Today in History, December 25

37 years ago today (December 25 1979) the leading elements of the Soviet army crossed the Afghan-USSR border as the Soviet Union launched its invasion of Afghanistan. On the order of Soviet Defense Minister Ustinov, the Soviet ground troops began crossing the Afghan border around 1500 hours on the Christmas Day. The 108th Division crossed the Amu River near Termez, on the eastern corridor while the 5th Division crossed the border at Kushka two days later onto the western corridor. The 108th Motorized Rifle Division completed its march on December 27 and concentrated in the area of Baghlan, Kunduz, Puli-Khumri and Doshi. The following day the division was ordered to march to Kabul.[i] Meanwhile, the 103rd Airborne Division and the 345th Separate Parachute Regiment were flown by transport aircraft to Kabul and Bagram airfields. The air transport operation took a total of 343 flights and 47 hours to deploy the paratroopers and their vehicles and equipment. Disturbed by the noise of two-day long overflights, the Kabul citizens were told that due to flooding at the Amu Darya ports the necessary cargo had to be delivered through air transport.[ii] During the operation, only one plane crashed killing all thirty-seven paratroopers and seven-man crew.

Earlier in the month, a pre-structured Spetsnaz unit, called the “Muslim Battalion,” composed of Central Asians - disguised as Afghans, was airlifted from its camp in Uzbekistan and moved on December 9 and 10 to the Soviet airbase in Bagram[iii] from where it was deployed to the Amin’s Presidential palace. Their presence was explained as fulfilling Amin’s request to deploy Soviet forces by sending a Soviet battalion to protect his new residence at the Tajbeg Palace on the southwest outskirts of Kabul.

The invasion was launched following the December 12th Politburo decision presided over by Brezhnev, with members Suslov, Grishin, Kirilenko, Peltshe, Ustinov, Chernenko, Andropov, Gromyko, Tikhonov, and Ponomarev in attendance. They unanimously approved a plan presented by the “magnificent three” (Andropov, Gromyko, and Ustinov) to introduce Soviet troops into Afghanistan. It was codenamed “Measures.” The protocol of the session, hand written by Chernenko, remained a super-secret, for a long time not accessible even to those among the highest leadership, until the declassification of the document following the breakup of the Soviet Union.[iv] 

Once the decision to introduce Soviet forces into Afghanistan was made, preparations for the operation were stepped up. The concept of the operation was to eliminate Amin by a coup de main and replace him by Babrak Karmal. In order to consolidate the regime change, Soviet ground and air assets were to deploy in Afghanistan to seize control of key cities and the communication network. The invasion force was primarily the newly-constituted 40th Army based out of the Turkistan Military District (TMD) and commanded by General Tukharinov, the deputy commander of the TMD. In order to direct the Army’s operation, a Ministry of Defense Operational Group under Marshal Sokolov, First Deputy Minister of Defense, was established at Termez on December 14, 1979.[v] The 40th Army, named the Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (LCSFA), initially consisted of the 5th and 108th Motorized Rifle divisions, the 103rd Airborne Division, the 860th Separate Motorized Rifle Regiment, the 56th Separate Air Assault Brigade, the 345th Separate Parachute Regiment, the 2nd Air Defense Brigade and the 34th Composite Aviation Corps. The airborne elements were to fly in and help the in-place Spetsnaz units take the city of Kabul and the main airfields. The ground elements were intended to move overland on the eastern and western axes to occupy key towns and lines of communication corridors. Amin’s continued request for Soviet troops to prop up his beleaguered regime facilitated the planning process and the deployment of the Soviet troops.

On the eve of the movement of the Soviet Army, the Soviet Ambassador in Kabul informed Amin that his government had decided to extend assistance to Afghanistan and accordingly Amin ordered the Afghan General Staff to cooperate in the operation. .Early on December 25, as Soviet Engineer units were building pontoon bridging on the Amu Daraya River near Termez, the 40th Army commander, General-Lieutenant Tukharinov, met with the Chief of Operations of the DRA General Staff, General Baba Jan, in Kunduz, Afghanistan to coordinate the deployment of the Soviet forces.

After landing, the 103rd Division, with the concurrence of the Afghan side deployed forces at key installations in the capital. The main roads of Kushka, Herat, Shindand, Girishk, Kandahar, Termez, Kabul, Kabul-Jalalabad, Pul-e Khomri, Kunduz and Faizabad were put under Soviet security. Two days later, on the night of December of 27, the Soviet 5th Motorized Rifle Division crossed the border at Kushka in the west and by the following day its regiments were in control of Herat and Shindand with its area of responsibility extending to Kandahar.

Operation Storm 333

The other key part of the plan was a coup de main to eliminate Amin and his regime, replacing it with an alternative government under Babrak Karmal as the motorized rifle divisions were moving towards their destinations in Afghanistan. The primary strike force for the purpose included KGB Spetsnaz forces already in Kabul and Bagram, advance units of the 345th Separate Parachute Regiment, and Soviet military advisers serving in Kabul. Their operation aimed at seizing thirteen key targets in the capital including the Amin residence at Tajbeg Palace, the Central Committee of the PDPA headquarters, the Ministries of Defense, Interior, Foreign Affairs, Communications, the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the headquarters of the Central Army Corps, the State Intelligence Agency (KAM) building, the prison full of political prisoners in Pul-e Charkhi, the radio and television center, the central post office, and the central telegraph office. Simultaneously the Soviets planned to prevent DRA troops from deploying in the city.

The elements assigned to storm the Amin residence consisted of the so-called “Muslim” battalion (520 men) deployed wearing Afghan army uniform, and incorporated into the presidential security forces, guarding the outer perimeter of Amin's residence, the KGB Zenit and Grom detachments (41 men) deployed in Kabul, and a company from 345th airborne regiment (70 men). The total assault force numbered about 630 men. The plan was that the Amin residence was to be stormed by the Zenit troops and a company of the Muslim Battalion. The assault was planned by the senior GRU representative in Kabul, Colonel Kozlov and it required neutralizing and containing the security forces of the Amin residence (the Guard Brigade) and inserting the assault elements into the palace to kill Amin and the security details inside the building. All elements carried out thorough reconnaissance, surveying the Palace defensive layout and the floor plan of the main building. On the same day, Babrak Karmal and his team were brought by the 103rd Airborne Division to the Soviet embassy and were moved to Bagram. While preparations for the assault was underway, Amin was in total ignorance of what was about to happen. He was holding a dinner party at his residence for top members of the party and government. A second attempt by the KGB-planted chef to poison or drug Amin caused many of the guests to fall ill including Amin who went in coma but was saved by Afghan and Soviet doctors who were urgently called to the Palace.[vi] Kryuchkov, deputy KGB chief later maintained that the substance was no more than a powerful sleeping draught.[vii]

The “H” hour for launching the assault on the palace, code-named Storm 333, was changed several times. The signal to move out was a major explosion aimed at destroying the communications center in downtown Kabul. At 6:00 PM, General Magametov ordered Colonel Kozlov to initiate the operation as soon as he could without waiting for the explosion. Twenty minutes later, a special team moved out to neutralize three dug-in tanks which covered the approaches to the palace. When the tanks were secured, the team fired two red rockets at 7:15 PM to signal the beginning of the assault. The assault group’s Shilka anti-aircraft guns opened fire on the solid walls of the palace while two companies of the Muslim Battalion and the paratrooper company blocked and contained the three infantry and the tank battalions of the Presidential Guard Brigade in their barracks.[viii] Under the cover of the Shilka guns, infantry fighting vehicles (BMPs) carrying the third company of the Muslim Battalion, as well as the Zenit and Grom Spetsnaz teams under the command of Colonel Boyarinov, rushed to the palace. They were instructed to stop at nothing, take no prisoners and secure the building at any cost. The Zenit group in four APCs (BTR) drove to the western side of the palace while the Grom in five BMPs dismounted at the front entrance of the palace on the east. The assault teams entered the building from eastern and western sides through the doors and windows killing any moving target through the dim and dark corridors of the palace. The operation lasted 43 minutes during which Amin was killed along with some 200 of his security troops. The Afghan forces stopped their resistance once they learned that the attackers were the Soviets not Afghan mutineers as they initially assumed. Amin’s body was lying at the bar and after Watanjar and Gulabzoy confirmed its identity, it was wrapped in a carpet for burial at a secret place. Over 100 of KGB Special Forces members were killed or wounded in the assault.[ix] The assault force commander Colonel Boyarinov was among the killed.

While the assault on Amin’s residence was going on, elements of the 103rd Guards Airborne Division seized control of all the key political and military targets in Kabul and surrounding areas and sealed the gates of the capital to prevent the possible advance of Amin loyalists. At 8:45 PM, the recorded speech of Babrak Karmal, heralding the demise of the Amin regime and his rise to power, was broadcast supposedly by Radio Kabul but actually from the advance Soviet Headquarters at Termez. Karmal stayed in Bagram on December 27 and was brought into Kabul the following day with a tank escort. During the next five days, he lived at KGB safe houses in the capital.

(Excerpts from A. Jalali's "A Military History of Afghanistan from the Great Game to the Global War on Terror," University Press of Kansas)

[i] The Russian General Staff, The Soviet Afghan War – How a Superpower Fought and Lost, translated and edited by Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress, University Press of Kansas, 2002, p. 17

[ii] Author’s conversation with officers of the Operation Department of the Afghan Army General Staff, Kabul, December 1979

[iii] Feiffer, Gregory, The Great Gamble, the Soviet War in Afghanistan, Harper Collins Publishers, New York 2009, p.58

[iv] Hand written text of the Resolution. Also, Lyakhovsky, P. 109-112

[v] Lyakhovsky, pp. 126-127

[vi] Author’s conversation in January 1980 with Amanullah a household tailor of Amin family who was at the palace that day and fell ill like many others. He later witnessed the attack on the building in the evening. He was taken away with other non-combatants out of the place and spent the night in the open outside the palace under the guard of Tajik-speaking Soviet soldiers.

[vii] Braithwaite, Rodric, Afghantsy, The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89, Oxfor University Press, 2011, p. 95

[viii] Lyakhovsky, Alexander, Tragediya i Dobelst Afgana (The Afghan tragedy and valor), Moscow, GPI “Iskon,” 1995, pp. 136-137

[ix] Mitrokhin, Vasili, the KGB in Afghanistan, Ed. Christian F. Ostermann and Odd Arne Westad, Cold War International History Project, Working Paper No. 40, February 2002, pp. 99-100