soviet occupation. Although the refugees were controlled within Pakistan's largest province, Balochistan under then-martial law ruler General Rahimuddin Khan, the influx of so many refugees – believed to be the largest refugee population in the world – spread into several other regions.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: All of this had a heavy impact on Pakistan and its effects continue to this day. Pakistan, through its support for the Mujahideen, played a significant role in the eventual withdrawal of Soviet military personnel from Afghanistan.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: In the late 1970s, Pakistani intelligence officials began privately lobbying the U.S. and its allies to send material assistance to the Islamist insurgents. Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's ties with the U.S. had been strained during Jimmy Carter's presidency due to Pakistan's nuclear program. Carter told National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance as early as January 1979 that it was vital to "repair our relationships with Pakistan" in light of the unrest in Iran.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Carter insisted that what he termed "Soviet aggression" could not be viewed as an isolated event of limited geographical importance but had to be contested as a potential threat to US influence in the Persian Gulf region. The US was also worried about the USSR gaining access to the Indian Ocean by coming to an arrangement with Pakistan. The Soviet air base outside of Kandahar was only thirty minutes flying time by strike aircraft or naval bomber to the Persian Gulf. It "became the heart of the southernmost concentration of Soviet soldier" in the 300-year history of Russian expansion in central Asia.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Brzezinski, known for his hardline policies on the Soviet Union, became convinced by mid-1979 that the Soviets were going to invade Afghanistan regardless of U.S. policy due to the Carter administration's failure to respond aggressively to Soviet activity in Africa. Despite the risk of unintended consequences, support for the Mujahideen could be an effective way to prevent Soviet aggression beyond Afghanistan (particularly in Brzezinski's native Poland). In July 1979, Carter signed two presidential findings permitting the CIA to spend $695,000 on non-military assistance (e.g., "cash, medical equipment, and radio transmitters") and on a propaganda campaign targeting the Soviet-backed leadership of the DRA, which (in the words of Steve Coll) "seemed at the time a small beginning." Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was used as an intermediary for most of these activities to disguise the sources of support for the resistance in a program called Operation Cyclone.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Stansfield Turner and the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO) contemplated sending lethal arms from U.S. stocks to the mujahideen as early as late August 1979, but this idea was ultimately not implemented until after the Soviet invasion in December. The first shipment of U.S. weapons intended for the Mujahideen reached Pakistan on 10 January 1980.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Democratic Congressman Charlie Wilson became obsessed with the Afghan cause. In 1982 he visited the Pakistani leadership, and was taken to a major Pakistan-based Afghan refugee camp to see first hand the conditions and the Soviet atrocities. After his visit he was able to leverage his position on the House Committee on Appropriations to encourage other Democratic congressmen to vote for CIA Afghan war money. Wilson teamed with CIA manager Gust Avrakotos and formed a team of a few dozen insiders who greatly enhanced support for the Mujahideen. With Ronald Reagan as president he then greatly expanded the program as part of the Reagan Doctrine of aiding anti-Soviet resistance movements abroad. To execute this policy, Reagan deployed CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary officers to equip the Mujahideen forces against the Soviet Army. Avrakotos hired Michael G. Vickers, the CIA's regional head who had a close relationship with Wilson and became a key architect of the strategy. The program funding was increased yearly due to lobbying by prominent U.S. politicians and government officials, such as Wilson, Gordon J. Humphrey, Fred Iklé, and William J. Casey. Under the Reagan administration, U.S. support for the Afghan Mujahideen evolved into a centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, called the Reagan Doctrine, in which the U.S. provided military and other support to anti-communist resistance movements in Afghanistan, Angola, and Nicaragua.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The CIA gave the majority of their weapons and finances to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin who also received the lion's share of aid from the Saudis. There was recurrent contact between the CIA and Afghan commanders, especially by agent Howard Hart, and Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey personally visited training camps on several occasions. There was also direct Pentagon and State Department involvement which led to several major Mujahideen being welcomed to the White House for a conference in October 1985. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar declined the opportunity to meet with Ronald Reagan, but Mohammad Yunus Khalis and Abdul Haq were hosted by the president. CIA agents are also known to have given direct cash payments to Jalaluddin Haqqani.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The arms included FIM-43 Redeye and 9K32 Strela-2 shoulder-fired, antiaircraft weapons that they initially used against Soviet helicopters. Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon official, and Vincent Cannistraro pushed the CIA to supply the Stinger missile to the rebels. This was first supplied in 1986; Wilson's good contact with Zia was instrumental in the final go-ahead for the Stinger introduction. The first Hind helicopter was brought down later that year. The CIA eventually supplied nearly 500 Stingers (some sources claim 1,500–2,000) to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and 250 launchers. The impact of the Stinger on the outcome of the war is contested, nevertheless some saw it more of a "force multiplier" and a morale booster.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Overall financially the U.S. offered two packages of economic assistance and military sales to support Pakistan's role in the war against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. By the war's end more than $20 billion in U.S. funds were funnelled through Pakistan. In total, the combined U.S., Saudi, and Chinese aid to the mujahideen is valued at between $6–12 billion. Controversially $600 million went to Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami party which had the dubious distinction of never winning a significant battle during the war. They also killed significant numbers of Mujahideen from other parties, and eventually took a virulently anti-Western line. "Cyclone" nevertheless was one of the CIA's longest and most expensive covert operations.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The full significance of the U.S. sending aid to the Mujahideen prior to the intervention is debated among scholars. Some assert that it directly, and even deliberately, provoked the Soviets to send in troops. According to Coll's dissenting analysis, however: "Contemporary memos—particularly those written in the first days after the Soviet invasion—make clear that while Brzezinski was determined to confront the Soviets in Afghanistan through covert action, he was also very worried the Soviets would prevail. ... Given this evidence and the enormous political and security costs that the invasion imposed on the Carter administration, any claim that Brzezinski lured the Soviets into Afghanistan warrants deep skepticism." A 2020 review of declassified U.S. documents by Conor Tobin in the journal "Diplomatic History" found that "a Soviet military intervention was neither sought nor desired by the Carter administration ... The small-scale covert program that developed "in response" to the increasing Soviet influence was part of a contingency plan "if" the Soviets did intervene militarily, as Washington would be in a better position to make it difficult for them to consolidate their position, but not designed to induce an intervention." Historian Elisabeth Leake adds, “the original provision was certainly inadequate to force a Soviet armed intervention. Instead it adhered to broader US practices of providing limited covert support to anti-communist forces worldwide”.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The US attempted to buy back the Stinger missiles, with a $55 million program launched in 1990 to buy back around 300 missiles (US$183,300 each).


