Operation Storm-333

Background

Amid the Parcham-Khalq split inside the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, Nur Muhammad Taraki was deposed by Hafizullah Amin in September 1979 and died under suspicious circumstances. As repression of Islamists and Taraki loyalists expanded under Amin and discontent spread through the army, the Soviet leadership feared further deterioration and the rise of anti-Soviet forces. Between September and December 1979 Amin made seven requests for Soviet military assistance, which were used to cover the planning. On 12 December 1979 the CPSU Politburo decided to remove Amin and to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan, recording the decision by hand in a single copy under the heading "On the situation in 'A'". Soviet troops entered both overland and by air, with exiled Parchamis brought in for the operation.

Preparations and forces

A KGB detachment, Zenit, formed from officers who had passed the advanced officers' courses, arrived in Kabul in mid-1979, and on 23 December a 25-man group of the KGB's Alpha unit, Grom, led by Major Mikhail Romanov, arrived. Presenting the operation as a response to Amin's own requests for military help, the GRU's 154th Separate Spetsnaz Detachment, the "Muslim Battalion," composed of soldiers from the southern republics, was deployed ostensibly to strengthen the palace guard. The plan was drawn up by GRU Colonel Vasily Kolesnik, with Yuri Drozdov, head of Directorate S of the KGB's First Main Directorate, as his deputy for liaison with the KGB teams; the assault force comprised 24 men of Grom, 30 of Zenit, 520 of the Muslim Battalion and 100 paratroopers of the 9th Company of the 345th Guards Airborne Regiment. Tajbeg Palace was defended by a brigade of three infantry battalions and a tank battalion, about 2,500 troops, with three tanks dug in near the palace and twelve 100-mm anti-aircraft guns. The plan was approved only orally, and the commander of the Muslim Battalion was warned that in case of failure the operation would be presented as his drunken escapade. Soviet troops and KGB officers wore Afghan uniforms without insignia and white armbands, using "Yasha" and "Misha" as recognition passwords.

Storm-333

The large-scale Soviet troop deployment began on 25 December; by the afternoon of 27 December the 103rd Guards Airborne Division had landed at Kabul airport, controlling it and blocking Afghan aircraft and air-defence batteries, and other units had sealed off key government buildings and army units. At lunch that day a KGB-infiltrated agent poisoned Amin and his guests; unaware Soviet doctors and Afghan medics revived him. The palace guard reinforced its posts, but the Muslim Battalion command and the KGB officers taking part did not know of this.

The attack began at about 7 p.m. (accounts range roughly from 18:20 to 19:30). A charge that cut Kabul's telephone links was followed by Group 1's move to seize the tanks near the palace; when the shooting broke the surprise, Kolesnik ordered the assault to begin early. In the advance Group 3 lost several armoured vehicles to heavy fire and Group 2's BMPs were hit, with KGB men killed and wounded, before the assault teams entered the building through the central entrance, a window, a side entrance and a hole blown in a wall, capturing the palace in roughly 40 minutes of close-quarters fighting.

Death of Amin

During the attack Amin still believed the Soviet Union was on his side, realizing the truth only after he failed to reach the General Staff. He was captured alive by Grom troops but was semi-conscious and convulsing after treatment for the poisoning was interrupted. No eyewitness has ever confirmed the exact details of his death; Kabul Radio announced that he had been sentenced to death at a revolutionary trial and executed, and a 2009 finding held that he was mortally wounded by a grenade fragment. Some accounts say he was shot by an Afghan figure present with the assault group. Other government buildings, including the Interior Ministry, the security service KAM and the General Staff, were also seized in the operation.

Casualties and aftermath

On the Soviet side five KGB special forces officers, seven soldiers of the Muslim Battalion and two paratroopers were killed, including the KGB contingent commander Colonel Grigory Boyarinov. On the Afghan side Amin, his two young sons and about 200 guards and soldiers died, and some 1,700 soldiers were taken prisoner. Colonel Viktor Kuznechenkov, an army doctor who had been treating Amin in the palace, was killed by friendly fire.

The first-phase aim was to install Babrak Karmal, who arrived in Kabul from Bagram during the night of 27-28 December and addressed the nation on Kabul Radio. The operation was militarily successful, but the killing of a head of state was read in the West as evidence of a Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Alpha Group veterans regard Storm-333 as one of the unit's most successful operations. The allegation that Amin was a CIA agent has been widely discredited, with Soviet archives showing the story had been planted by the KGB. In April 1980 around 400 KGB officers connected with the operation and 180 officers and soldiers of the Muslim Battalion received decorations, and Boyarinov, Karpukhin, Kozlov and Kolesnik were made Heroes of the Soviet Union.