Feature: Kabul marks 26th anniversary of Russian withdrawal

Limping in a crowded street in Kabul as he directed traffic, Azam Shah, a former anti-invasion fighter, could not understand why with the defeat of the Russians and the end of the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan, there still seems to be no end to the war in his country.

"I lost my left leg in the war against the invading Red Army of the erstwhile Soviet Union in Salang District in 1981. The Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan 26 years ago and the USSR has been dismantled but the protracted war is still continuing," Shah told Xinhua.

Shah expressed his sentiments as Afghanistan marked on Sunday the 26th anniversary of the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from the country on Feb. 16, 1989.

Walking with a cane and in his mid-50s, Shah said he was a victim of the war against the Soviet Union in the l980s while his son and a cousin were killed in the ensuing war against the Taliban extremists and the al-Qaida who have taken over the country after the Russians left.

More than 110,000 soldiers of the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on Dec. 27, 1979 to bolster the Moscow-backed regime in Kabul.

However, the invasion suffered a backlash as majority of Afghans considered the Soviet initiative as "military occupation of Afghanistan" resulting in a bloody uprising that lasted for 10 years.

The 26th anniversary of the defeat of ex-USSR and the humiliating pullout of its forces was marked in Afghanistan on Sunday by holding meetings, conferences and gatherings to pay homage to Afghans who sacrificed their lives in the war against Russian invasion.

"Today there is no Soviet Union in the map of the world. The Soviet Union is already gone. Some 50 countries led by the U.S. invaded Taliban regime in late 2001 and after 13 years of fighting here they have gone back to their homes, but still no end of the war is in sight in near future," Shah said.

"The miseries of Afghans began with the invasion of Soviet Union and since then, other countries, including the U.S, came to interfere in Afghan affairs," Shah added.

Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayaf, an Afghan community leader, said the Afghan people continue to suffer in the aftermath of the war.

Following the Soviet forces withdrawal in Feb. 16, 1989, the factional fighting erupted in the ethnically divided Afghanistan which led to the emergence of the hardliner Taliban outfit in 1994 and the collapse of Kabul to Taliban in 1996.

Exactly 12 years after the withdrawal of the Soviet forces from Afghanistan, the U.S.-led alliance invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 and overthrew the brutal Taliban regime within month.

The collapse of Taliban regime and the involvement of international community had raised the ray of hope among Afghans for achieving lasting peace and better future.

But contrary to expectations of many Afghans and even international observers, the Taliban militants, after having been driven from Kabul, are still alive and have been leading a bloody insurgency over the past six years. The Taliban are still bent on regaining power through the use of brute force by staging ambushes and suicide bombings in various parts of the country.

Mohammad Purdul, another Kabul resident, said 13 years after the collapse of the Taliban, there is still fighting and Afghans, including innocent civilians, are still being killed or maimed.

"There seems to be no end to this cycle of violence in Afghanistan," Purdul said. He said on Sunday, a civilian was killed and another one injured in a Taliban attack on a residential area in the eastern Kunar province. Endi