In 1979 there was a war between the Soviet’s and the Afghani’s in which the Soviet Union attacked Afghanistan in order to back up the people’s democratic party of Afghanistan (PDPA) because they wanted Afghanistan to be run by socialism instead of communism. The reason of the invasion was because Afghanistan started to separate itself from the Soviet Union so that they could make a “new national identity”, which I believe, is completely fair, and the Soviet’s did not like that. So the Soviet’s attacked Afghanistan so the Afghani people had to create a group to fight back called the Mujahedeen, which also means strugglers. The Mujahedeen were supported by foreign governments who all wanted the Soviet Union to stop the invasion. These foreign governments included Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and even the United States. Each of these governments wanted to help Afghanistan keep its freedom, which included the communist bloc. The Soviet Union had a difficult time knowing who to go after and who not to because when the call for Jihad went out it included ALL Muslims. The Russians had no chance against the Mujahedeen because there were so many of them and because the governments who helped the Mujahedeen gave them weapons and they also knew Afghanistan and its mountains better than the Soviets. So, by the end of the war the Mujahedeen ran 75% of Afghanistan by 1982. Some of the Russian soldiers even deserted their groups to join the Mujahedeen. The reason that the
This Soviet War lasted for 9 years.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/russia_invasion_afghanistan.htm
http://voices.yahoo.com/soviet-invasion-afghanistan-rise-the-367600.html