Soviet Occupation
Logar was known among Afghans as باب الجهاد' Bab al-Jihad', or 'the Gates of Jihad' because it became a fierce theatre of war between Mujahideen groups and the Soviet army and it was the main supply route of Mujahideen coming from south and Pakistan and going towards Northern and Central Afghanistan. According to Mohammad Hassan Kakar, a historian and personal survivor of the war, the region was the site of the largest attacks by the Soviets throughout the war; he further states that the military caused extensive casualties and denuded, looted, and vandalized the area. Swedish journalist Borge Almqvist, who visited the province in 1982, wrote, "Everywhere in the Logar province the most common sight except for ruins are graves".Almqvist, Borge (1984). "International Afghanistan Hearing". In Committee for International Afghanistan Hearing. Soviet operations included using bombing, the use of flammable liquids to burn alive people in hiding, poisoning of drinking water, and destruction of crops and farmland. According to Kakar, the Soviet actions in this province amounted to genocide.
Read more about this topic: Logar Province
Famous quotes containing the words soviet and/or occupation:
“They were right. The Soviet régime is not the embodiment of evil as you think in the West. They have laws and I broke them. I hate tea and they love tea. Who is wrong?”
—Alexander Zinoviev (b. 1922)
“... possibly there is no needful occupation which is wholly unbeautiful. The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it—whether we arm ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep us delightful company all day, and who will make us feel, at evening, that the day was well worth its fatigues.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)