Siege of Khost 1980
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1980 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | Afghanistan | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Soviet-Afghan War | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen, Soviet Union | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 33.3333, 69.9167 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The eleven-year siege of Khost took place throughout the nine-year Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s and the subsequent Afghan civil war in the 1990s. Its airstrip's 3 km runway served as a base for helicopter operations by Soviet forces.
It began soon after the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops, when Afghan guerillas took control of the only land route between Khost and Gardez, effectively putting a stop to the Soviet advance.
At the end of July 1983, the forces of Jalaluddin Haqqani laid siege to two towns in Khost, and the Tani, Mangal, Zazai and Waziri tribes began taking an active part in the fighting, despite being passive up until then. All of the aforementioned events coincided with former King Mohammed Zahir Shah's appeal for a united front, which caused rumours about the Royalists intending to establish a provisional government in a liberated Khost. However, Khost was not captured and by October, the Tani tribe had withdrawn from coalition due to a tribal rivalry with the Zadran. Many rebels also returned home as winter came on. By the end of December, government forces arriving from Gardez ended the siege of the two towns and recaptured Zazi Maidan.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Khost (revision 1376546530), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
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Other battles of the Soviet-Afghan War
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All 4 battles of the Soviet-Afghan War →
Browse more: battles in Afghanistan · Asia · Post-1945 battles