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Throughout the war, Britain played a significant role in support of the US and acted in concert with the U.S. government. While the US provided far more in financial and material terms to the Afghan resistance, the UK played more of a direct combat role – in particular the Special Air Service — supporting resistance groups in practical manners. This turned out to be Whitehall's most extensive covert operation since the Second World War.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Unlike the U.S., British aid to the Afghan resistance began before the Soviet invasion was actually launched, working with chosen Afghani forces during the Afghan government's close ties to the Soviet Union in the late seventies. Within three weeks of the invasion this was stepped up – cabinet secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong sent a note to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Secretary of State Peter Carrington and "C", the head of MI6 arguing the case for military aid to "encourage and support resistance". Support was approved by the British government who then authorised MI6 to conduct operations in the first year of the Soviet occupation, coordinated by MI6 officers in Islamabad in liaison with the CIA and the ISI.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Thatcher visited Pakistan in October 1981 and met President Zia-ul-Haq, toured the refugee camps close to the Afghan border and then gave a speech telling the people that the "hearts of the free world" were with them and promised aid. The Kremlin responded to the whole incident by blasting Thatcher's "provocation aimed at stirring up anti-Soviet hysteria." Five years later two prominent Mujahideen, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Haq, met Thatcher in Downing Street.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: MI6 helped the CIA by activating long-established British networks of contacts in Pakistan. MI6 supported the hardline Islamic group Jamiat-e Islami commanded by Ahmad Shah Massoud commander in the Panjshir Valley. With comparatively little support from Pakistan's ISI and the CIA the British were the primary means of support for Massoud. Despite the CIA's doubts on him he nevertheless became a key MI6 ally and would become an effective fighter. They sent an annual mission of two of their officers as well as military instructors to Massoud and his fighters. They stayed for three weeks or more in the mountains moving supplies to Massoud under the noses of the Pakistanis who insisted on maintaining control. The team's most important contribution was help with organisation and communication via radio equipment. The Cheltenham-based GCHQ intercepted and translated Soviet battle plan communications which was then relayed to the Afghan resistance. MI6 also helped to retrieve crashed Soviet helicopters from Afghanistan – parts of which were carried on mules.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: In the Spring of 1986, Whitehall sent weapons clandestinely to some units of the Mujahideen, and made sure their origins were open to speculation. The most notable of these was the Blowpipe missile launchers. These had proved a failure in the Falklands War and had been mothballed by the British army, but were available on the international arms market. Around fifty Launchers and 300 Missiles were delivered and the system nevertheless proved ineffective; thirteen missiles were fired for no hits and it was eventually supplanted by the US Stinger missile. The mujahideen were also sent hundreds of thousands of old British army small arms, mostly Lee Enfield rifles, some of which were purchased from old Indian Army stocks. They also included limpet mines which proved the most successful, destroying Soviet barges on their side of the Amu River.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: In 1983 the Special Air Service were sent in to Pakistan and worked alongside their SSG, whose commandos guided guerrilla operations in Afghanistan in the hope officers could impart their learned expertise directly to the Afghans. Britain also directly trained Afghan forces, much of which was contracted out to private security firms, a policy cleared by the British Government. The main company was Keenie Meenie Services (KMS Ltd) led by former SAS officers. In 1985 they helped train Afghans in sabotage, reconnaissance, attack planning, arson, how to use explosive devices and heavy artillery such as mortars. One of these men was a key trainer, a former senior officer in the royal Afghan army, Brigadier General Rahmatullah Safi – he trained as many as 8,000 men. As well as sending Afghan commando units to secret British bases in Oman to train; KMS even sent them to Britain. Disguised as tourists, selected junior commanders in the Mujahideen were trained in three week cycles in Scotland, northern and southern England on SAS training grounds.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The UK's role in the conflict entailed direct military involvement not only in Afghanistan, but the Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union. MI6 organised and executed "scores" of psyop attacks in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, on Soviet troop supplies which flowed from these areas. These were the first direct Western attacks on the Soviet Union since the 1950s. MI6 also funded the spread of radical and anti-Soviet Islamic literature in the Soviet republics.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: During the Sino-Soviet split, strained relations between China and the USSR resulted in bloody border clashes and mutual backing for the opponent's enemies. China and Afghanistan had neutral relations with each other during the King's rule. When the pro-Soviet Afghan Communists seized power in Afghanistan in 1978, relations between China and the Afghan communists quickly turned hostile. The Afghan pro-Soviet communists supported China's then-enemy Vietnam and blamed China for supporting Afghan anti-communist militants. China responded to the Soviet war in Afghanistan by supporting the Mujahideen and ramping up their military presence near Afghanistan in Xinjiang. China acquired military equipment from America to defend itself from Soviet attack. At the same time relations with the United States had cooled considerably that by 1980 Washington had begun to supply China with a variety of weapons. They even reached an agreement of two joint tracking and listening stations in Xinjiang.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: China may have given support to Tajik and Kazakh insurgents even before the 1978 coup. But the Chinese also requested before the Soviet intervention that Pakistan not permit Chinese arms it had received to be sent to the Afghan guerrillas.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Chinese People's Liberation Army provided training, arms organisation and financial support. Anti-aircraft missiles, rocket launchers and machine guns, valued at hundreds of millions, were given to the Mujahideen by the Chinese. Throughout the war Chinese military advisers and army troops trained upwards of several thousand Mujahideen inside Xinjiang and along the Pakistani border. Overall, Chinese aid exceeded $400 million.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Prior to the Soviet Union's move on Afghanistan the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet's allies, were not consulted. Eastern European troops did not take part in the invasion or occupation of Afghanistan. In the end, the Soviets would have nothing more than limited political support from the Warsaw Pact countries. Romania went further and broke with its Warsaw Pact allies and abstained when the UN General Assembly voted on a resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops. The only other communist country, North Korea, also refused to endorse the invasion partly because China was supporting the Mujahideen, so they had to create a fine political balance between them and the Soviets. The allies of the Soviet Union that gave support to the intervention were Angola, East Germany, Vietnam and India.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: India, a close ally of the Soviet Union, endorsed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and by the end of the hostilities, offered to provide humanitarian assistance to the Afghan government. India did not condemn the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as India was excessively dependent on the Soviet Union for its military and security, and it has been said that "the failure of the Indian government to publicly condemn the invasion, its support of the Soviet puppet regime of Kabul, and its hostile vision of the resistance have created major stumbling blocks in Afghan-Indian relations." India also opposed a UN resolution condemning the intervention.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Between 25 December 1979, and 15 February 1989, a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000–104,000 serving at one time): 525,000 in the Army, 90,000 with border troops and other KGB sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations of MVD Internal Troops, and police forces. A further 21,000 personnel were with the Soviet troop contingent over the same period doing various white collar and blue collar jobs.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The total irrecoverable personnel losses of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier, and internal security troops came to 14,453. Soviet Army formations, units, and HQ elements lost 13,833, KGB sub-units lost 572, MVD formations lost 28, and other ministries and departments lost 20 men. During this period 312 servicemen were missing in action or taken prisoner; 119 were later freed, of whom 97 returned to the USSR and 22 went to other countries.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Of the troops deployed, 53,753 were wounded, injured, or sustained concussion and 415,932 fell sick. A high proportion of casualties were those who fell ill. This was because of local climatic and sanitary conditions, which were such that acute infections spread rapidly among the troops. There were 115,308 cases of infectious hepatitis, 31,080 of typhoid fever, and 140,665 of other diseases. Of the 11,654 who were discharged from the army after being wounded, maimed, or contracting serious diseases, 10,751 men, were left disabled.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: In early 1987 a CIA report estimated that, from 1979 to 1986, the Soviet military spent 18 billion rubles on the war in Afghanistan (not counting other costs incurred to the Soviet state such as economic and military aid to the DRA). The CIA noted that this was the equivalent of US$50 billion ($115 billion in 2019 USD). The report credited the relatively low cost to the small size of the Soviet deployment and the fact that the supply lines to Afghanistan were very short (in some cases, easier and cheaper than internal USSR lines). Military aid to the DRA's armed forces totaled 9.124 billion rubles from 1980 to 1989 (peaking at 3.972 billion rubles in 1989). Financial and economic aid were also significant; by 1990, 75% of the Afghan state's income came from Soviet aid.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Civilian death and destruction from the war was considerable. Estimates of Afghan civilian deaths vary from 562,000 to 2,000,000. By one estimate, at least 800,000 Afghans were killed during the Soviet occupation. 5 million Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran, 1/3 of the prewar population of the country, and another 2 million were displaced within the country, making it one of the largest refugee crises in history. In the 1980s, half of all refugees in the world were Afghan. In his report, Felix Ermacora, the UN Special Rapporteur to Afghanistan, enumerated 32,755 killed civilians, 1,834 houses and 74 villages destroyed, and 3,308 animals killed in the first nine months of 1985. Data cited by the World Bank shows that Afghanistan's population declined from 13.4 million (1979) to 11.8 million (1989) during the decade of Soviet occupation.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: R. J. Rummel, an analyst of political killings, estimated that Soviet forces were responsible for 250,000 democidal killings during the war and that the government of Afghanistan was responsible for 178,000 democidal killings. He also assumed that overall a million people died during the war. There were also a number of reports of large scale executions of hundreds of civilians by Soviet and DRA soldiers. Noor Ahmed Khalidi calculated that 876,825 Afghans were killed up until 1987. Historian John W. Dower somewhat agrees with this estimate, citing 850,000 civilian fatalities, while the military fatalities "certainly totaled over 100,000". Marek Sliwinski estimated the number of war deaths to be much higher, at a median of 1.25 million, or 9% of the entire pre-war Afghan population. Scholars John Braithwaite and Ali Wardak accept this in their estimate of 1.2 million dead Afghans. However, Siddieq Noorzoy presents an even higher figure of 1.71 million deaths during the Soviet-Afghan war. Overall, between 6.5%–11.5% of Afghanistan's population is estimated to have perished in the war. Anti-government forces were also responsible for some casualties. Rocket attacks on Kabul's residential areas caused more than 4,000 civilian deaths in 1987 according to the UN's Ermacora.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Along with fatalities were 1.2 million Afghans disabled (Mujahideen, government soldiers and noncombatants) and 3 million maimed or wounded (primarily noncombatants).


