Graveyard of Empires: How the Afghan Mujahideen Resisted the Soviets (1988)

On this day in 1988, ITN's Desmond Hamill reported from behind the lines with the Afghan Mujahideen on the outskirts of the city of Kandahar. The city had been occupied for years by the Red Army following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. After a costly and futile war of occupation lasting nearly a decade, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan had begun in May 1988. Red Army troops in Kandahar, however, were trapped, the city being besieged by the Mujahideen. ITN's Hamill attended a meeting of the various Mujahideen factions around Kandahar led by commander Ismail Gailani as the forces of resistance attempted to decide whether to let the Russian forces withdraw safely.

Soon after the Soviet withdrawal was complete, the civility of decision-making between Mujahideen factions would give way to brutal infighting as leaders vied for control of post-Communist Afghanistan. From the city of Kandahar, amidst a bloody civil war, a new force would emerge pledging to disarm the country's warring factions and bring peace and order based on a strict interpretation of Islam. They would call themselves "the Students" or, in the Pashto language, "Taliban".

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