In Afghanistan: 30 Years of Conflict and Chaos

Former Kabul correspondent Alan Johnston reflects on decades of turmoil in Afghanistan, from the Soviet occupation in 1979 to the intervention by the West in 2001. The story of the catastrophic miscalculations that humbled the mighty Red Army in the Hindu Kush. Tens of thousands of troops, tanks and helicopters poured into Afghanistan late in 1979. They laid waste to the land for a decade, during which time millions of Afghans died or were forced to flee. But in the end, it was the Russians who retreated, chased out, in part, by CIA-backed rebels.