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The population of Afghanistan's second largest city, Kandahar, was reduced from 200,000 before the war to no more than 25,000 inhabitants, following a months-long campaign of carpet bombing and bulldozing by the Soviets and Afghan communist soldiers in 1987. Land mines had killed 25,000 Afghans during the war and another 10–15 million land mines, most planted by Soviet and government forces, were left scattered throughout the countryside. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated in 1994 that it would take 4,300 years to remove all the Soviet land mines in Afghanistan.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: A great deal of damage was done to the civilian children population by land mines. A 2005 report estimated 3–4% of the Afghan population were disabled due to Soviet and government land mines. In the city of Quetta, a survey of refugee women and children taken shortly after the Soviet withdrawal found child mortality at 31%, and over 80% of the children refugees to be unregistered. Of children who survived, 67% were severely malnourished, with malnutrition increasing with age.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Critics of Soviet and Afghan government forces describe their effect on Afghan culture as working in three stages: first, the center of customary Afghan culture, Islam, was pushed aside; second, Soviet patterns of life, especially amongst the young, were imported; third, shared Afghan cultural characteristics were destroyed by the emphasis on the so-called Soviet nationalities system, with the outcome that the country was split into different ethnic groups, with no language, religion, or culture in common.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Geneva Accords of 1988, which ultimately led to the withdrawal of the Soviet forces in early 1989, left the Afghan government in ruins. The accords had failed to address adequately the issue of the post-occupation period and the future governance of Afghanistan. The assumption among most Western diplomats was that the Soviet-backed government in Kabul would soon collapse; however, this was not to happen for another three years. During this time the Interim Islamic Government of Afghanistan (IIGA) was established in exile. The exclusion of key groups such as refugees and Shias, combined with major disagreements between the different Mujahideen factions, meant that the IIGA never succeeded in acting as a functional government.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Before the war, Afghanistan was already one of the world's poorest countries. The prolonged conflict left Afghanistan ranked 170 out of 174 in the UNDP's "Human Development Index", making Afghanistan one of the least developed countries in the world.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Once the Soviets withdrew, US interest in Afghanistan slowly decreased over the following four years, much of it administered through the DoD Office of Humanitarian Assistance, under the then Director of HA, George M. Dykes III. With the first years of the Clinton Administration in Washington, DC, all aid ceased. The US decided not to help with reconstruction of the country, instead handing the interests of the country over to US allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Pakistan quickly took advantage of this opportunity and forged relations with warlords and later the Taliban, to secure trade interests and routes. The ten years following the war saw much ecological and agrarian destruction—from wiping out the country's trees through logging practices, which has destroyed all but 2% of forest cover country-wide, to substantial uprooting of wild pistachio trees for the exportation of their roots for therapeutic uses, to opium agriculture.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Captain Tarlan Eyvazov, a soldier in the Soviet forces during the war, stated that the Afghan children's future is destined for war. Eyvazov said, "Children born in Afghanistan at the start of the war... have been brought up in war conditions, this is their way of life." Eyvazov's theory was later strengthened when the Taliban movement developed and formed from orphans or refugee children who were forced by the Soviets to flee their homes and relocate their lives in Pakistan. The swift rise to power, from the young Taliban in 1996, was the result of the disorder and civil war that had warlords running wild because of the complete breakdown of law and order in Afghanistan after the departure of the Soviets.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The "CIA World Fact Book" reported that as of 2004, Afghanistan still owed $8 billion in bilateral debt, mostly to Russia, however, in 2007 Russia agreed to cancel most of the debt.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: 5.5 million Afghans were made refugees by the war—a full one third of the country's pre-war population—fleeing the country to Pakistan or Iran. Another estimate states 6.2 million refugees. By the end of 1981, the UN High Commission for Refugees reported that Afghans represented the largest group of refugees in the world.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: A total of 3.3 million Afghan refugees were housed in Pakistan by 1988, some of whom continue to live in the country up until today. Of this total, about 100,000 were based in the city of Peshawar, while more than 2 million were located in other parts of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then known as the North-West Frontier Province). At the same time, close to two million Afghans were living in Iran. Over the years Pakistan and Iran have imposed tighter controls on refugees which have resulted in numerous returnees. In 2012 Pakistan banned extensions of visas to foreigners. Afghan refugees have also settled in India and became Indian citizens over time. Some also made their way into North America, the European Union, Australia, and other parts of the world. The photo of Sharbat Gula placed on "National Geographic" cover in 1985 became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The legacy of the war introduced a culture of guns, drugs and terrorism in Afghanistan. The traditional power structure was also changed in favor of the powerful Mujahideen militias.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The militarization transformed the society in the country, leading to heavily armed police, private bodyguards, and openly armed civil defense groups becoming the norm in Afghanistan both during the war and decades thereafter.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The war also altered the ethnic balance of power in the country. While Pashtuns were historically politically dominant since the modern foundation of the Durrani Empire in 1747, many of the well-organized pro-Mujahideen or pro-government groups consisted of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. With Pashtuns increasingly politically fragmented, their influence on the state was challenged.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: According to scholars Rafael Reuveny and Aseem Prakash, the war contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union by undermining the image of the Red Army as invincible, undermining Soviet legitimacy, and by creating new forms of political participation. On the other hand, the costs for the Soviet Union were not overwhelmingly large compared to other commitments. The CIA estimated in 1987 that the costs amounted to about 2.5 percent of the Soviet military spending per year. The decision to withdraw was made based on a number of political factors. The studies about the dissolution of the Soviet Union by historians Stephen Kotkin and Vladislav Zubok identify mainly internal reasons for the collapse and mention the Afghanistan war only in passing.