Osprey Publishing Raid: Storm-333 KGB & Spetsnaz Seize Kabul, Soviet-Afghan War 1979
Storm-333, the operation to seize Kabul and assassinate Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin, was at once a textbook success and the start of a terrible blunder. It heralded the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, an operation intended to be a short, largely symbolic show of force, yet which quickly devolved into a gritty ten-year counter-insurgency that Moscow was never able to win. Nonetheless, Storm-333 was a striking success, and despite initial concerns that it would be an impossible achievement, it saw a relative handful of Soviet special forces drawn from the KGB and the military seize the heavily defended presidential palace, neutralize the city's communications and defenses, and open Kabul to occupation. The lessons learned then are still valid today and have been incorporated into modern Russian military practice, visible most recently in the seizure of Crimea in 2014.
Contents:
- Introduction
- Origins
- Initial Strategy
- The Plan
- The Raid
- Analysis
- Further Reading
- Index
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