On January 3, the US launched Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela. In decapitating strikes, the US special forces disabled Venezuela’s formidable air defense assets and captured President Nicolas Maduro and his wife from a military facility in Caracas.
The mission involved the Delta Force, the U.S. Army’s most elite and secretive Tier 1 special mission unit, specializing in counterterrorism, hostage rescue, direct action, and capturing high-value targets.
The Delta Force operators, supported by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (helicopters) and over 150 aircraft, including F-22s, F-35s, bombers, electronic warfare jets, and stealth drones, conducted the ground assault on Maduro’s compound near Fuerte Tiuna.
Notably, no US soldier was killed in the operation that lasted for under 30 minutes. In the pre-dawn raid, the US military entered a sovereign country, abducted its President from a heavily fortified military compound, and whisked him away out of the country.
The spectacular military operation unfolded like a Hollywood action thriller, and the world is still in awe of the US military’s precision, speed, and lethality.
Even as jurists debate the legality of the US operation, military experts are already calling it unprecedented and one of the most successful military operations ever.
However, nearly 46 years before Operation Absolute Resolve, the Soviet Union had launched its own daring operation to kill the president of a sovereign country, who was defended by thousands of personal bodyguards, machine guns, tanks, minefields, and even air defense systems.
Just like Operation Absolute Resolve, the Soviet military operation was led by its elite force, the Alpha Group, and its paratroopers, and lasted only 45 minutes.
Again, the Soviet Operation was a spectacular success. Within an hour, the Soviet military achieved all its objectives, the President, along with some of his key ministers, was assassinated, and the Soviet troops occupied the Presidential Palace, the interior ministry, the army headquarters, and many other key military sites in the capital.
By nightfall, a whole country was ripe for Soviet occupation. However, the spectacular success of the Soviet Army was only a prelude to the impending disaster, which saw the Soviet Army getting sucked into a decade-long, deadly insurgency in a hostile and unforgiving country.
Not only did the Soviet Army lose over 15,000 soldiers and billions of dollars of military equipment, but the decade-long war also led to the unraveling of the Soviet Union itself.
As the Trump administration debates its next step in Venezuela, the Soviet military operation in Afghanistan in December 1979, called Operation Storm-333, is not only worth revisiting for the striking similarities between the two, but can also serve as a warning for Washington not repeat the mistakes of the Kremlin.
The Prelude To Soviet Intervention In Afghanistan
During the 19th century, the high peaks of Afghanistan were the site of what Rudyard Kipling had called the ‘Great Game.’
Afghanistan was the geopolitical chessboard where Russian and British spies jockeyed to outsmart one another and bring Kabul into their spheres of influence.
Throughout the 19th century, Tsarist Russia was expanding southwards into the Caucasus and Central Asia at a frantic pace.
Russia’s expansion southwards into Asia unnerved the British Indian Empire. They feared that at some point, the meeting of the boundaries of the Tsarist Russian Empire and the British Indian Empire in the high peaks of Afghanistan was inevitable.
This Great Game led the British to support an independent Afghanistan as a buffer state between them and the Russian Empire.
After the First World War, the Asian territories of the Tsarist Russian Empire became part of the Soviet Union, which bordered Afghanistan to the South.
Though the Great Game was over, the Russian insecurities about Afghanistan persisted. During the Cold War, Afghanistan once again became the site of intense competition and great-power rivalry between the Soviet Union and the US-led Western bloc.
In 1978, following the Saur Revolution, a Soviet-aligned socialist government led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power in Kabul after overthrowing President Mohammad Daoud Khan.
The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was initially led by Nur Muhammad Taraki, who was pro-Soviet Union.
However, in September 1979, Taraki was deposed by Hafizullah Amin due to intra-party strife.
The KGB believed that Amin was in contact with the US and decided to act before it was too late.
By December, the Soviet Union had decided to intervene militarily in Afghanistan.
Operation Storm-333
The Soviet Union made a plan to depose Amin, assassinate him and his key ministers, and replace him with Babrak Karmal, who was loyal to the Soviets.
The Soviets also decided to occupy key military sites in Kabul to provide stability to the incoming pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan, led by Karmal.
The operation was named Storm-333.
President Amin used to live in the Tajbeg Palace in Kabul. The heavily fortified palace sat on a hill, surrounded by flat ground on all sides, making an incursion extremely risky.
He was also protected by over 2,000 soldiers and more than 200 personal bodyguards armed with Kalashnikovs, machine guns, hand grenades, and RPGs. The approach to the palace was littered with hundreds of mines.
At some distance from the palace, another security perimeter was in place, where Afghan soldiers protected the road to the palace with tanks and air defense systems.
On the other hand, the core of the Storm-333 assault team comprised 25 men from the elite Alpha Group and 30 KGB operators.
There were also 87 troops of a company of the 345th Independent Guards Airborne Regiment and 520 men from the 154th Separate Spetsnaz Detachment of the USSR Ministry of Defense, known as the “Muslim Battalion” because it consisted exclusively of soldiers from the southern republics of the USSR.
On December 27, 1979, they crossed the Amu Darya (river), advanced towards Kabul, and stormed the Tajbeg Palace.
They met fierce resistance from Afghan soldiers.
According to eyewitness accounts, the Soviet contingent had only six BMP vehicles, and they all were immobilized due to heavy firing, forcing the Soviet soldiers to abandon the armored vehicles and advance to the Tajbeg Palace on foot.
Even when they entered the palace, they had to sweep it room by room, where they were fired upon by the heavily armed personal bodyguards of President Amin.
However, the Soviet soldiers kept advancing and finally captured President Amin. He was later killed.
Amin’s two sons sustained shrapnel wounds during the clashes and died shortly after. Amin’s wife and daughter were wounded but survived. As many as 347 other Afghans, including 30 of Amin’s most personal guards from the Palace, also died in the fighting.
Besides, nearly 150 personal bodyguards of Amin, as well as over 1,700 Afghan soldiers, surrendered.
On the Soviet side, there is still no clarity on the casualty figures, which range from 25 to over 100.
Simultaneously, the Soviet forces also occupied 20 more military sites in Kabul, including the interior ministry and the defense headquarters.
The whole operation was complete in less than one hour. By nightfall, Kabul was under Soviet control.
The operation was a spectacular success.
However, this was just the beginning of the decade-long Soviet War in Afghanistan, during which the Soviet Army lost over 15,000 soldiers.
In 1991, the Soviet Union itself disintegrated.
Meanwhile, more than four decades later, Afghanistan is still struggling with strife, civil war, and insurgency.
Lessons For The U.S.
How did the Soviet Union turn the spectacular success of Operation Storm-333 into a nightmare?
Instead of leaving the country to the Afghans after a swift regime change, the Soviets tried to occupy the country and gradually got sucked into the decade-long War in a hostile country that has been known as a “graveyard of empires’ for centuries.
And, herein lies a crucial lesson for the US. The Trump administration must not get carried away with its success and overestimate its capability.
Till now, they have resisted the temptation to micromanage Venezuela. In fact, after capturing Maduro, the US has left most of the remaining regime untouched.
However, if the US puts boots on the ground to effect a complete regime change or to micromanage Venezuela, it can also turn its spectacular success into a nightmare.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