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The war created a cleavage between the party and the military in the Soviet Union, where the efficacy of using the Soviet military to maintain the USSR's overseas interests was now put in doubt. In the non-Russian republics, those interested in independence were emboldened by the army's defeat. Some Russian leaders began to doubt the ability to put down anti-Soviet resistance militarily (as it had in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Hungary in 1956, and East Germany in 1953). As the war was viewed as "a Soviet war fought by non Soviets against Afghans", outside of the Soviet Union it undermined the legitimacy of the Soviet Union as a trans-national political union. The war created new forms of political participation, in the form of new civil organizations of war veterans ("Afgantsy"), which weakened the political hegemony of the communist party. It also started the transformation of the press and media, which continued under glasnost.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The war did not end with the withdrawal of the Soviet Army. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan deep in winter, with intimations of panic among Kabul officials. The Afghan mujahideen were poised to attack provincial towns and cities and eventually Kabul, if necessary. General Secretary Mohammed Najibullah's government, though failing to win popular support, territory, or international recognition, was able to remain in power until 1992. Ironically, until demoralized by the defections of its senior officers, the Afghan Army had achieved a level of performance it had never reached under direct Soviet tutelage. Kabul had achieved a stalemate that exposed the Mujahideen's weaknesses, political and military. But for nearly three years, while Najibullah's government successfully defended itself against Mujahideen attacks, factions within the government had also developed connections with its opponents.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 proposed a peace plan in cooperation with the leader of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah, for the joint cutoff of Soviet and American aid to the government and guerrillas respectively, to result in a ceasefire and peace negotiations. Najibullah sought American cooperation in achieving a political solution. However the newly elected administration of George H. W. Bush rejected the plan, expecting to win the war through battle. Almost immediately after the Soviet withdrawal, the Mujahideen attacked the eastern city of Jalalabad in a plan instigated by Hamid Gul of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). Both the Americans and Pakistanis expected Jalalabad to rapidly fall to the guerrillas and lead to a final victorious attack in Kabul. The Afghan Army proved their capability without Soviet troops as they managed to restrain the Mujahideen attack, resulting in a major defeat for the Mujahideen.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The victory at Jalalabad gave Najibullah's government confidence that it could achieve a political solution, specifically one involving former communists and moderates from the opposition. Along with the Afghan and Soviet governments, China also publicly said that it supported the creation of a "broad-based" government, and Iran also supporting a negotiated peaceful solution – both China and Iran being guerrilla-backing countries. But the United States and Pakistan remained committed to a military solution. In addition, the Afghan government could claim that Jalalabad's bombardment, in which thousands of civilians lost their lives and much of the city damaged, was masterminded by the United States and Pakistan, using American weaponry.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: In December 1990, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to an agreement to end arms supplies to the sides in the civil war, but a date could not be agreed. Two years after the Soviet withdrawal, the guerrillas only gained one provincial capital, Tarinkot, and its surrender was arranged by local tribal leaders. However, in March 1991, the guerrillas managed to win over a city for the first time: Khost, which was nicknamed "Little Russia" due to the city's high support of local communist officials. However the guerrillas were unable to fully defeat the Afghan Army as expected by the United States and Pakistan, and neither could the Najibullah government win on the battlefield. This situation ended following the 1991 August Coup in the Soviet Union – according to Russian publicist Andrey Karaulov, the main trigger for Najibullah losing power was Russia's refusal to sell oil products to Afghanistan in 1992 for political reasons (the new Boris Yeltsin government did not want to support the former communists), which effectively triggered an embargo. The defection of General Abdul Rashid Dostam and his Uzbek militia, in March 1992, further undermined Najibullah's control of the state. In April, Najibullah and his communist government fell to the Mujahideen, who replaced Najibullah with a new governing council for the country.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Civil war continued when the former Mujahideen guerrillas, which were never under a united command during the period from 1979 to 1992, failed to create a functioning unity government in 1992. The civil war continued and about 400,000 Afghan civilians had lost their lives in the 1990s, eventually leading to Taliban rule.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Grain production declined an average of 3.5% per year between 1978 and 1990 due to sustained fighting, instability in rural areas, prolonged drought, and deteriorated infrastructure. Soviet efforts to disrupt production in rebel-dominated areas also contributed to this decline. During the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Afghanistan's natural gas fields were capped to prevent sabotage. Restoration of gas production has been hampered by internal strife and the disruption of traditional trading relationships following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Following the Soviet withdrawal, some of the foreign volunteers (including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda) and young Afghan refugees, went on to continue violent jihad in Afghanistan, Pakistan and abroad. Some of the thousands of Afghan Arabs who left Afghanistan went on to become "capable leaders, religious ideologues and military commanders," who played "vital roles" as insurgents or terrorists in places such as Algeria, Egypt, Bosnia and Chechnya. Tens of thousands of Afghan refugee children in Pakistan were educated in madrassas "in a spirit of conservatism and religious rigor", and went on to fill the ranks and leadership of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Sipah-e-Sahaba in Pakistan. The groups embodied new varieties of Political Islam – "Salafi jihadism" among the foreign volunteers, and a "hybrid" Deobandi jihadism among the madrassa-educated.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Afghanistan's General Secretary Najibullah, before his ouster by the Mujahideen in 1992, told a visiting US academic that "Afghanistan in extremist hands would be a center of instability." It has been claimed that the chaos could have been avoided had the Bush administration been willing to support the Najibullah and Soviet proposals of a coalition government with the guerrillas, instead of a total military solution. Najibullah also told the "International Herald Tribune" that "if fundamentalism comes to Afghanistan, war will continue for many years. Afghanistan will be turned into a center of terrorism."


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: As many as 35,000 non-Afghan Muslim fighters went to Afghanistan between 1982 and 1992. Thousands more came and did not fight but attended schools with "former and future fighters".


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: These "Afghan-Arabs" had a marginal impact on the jihad against the Soviets, but a much greater effect after the Soviets left and in other countries. (After the Soviets left, training continued and "tens of thousands" from "some 40 nations" came to prepare for armed insurrections "to bring the struggle back home". )


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The man instrumental not only in generating international support but also in inspiring these volunteers to travel to Afghanistan for the jihad was a Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood cleric, Abdullah Azzam. Touring the Muslim world and the United States, he inspired young Muslims with stories of miraculous deeds, such as Mujahideen who defeated vast columns of Soviet troops virtually single-handedly, angels riding into battle on horseback, and falling bombs intercepted by birds.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: When back in the volunteer camps and training centers that he helped set up around Peshawar, Pakistan, Azzam exercised a "strong influence". He preached the importance of jihad: "those who believe that Islam can flourish [and] be victorious without Jihad, fighting, and blood are deluded and have no understanding of the nature of this religion"; of not compromising: "Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogues"; and that Afghanistan was only the beginning: jihad would "remain an individual obligation" for Muslims until all other formerly-Muslim lands—"Palestine, Bukhara, Lebanon, Chad, Eritrea, Somalia, the Philippines, Burma, South Yemen, Tashkent, Andalusia"—were reconquered.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The volunteers also influenced each other. Many "unexpected" religious-political ideas resulted from the "cross-pollination" during the "great gathering" of Islamists from dozens of countries in the camps and training centers. One in particular was a "variant of Islamist ideology based on armed struggle and extreme religious vigour", known as Salafi jihadism.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: When the Soviet Union fell shortly after their withdrawal from Afghanistan, the volunteers were "exultant", believing that—in the words of Osama bin Laden—the credit for "the dissolution of the Soviet Union ... goes to God and the mujahideen in Afghanistan ... the US had no mentionable role," (Soviet economic troubles and United States aid to Mujahideen notwithstanding). They eagerly sought to duplicate their jihad in other countries.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Three such countries were Bosnia, Algeria and Egypt. In Bosnia the Salafi jihadist Afghan Arabs fought against Bosnian Serb and Croat militias but failed to establish a Salafi state. In Algeria and Egypt thousand of volunteers returned and fought but were even less successful. In Algeria Salafi jihadist helped lead and fight for the GIA, deliberately killing thousands of civilians. In Egypt the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya killed more than a thousand people between 1990 and 1997 but also failed to overthrow the government.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Among the approximately three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, thousands of children were educated in madrasa boarding schools financed by aid from the US and Gulf monarchies. Since that aid was distributed according to the conservative Islamist ideological criteria of Pakistan's President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and Saudi Arabia (and ignoring native Afghan traditions), the schools were part of networks of the favored Hizb-e-Islami party and the Pakistan Deobandi. (Iran provided similar help to Shia Islamist groups and punishments to moderate Shia nationalist Afghans.)


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Cut off from families and local traditions, the madrassa students were "educated to put Deobandi doctrines into action through obedience to the fatwas produced in the madrassas in a spirit of conservatism and religious rigor." As the Afghan students came of age, they formed "the mainstay" of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba Sunni terror group in Pakistan. But unlike the traditionally non-violent Deobandi, this "hybrid movement" embraced the violence of jihad, and unlike the Islamists of Hizb-e-Islami they were uninterested in "islamizing modernity" of western knowledge or in western knowledge at all. The culture of religious purification, absolute obedience to leaders, and disinterest in anything else, is thought to explain the willingness of Hizb-e-Islami-trained soldiers to bombard Kabul with artillery and kill thousands of civilians, reassured by their commander that the civilians they killed would "be rewarded" in heaven if they were "good Muslims".


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: From 2008 to 2014 "thousands of Shia" have been killed by Sunni extremists according to Human Rights Watch.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Blowback, or unintended consequences of funding the Mujahideen, was said to have come to the United States in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the September 11 attacks. In the 1993 bombing, all of the participants in the bombing "either had served in Afghanistan or were linked to a Brooklyn-based fund-raising organ for the Afghan jihad" that was later "revealed to be al-Qaeda's de facto U.S. headquarters". Principals in the 2001 attack – Osama Bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – had both fought in Afghanistan, and bin Laden was a lieutenant of Abdullah Azzam. His group, al-Qaeda, returned to Afghanistan to take refuge with the Taliban after being expelled from Sudan. Before the 9/11 attack, al-Qaeda had bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and nearly sank the USS "Cole" in Yemen in 2000. However, no direct U.S. aid to Bin Laden or any of his affiliates has ever been established.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The war has left a controversial legacy for Afghan people. The Mujahideen Victory Day is an annual holiday in Afghanistan on 28 April, however it is a controversial event to Afghans. On one hand Afghans honor the fighters and sacrifice made by the Mujahideen to defeat a major power. Others view the victory as a prelude to the brutal 1990s civil war that divided the country politically and ethnically.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Many Afghans see their victory in the war as a source of pride. Atta Muhammad Nur, a former commander of the Mujahideen, says that the war was a victory for Afghans but also the former Soviet bloc for bringing "freedom" to peoples and states oppressed by Moscow. However, other Afghans hold the view that subsequent infighting and the rise of the Taliban undermined the victory in the war.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Pro-Mujahideen Afghans had seen the United States as the main power to help their cause in the Soviet–Afghan War. However, after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, a growing number of Afghans started blaming the United States for miseries. This was cited as a result of continued American arming and funding of rebels against the pro-Soviet administration in Kabul. Throughout 1989 and 1990, many rebel rocket attacks were fired, nowhere near military targets, that killed dozens of Afghan civilians. Many Afghans also reportedly felt that the U.S. caused the rise of the Taliban following billions of dollars in funding for the rebels while leaving the country to Pakistan's hands after 1992. One Afghan ex-prisoner who was affiliated with the U.S. Embassy in Kabul told the "Chicago Tribune" in 2001:


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The war left a long legacy in the former Soviet Union and following its collapse. Along with losses, it brought physical disabilities and widespread drug addiction throughout the USSR.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The remembrance of Soviet soldiers killed in Afghanistan and elsewhere internationally are commemorated annually on 15 February in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Veterans of the war are often referred to as афганцы ("Afgantsy") in Russian.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Commemorating the intervention of 25 December 1979, in December 2009, veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan were honoured by the Duma or Parliament of the Russian Federation. On 25 December, the lower house of the parliament defended the Soviet war in Afghanistan on the 30th anniversary of its start, and praised the veterans of the conflict. Differing assessments of the war "mustn't erode the Russian people's respect for the soldiers who honestly fulfilled their duty in implementing tasks to combat international terrorism and religious extremists".


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Duma member Semyon Bagdasarov (Just Russia) advocated that Russia had to reject Western calls for stronger assistance to the US-led ISAF-coalition in Afghanistan and also had to establish contacts with the "anti-Western forces"; the Taliban, in case they regain power.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: In November 2018, Russian lawmakers from United Russia and Communist parties jointly approved a draft resolution seeking to justify the Soviet–Afghan War as well as declare null and void the 1989 resolution passed by the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union which condemned the intervention. Communist lawmaker Nikolay Kharitonov hailed the decision as a victory for "historical truth".


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: About 25 percent of Soviet servicemen in Afghanistan were Ukrainian, numbering 160,000 of which more than 3,000 died and dozens more went missing.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The war affected many families in post-Soviet Uzbekistan who had lost children. Some 64,500 young men from the Uzbek SSR were drafted in the war. At least 1,522 were killed and more than 2,500 left disabled. The former Uzbekistani president Islam Karimov described the Afghan war as a "major mistake" of the Soviet Union.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Soviet–Afghan War has caused grief in the memories of Belarusians, but apparently remains a topic rarely discussed in public. It remains the last war the country took part in. 28,832 Belarusian natives were involved in the campaign and 732 died. Most casualties were under 20 years old.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: The Soviet invasion is considered by many Belarusians as a shameful act, and some veterans have refused to accept medals. Many veterans have had cold relations with the Belarusian regime of Alexander Lukashenko, accusing the government of depriving them of benefits. One Afghanistan veteran, Mikalaj Autukhovich, is considered a political prisoner of the present regime of Belarus.


title: Soviet–Afghan War

text: Around 12,500 residents of the Moldavian SSR served during the war. Of those, 301 Moldovans died in the war. The Union of Veterans of the War in Afghanistan of the Republic of Moldova is a veteran's group based in Moldova that advocates for the well being of veterans. On 15 May 2000, after the Government's initiative to abolish benefits for veterans of the war in Afghanistan, sympathizers went to Great National Assembly Square. In 2001, the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova, which came to power, radically changed the position of all veterans in the country. 15 February is celebrated as the Day of Commemoration of those killed in the War in Afghanistan. The main ceremony is held at the memorial "Sons of the Motherland – Eternal Memory".


title: HBO Max

text: HBO Max is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and their related brands. The service also carries first-run programming from the HBO pay television service, original programming under the "Max Originals" banner, and content acquired via third-party library deals (such as those with film studios for pay television rights) and co-production agreements (such as those with BBC Studios and Sesame Workshop among others).


title: HBO Max

text: The service succeeds both HBO Now—a previous HBO SVOD service, and HBO Go—the on-demand streaming platform for HBO pay television subscribers. In the U.S., HBO Now subscribers and HBO pay television subscribers were migrated to HBO Max at no additional charge, subject to availability and device support. HBO Max also supplanted the streaming component of DC Entertainment's DC Universe service, with its original series being migrated to HBO Max as Max Originals. The HBO Max service began to expand into international markets in 2021.


title: HBO Max

text: According to AT&T, HBO and HBO Max had a combined total of 69.4 million paying subscribers globally on June 30, 2021, including 43.5 million HBO Max subscribers in the U.S., 3.5 million HBO-only U.S. subscribers (primarily commercial customers like hotels), and 20.5 million subscribers to either HBO Max or HBO by itself in other countries. By the end of 2021, HBO and HBO Max had a combined total of 73.8 million paying global subscribers. At the end of Q1 2022, HBO and HBO Max had 76.8 million global subscribers.


title: HBO Max

text: Since the April 2022 merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery, Inc. to form Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO Max is one of the combined company's two flagship streaming services, the other being Discovery+ (which primarily focuses on factual programming from the Discovery brands). The two services are expected to merge in spring 2023.


title: HBO Max

text: On October 10, 2018, WarnerMedia announced that it would launch an over-the-top streaming service in late 2019, featuring content from its entertainment brands. The original plan for the service called for three tiers with a late 2019 launch. Randall L. Stephenson, chairman and CEO of WarnerMedia's parent, AT&T indicated in mid-May 2019 that it would use the HBO brand and would tie into cable operators as HBO cable subscribers would have access to the streaming service. A beta was expected in the fourth quarter of 2019 and a full launch in the first quarter of 2020 at the time.


title: HBO Max

text: Otter Media was transferred in May 2019 to WarnerMedia Entertainment from Warner Bros. to take over the streaming service as Brad Bentley, executive vice president, and general manager of the direct-to-consumer development exited the post after six months. Andy Forssell transferred from being the chief operating officer of Otter to replace Bentley as executive vice president and general manager while still reporting to Otter CEO Tony Goncalves, who would lead development.


title: HBO Max

text: On July 9, 2019, WarnerMedia announced that the service would be known as HBO Max, and would launch in spring 2020, while Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine and Greg Berlanti were signed to production deals for the service. (The "Max" moniker is shared with HBO's sister linear pay television service Cinemax, which has alternately identified by its suffix name since the mid-1980s and used it prominently in its branding from 2008 to 2011.) On October 29, 2019, it was announced that HBO Max would officially launch in May 2020.


title: HBO Max

text: On January 8, 2020, AT&T announced that Audience, a channel exclusive to subscribers of AT&T-owned television providers such as DirecTV with some original programming, would be sunset on May 22, eventually transitioning to a barker channel for HBO Max. Warner Bros. and HBO Max announced the Warner Max film label on February 5, 2020, which would produce eight to ten mid-budget movies per year for the streaming service starting in 2020. On April 20, 2020, WarnerMedia announced HBO Max's launch date as May 27. Later that year on October 23, it was announced that WarnerMedia decided to consolidate the Warner Max label into the Warner Bros. Pictures Group after its chairman Toby Emmerich, and his development and production team led by Courtenay Valenti of Warner Bros. Pictures, Richard Brener of New Line and Walter Hamada, who oversees DC-based films,


title: HBO Max

text: On March 14, 2022, after Discovery, Inc. shareholders approved its merger with a divestiture of WarnerMedia by AT&T to form Warner Bros. Discovery, Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels stated that the company planned to pursue an eventual merger of HBO Max with its own streaming service Discovery+. Wiedenfels stated that this process would most likely begin with a bundle of the two services as a short-term option, with a long-term goal to eventually merge the services into one platform. President and CEO of Discovery Streaming and International JB Perrette first identified this as a possibility in November 2021, stating that the company could pursue such a unified service in markets where Discovery+ has yet to launch, such as other parts of Asia-Pacific.


title: HBO Max

text: In July 2022, as a part of a post-merger money-saving and strategic move, it was reported that HBO Max had ceased new original series development in Central Europe, Nordic Europe, the Netherlands, and Turkey, as well as removed selected international series from the platform worldwide. It was reported that France and Spain had been largely excluded from these cuts, due to French regulations requiring streaming services to produce domestic content, and Spanish-language content appealing to a wide range of markets served by HBO Max. With the cancellation of "Gordita Chronicles" later that month, it was reported that the service was also abandoning development of live-action children's and family programming.


title: HBO Max

text: On August 3, 2022, it was reported that multiple Max Original films and HBO series had been quietly removed from the service without prior notice, as part of cuts to direct-to-streaming films, as well as to write-off films and series that have underperformed as losses. It was also thought that avoiding payment for residuals played a part. This followed news that had broken the previous day that then-upcoming Max Original films "Batgirl" and "" had been both abruptly cancelled, despite being nearly complete.


title: HBO Max

text: During an earnings call the next day, WBD CEO David Zaslav stated that the company would cut children's programming, and emphasize theatrical films over direct-to-streaming releases. Perrette also revealed that Discovery+ and HBO Max would merge "next Summer", with the unified service launching first in the United States, and rolled out to other markets beginning in late-2023. Later that month, more programs were removed from the streaming service, including animated and unscripted series such as "The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo", "Infinity Train" and "OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes", which was met with heavy backlash from fans, critics, actors, and creators alike. On August 24, 2022, the HBO Max original films "House Party" (which was pulled from its slate just 17 days before its release) and "Evil Dead Rise" were both shifted to theatrical releases.


title: HBO Max

text: In November 2022 during its third-quarter earnings report, WBD stated that the merged service was now targeting a "Spring 2023" launch in the U.S., ahead of the original schedule. Perrette also stated of a potential price increase for HBO Max's ad-free tier in 2023, explaining that it was "an opportunity, particularly in this environment".


