The Siege of Khost: during the nine-year Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the subsequent Afghan civil war, the town of Khost was besieged for more than eleven years. