Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 by troops from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union intervened in support of the Afghan communist government in its conflict with anti-communist Muslim guerrillas during the Afghan War (1978–92) and remained in Afghanistan until mid-February 1989. In April 1978 Afghanistan’s centrist government, headed by Pres. Mohammad Daud Khan, was overthrown by left-wing military officers led by Nur Mohammad Taraki. Power was thereafter shared by two Marxist-Leninist political groups, the People’s (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party which had earlier emerged from a single organization, the People’s Democratic Party of
Afghan War (1978–92), internal conflict between the Afghan communist government, initially aided by Soviet troops, and anticommunist Islamic guerrillas known collectively as mujahideen. The government fell in 1992, but the coalition of mujahideen fragmented and continued to fight one another in the years that followed.