end of the soviet-afghan war
In 1985, Soviet forces decide to transfer the bulk of the land fighting to the Afghan Army by training many new recruits for the fledgling army while supplying them with artillery and air support. Despite this, the amount of desertions remained extremely high until the end of the war. At the same time, foreign support from the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as well as foreign mujahedeen organisations continued to increase, although the Islamic fundamentalists received proportionally more aid via the billion dollars the United States lent to Pakistan for economic and military assistance of which a substantial amount was funnelled into Afghanistan without American objection.
In November 1986, Mohammad Najibullah, who was formerly a pro-Russian former chief of the Afghan secret police, was elected president to replace the ineffectual Babrak Karmal of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Najibullah changed the constitution in 1987 and made it more Islamic to appeal to the mujahedeen without success by notably making Islam the state religion. In 1990, the constitution was again remade to be more Islamic in scope to little effect. By the middle of 1987, Gorbachev’s administration decided to start withdrawing Soviet forces from Afghanistan, an act which was in agreement with his vast overhaul of Soviet foreign policy being undertaken at the time. The first half of the Soviet force withdrew by August 16, 1988 and the second half by February 15, 1989 as planned in the 1988 Geneva Accords. (Goodson, 2012, p.68)