Immediate effects
The Soviets tried to eliminate civilian populations from the Afghan countryside, where resistance was based, because the rural population fed and housed the mujahidin. Additionally, the Soviet bombings destroyed entire villages, crops and irrigation, which caused the death of millions of people and left millions homeless or starving. The bombings left the …show more content…
This continued long after the war ended.
Approximately 1 million civilian Afghans died and millions were wounded as a direct effect of the Soviet invasion.
Long-term effects
The country was now a wreckage, and the Afghan society and state was weak. The infrastructure suffered lasting effects of the invasion, and country was full of religious hatred and hatred towards wealthier countries because of religious and economical differences – a breeding ground of terrorism. After being in a constant state of war, the creation and spread of fundamentalist Islamic groups was increased.
Taliban and terrorism
The establishment of Taliban and their rise to power in the 90s was a result of the conditions after the war. The Taliban emerged as an opposition movement. Their goal was to remove the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. The movement consisted of Pashtun fundamentalist students that had been trained in religious schools in Pakistani refugee camps called madrasas. Like we mentioned earlier, the generation of Afghans that had suffered during the wars, harbored a hatred towards western countries. It was easy to recruit members in a country where most people had lost their