title: HBO Max

text: When announcing the merged service, Zaslav did not immediately indicate whether it would continue to carry the HBO brand; he stated that HBO was one of the "crown jewels" of the company", and would "always be the beacon and the ultimate brand that stands for the best of television quality". In early-December 2022, it was reported by CNBC via inside sources that the unified platform was being developed under the codename "BEAM", and that multiple names were being considered—including simply "Max".


title: HBO Max

text: HBO Max was formed under WarnerMedia's Entertainment division, then headed by Robert Greenblatt. Kevin Reilly, president of WarnerMedia Entertainment Networks, which includes most of the company's ad-supported entertainment channels such as TBS, TNT, and TruTV, was also given the role of as chief content officer of HBO Max with responsibility for HBO Max-exclusive original programming and library content. Andy Forssell was named the service's executive vice president and general manager while still reporting to Otter Media CEO Tony Goncalves, who leads development. Casey Bloys, programming president of HBO, retained oversight of the core HBO service but was not initially involved with Max-exclusive programming.


title: HBO Max

text: On August 7, 2020, WarnerMedia announced a significant restructuring under new president Jason Kilar, which he described as "leaning into this great moment of change" towards direct-to-consumer services. As a result, Greenblatt and Reilly both left the company. WarnerMedia Entertainment was dissolved, with programming operations combined with Warner Bros. in a new Studios and Networks group under that studio's CEO Ann Sarnoff. Bloys was given complete programming oversight of HBO and HBO Max, as well as Reilly's other previous responsibilities, reporting to Sarnoff. Forssell became the head of a new HBO Max operating business unit, reporting directly to Kilar. On April 23, 2021, Adult Swim and HBO Max's adult animation development teams merged under the leadership of Suzanna Makkos.


title: HBO Max

text: On August 15, 2022, HBO was reorganized by Warner Bros. Discovery, resulting in layoffs within HBO Max's non-scripted originals, live-action family originals, international originals, and casting units (HBO itself never had an in-house casting department). Makkos also began reporting to HBO's head of comedy Amy Gravitt.


title: HBO Max

text: HBO Max features first-run and library content from the namesake HBO and other Warner Bros. film and television studios and brands. The service also includes films available through HBO's existing pay television rights that are sourced from Warner Bros. Pictures and third-party studios, such as Summit Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and 20th Century Studios (the latter three have respective output deals with HBO until 2022).


title: HBO Max

text: As with HBO's other streaming platforms, HBO Go and HBO Now (but as opposed to its platforms on Apple TV Channels and Amazon Video Channels), HBO Max does not include feeds of HBO's linear cable channels, nor any content from Cinemax. Though Cinemax shares its film content with the linear HBO channel, and therefore the majority of films in the combined library will be on both services in different windows, these films will not necessarily be available on both HBO Max and Cinemax at the same time.


title: HBO Max

text: First and third-party content providers for HBO Max. Asterisk (*) denotes third parties while cross (†) denotes former providers.


title: HBO Max

text: Original content produced will be under the banner "Max Originals", including series, films, and specials"." Original episodic content is released weekly, eschewing the "binge" format made popular by Netflix. Kevin Reilly stated this was to ensure that originals would remain in the spotlight for extended periods, by letting said shows "breathe" as opposed to "fading quickly after a binge and burn". He also noted that the weekly schedule helped to drive the success of past HBO shows like "Succession" and "Chernobyl" which they co-produced with Sky UK, and became hits precisely due to their staying power.


title: HBO Max

text: A slate of 31 original series were planned for its first year, with plans to expand to 50 for its next year, but production timelines may have been interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. HBO Max also has podcasts about the films and TV series on the service. It also produces original podcasts exclusively for HBO Max, with "" being the first.


title: HBO Max

text: New Warner Bros. Television Studios-produced series that have premiered on The CW since the 2019–20 season beginning with "Batwoman", "Nancy Drew" and "Katy Keene" (which was cancelled in July 2020) will have their past seasons placed on HBO Max about a month after the season finale airs on television (streaming rights to existing series remains with Netflix under an existing deal). Although the "All American" spin-off, "", which premiered on the CW in 2022, was placed on Netflix with its parent show. On July 9, 2019, HBO Max acquired the U.S. streaming rights to "Friends" in a $425 million deal, and on September 17, 2019, acquired the U.S. streaming rights to "The Big Bang Theory", as part of a deal that also extends TBS's off-network rights to the series through 2028.


title: HBO Max

text: Outside of WarnerMedia, the service also offers titles from The Criterion Collection, and has a long-term partnership with BBC Studios (which HBO had previously partnered with to create "His Dark Materials"). Over 700 episodes of BBC content were available on the service at launch, including the first 11 seasons of the 2005 "Doctor Who" revival, as well as future seasons twelve through fourteen, and a variety of other shows including "The Honourable Woman", "Luther", "Top Gear", and the original British version of "The Office". Additionally, future shows by BBC Studios will be co-produced with HBO Max.


title: HBO Max

text: HBO also extended their existing partnership with Sesame Workshop, while moving said content to the front of the HBO Max brand. Select episodes from all fifty seasons of "Sesame Street" (dating back to 1969) are available to stream on the service for the first time ever. Additionally, future seasons of "Sesame Street" will stream exclusively on HBO Max, alongside "Esme & Roy", and several new spin-offs starting with "The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo", "Sesame Street: Mecha Builders", and "The Monster at the End of This Story". On March 8, 2022, WarnerMedia and Sesame Workshop announced they will plan new shows for Cartoon Network for the new original series run and a second run acquisition rights HBO Max, including "Charlotte's Web", and "Bea's Block" as well as the animation special "Sesame Street: The Nutcracker". In addition, new episodes to start of the 53rd season of "Sesame Street" and spin-offs will be available to stream on HBO Max in selecting Asian territories while holding the second run acquisition rights to replace PBS, more than a new first run for Cartoon Network.


title: HBO Max

text: HBO Max has acquired the streaming rights to several Comedy Central series, including "South Park", "Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens", "South Side", and "The Other Two"; with the latter two becoming Max Original series.


title: HBO Max

text: In November 2021, HBO Max acquired the rights to Globo's telenovelas and series for Latin America and the Caribbean outside of Brazil.


title: HBO Max

text: In February 2022, Sony Pictures and WarnerMedia announced that they will extend their agreement to carry films from its subsidiary companies in its Central and Eastern Europe pay television window rights window along with the library of television series produced by its sister company Sony Pictures Television Studios, the deal will also include the rights to its releases beginning in 2022 for broadcasting on its channels and will be streaming it on HBO Max throughout Central and Eastern Europe.


title: HBO Max

text: The service also features many hubs for animated programming, drawing largely from the libraries of Warner Bros. Animation (including the "Looney Tunes" franchise and Hanna-Barbera productions, such as "Scooby-Doo", "Tom and Jerry" and Tex Avery's cartoons as well) and Cartoon Network, along with Adult Swim. Original animated series (including the "Adventure Time" epilogue specials "", "Jellystone!", "Looney Tunes Cartoons", continuations of "Infinity Train" and "Summer Camp Island", and a reboot of "The Boondocks" produced by Sony Pictures Animation) for both network sections were also announced for HBO Max, and the service beat out competitors to acquire exclusive domestic streaming rights to "South Park" and its next three seasons for $500 million–with first-run episodes being added 24 hours after their premiere on Comedy Central. Fellow Otter Media company Rooster Teeth also contributes content, with season two of "" to be a timed exclusive for HBO Max.


