Consequences of conflict in Afghanistan continues......

Afghanistan’s security situation has remained volatile because of the structures of violence that has developed during the course of the prolonged conflict. Indiscriminate attacks on civilians continued in Afghanistan following the Soviet intervention and even after the Soviet withdrawal leading to a volatile environment. In the years following the Soviet intervention in December 1979, the shelling and aerial bombardment of rural villages and cities by government and Soviet forces was almost constant. The mass destruction caused by these bombing raids during the course of the war has been the primary cause of
over one million civilian deaths and the exodus of five million refugees from Afghanistan into Pakistan and Iran.

In the period just before the withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989, heavy bombing raids were reported in Kandahar and north of Kabul along the Salang Highway—the route for the withdrawal of the Soviet troops. As many as 600 people were reported to have been killed when Soviet forces carpet-bombed villages in the Panjshir Valley and Salang Pass in January and February 1989. Scud missiles were also reported to have been used extensively in these attacks, with some 21 Scud missiles reportedly being launched between 23 January and 8 February 1989. A number of villages devastated in the attacks, were far from the strategic Salang Highway; in the village of Khenj, some 60 kilometers from the highway, 70 people were reportedly killed by Scud missiles. Western journalists also cited reports of high-altitude bombing and shelling of villages north of Kabul in the weeks before the Soviet withdrawal.

To be continued......