
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 27, 1994                   TAG: 9412270019
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: G4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CHRONOLOGY OF WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

Some key dates in Afghanistan's civil war:

1973: King Zahir Shah overthrown by relative in palace coup amid unrest over stagnant economy.

December 1979: Soviet troops intervene to support Communist leader Babrak Karmal.

1980: Islamic fundamentalists take up arms against Soviet occupation.

1985-86: More than 100,000 Soviet soldiers fail to subdue rebels, a loose alliance of seven factions that receives U.S. arms. Moscow installs new leader, Najibullah.

1988: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announces Soviet withdrawal.

Feb. 15, 1989: Last Soviet soldiers leave.

April 15, 1992: Najibullah relinquishes power and rebels seize Kabul, then begin fighting each other.

1994: Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and allies launch Jan. 1 attack trying to oust President Burhanuddin Rabbani. In nearly daily fighting, Kabul is reduced to rubble, 30,000 people are killed or wounded and hundreds of thousands flee.

by CNB