title: HBO Max

text: All eight films in the "Harry Potter" series were available to stream on the service on launch day, despite earlier reports indicating that the films, although produced by Warner Bros., would not be available due to a prior broadcast rights agreement with NBCUniversal. It was later announced that the films would be removed on August 25 and made available on NBCUniversal's streaming service Peacock. However, it officially brought them back on September 1, 2021, after an adjustment in the agreement. On May 29, 2020, HBO Max acquired the exclusive streaming rights to "The Big Bang Theory" spin-off "Young Sheldon".


title: HBO Max

text: On June 9, 2020, "Gone with the Wind" was temporarily removed from HBO Max's library amid the George Floyd protests, following an op-ed in the "Los Angeles Times" by "12 Years a Slave" screenwriter John Ridley. On June 25, the film returned in its original form with, as suggested by Ridley, a new introduction by Turner Classic Movies host Jacqueline Stewart discussing the film's treatments of the American Civil War, the Reconstruction era, and American slavery of African people.


title: HBO Max

text: On June 27, 2020, it was revealed that DC Universe original "Harley Quinn" will stream its first two seasons on HBO Max. On June 29, 2020, HBO Max secured the exclusive streaming rights of the Oprah Winfrey Network series "David Makes Man". On September 18, 2020, it was announced that all DC Universe content would be migrating to HBO Max, including original shows like "Titans" and "Young Justice", which will have their newest seasons air exclusively on the service. In addition, both "Doom Patrol" and "Harley Quinn" have been renewed for third seasons exclusively for the service.


title: HBO Max

text: On October 28, 2020, it was announced that the 1990s series "Tiny Toon Adventures" would be rebooted for Cartoon Network and HBO Max as "Tiny Toons Looniversity", featuring older versions of the characters. Steven Spielberg is expected to return as executive producer. The show was given a two-season order.


title: HBO Max

text: In February 2021, it was announced that WarnerMedia's international preschool brand Cartoonito would launch in the United States via Cartoon Network and HBO Max later in the year, with a slate of 50 series by 2023.


title: HBO Max

text: In renewing his contract with WarnerMedia, Conan O'Brien announced plans to move to a weekly variety format on HBO Max from his nightly TBS show, ending a 28-year run on late-night television between NBC and TBS in June 2021.


title: HBO Max

text: In August 2021, Funimation, a subsidiary of Sony, purchased Crunchyroll from AT&T for $1.175 billion, with the intent to create a combined service that caters to anime entertainment. On January 1, 2022, HBO Max removed the Crunchyroll hub, instead redirecting subscribers to a "global animation" page that combines selected anime with other international animated films. Since then, the service has slowly started to remove anime from Crunchyroll's line up.


title: HBO Max

text: On November 22, 2021, Disney and WarnerMedia reached a deal to amend the pre-existing contract HBO had with 20th Century Studios to allow Disney+ or Hulu and HBO Max to share the streaming rights to half of 20th Century Studios' and Searchlight Pictures' 2022 theatrical slate in the United States during the pay-one window, with "Ron's Gone Wrong" being the first film under the deal, becoming available on both Disney+ and HBO Max on December 15, 2021. Disney will still have full streaming rights to any 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures films produced for Disney+ or Hulu, while the Disney deal with WarnerMedia for streaming 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures films on HBO Max will end in 2022, with Disney+ and Hulu assuming the full pay-one rights to those films in the future.


title: HBO Max

text: On February 15, 2022, it was announced that first-run episodes of "South Park" would move to Paramount+ beginning with season 27 in 2024, and the series library would move from HBO Max to the service in the United States in 2025.


title: HBO Max

text: On August 4, 2022, it was announced that selected Magnolia Network programs would become available on HBO Max in September 2022. Discovery+ will remain the main streaming home of its programming.


title: HBO Max

text: On October 7, 2022, it was announced that the HBO max original series "Harley Quinn" will have a Valentine's Day Special titled ""Harley Quinn: A Very Problematic Valentine’s Day Special"" on February 23, 2023.


title: HBO Max

text: In late 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, WarnerMedia moved two Warner Bros. films originally intended as major theatrical releases to either exclusive or simultaneous releases on HBO Max. "The Witches" was released exclusively on HBO Max in the U.S. on October 22, and "Wonder Woman 1984" debuted simultaneously in North American theaters and on HBO Max on December 25, although the latter was initially only available on the service for a month. Week-long free trials were discontinued in December 2020.


title: HBO Max

text: On December 3, 2020, it was announced that the studio's entire 2021 film lineup would see a simultaneous theatrical release and a one-month limited release on the streaming service, starting with "The Little Things" on January 29. Subsequent films released under the same-day theatrical/streaming window to date were "Judas and the Black Messiah" (February 12), "Tom and Jerry" (February 26), "Godzilla vs. Kong" (March 31), "Mortal Kombat" (April 23), "Those Who Wish Me Dead" (May 14), "" (June 4), "In the Heights" (June 10), "" (July 16), "The Suicide Squad" (August 5), "Reminiscence" (August 20), "Malignant" (September 10), "Cry Macho" (September 17), "The Many Saints of Newark" (October 1), "Dune" (October 22), "King Richard" (November 19), and "The Matrix Resurrections" (December 22). Standard release windows applied to each film after their initial limited-run streaming release on the service; HBO Max would then reassume streaming rights to the aforementioned Warner Bros. films upon their respective pay television premieres on the linear HBO service in mid-to-late 2021 or 2022, depending on the scheduled start of their individual HBO exhibition agreements.


title: HBO Max

text: This decision, called "Project Popcorn" within Warner Bros., was met with backlash from filmmakers, production companies, the Directors Guild of America, the Creative Artists Agency, and movie theater owners as Warner Bros. had not informed anyone about their plan ahead of the announcement. Viewership of the films varied, with "Mortal Kombat" reaching 3.8 million, "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It" totaling 1.6 million, and "In the Heights" totaling 693,000 (according to Samba TV, as WarnerMedia does not report viewership numbers for HBO Max).


title: HBO Max

text: Warner Bros. spent over $200million alone compensating talent for the shift to streaming; "Deadline" reported in January 2022 that such a business move "will never occur again given its high cost".


title: HBO Max

text: In March 2021, it was announced that Warner Bros. would discontinue same-day releases in 2022, as part of an agreement the studio reached with Cineworld (who operates Regal Cinemas) and will instead use a 45-day exclusive release window for theaters. "The Matrix Resurrections" was the final film released in 2021 as part of Project Popcorn. The 45-day release window for HBO Max was only used for two films ("The Batman" and "") before it was reported in August 2022 that as part of a restructuring of Warner Bros' film distribution strategy following the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc, the length of the window would now be decided for each film on a case-by-case basis.


title: HBO Max

text: AT&T chairman and CEO Randall L. Stephenson did not rule out adding live sporting events from Turner Sports to HBO Max in the future.


title: HBO Max

text: At launch, HBO Max did not support 4K, HDR, Dolby Vision, or Dolby Atmos, but support for these technologies were planned as "part of the HBO Max product roadmap". Support for 4K, HDR, and Atmos was added starting with the release of "Wonder Woman 1984", with WarnerMedia promising to add more content in these formats throughout 2021 and beyond.