Photos Soviet-Afghan War 1979-1989

[RisingStar]

Bibi Ayesha, aka Commander Kaftar, the only known female Mujahideen commander in Afghanistan.

 

[RisingStar]

Soviet troops sitting at the feet at one of the now-destroyed ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan statues in Afghanistan (1981)

 

[BravoZulu]

A Mujahideen fighter and a leader of a local cell scans the skies for incoming Soviet bombers after striking the border town of Barikot moments before. The man sons are buried in the collapsed and burning house behind him; near the Pakistani border, 1988

 

[F.L.]

A young Afghan boy armed with a toy Kalashnikov rifle, during the 1980s. (Steve McCurry)

 

[RisingStar]

Dr. Faiz Ahmad, Afghan anti-Soviet Maoist revolutionary and leader of the Afghanistan Liberation Organization (ALO)

The ALO was one of the Maoist factions that sided with the Mujahideen against the Soviet forces due to seeing them as revisionist and imperialist. This, however, ended up being Ahmad's undoing when the fundamentalist radical Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had him assassinated in November 1986.

ALO members posing with a captured Soviet tank

ALO members practicing their aim

An ALO fighter

ALO members manning anti-aircraft guns, possibly for practice

ALO members climbing across the rocks of Afghanistan via a rope

Female ALO members out practicing their combat skills

A contingent of ALO fighters traveling back to their base

 

[F.L.]

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Air Force MiG-21FL armed with R-3S missiles (1980s)

 

[Newtonk]

 

[RisingStar]

A young Maoist fighter sitting with his AK. He would later die during the Afghan Civil War in 1992.

 

[RisingStar]

Western journalists posing with Baloch mujahideen fighters in early 1980.

Western journalists on a food break in northern Afghanistan during the mid-1980s, consisting of British cameraman/producer Peter Jouvenal, British journalist Julian Gearing, French reporter Patrick de St Exupery (with hat) and American photographer Edward Girardet.

Western journalists crossing 5,000 meter-high col in northeastern Afghanistan with dead donkey in foreground.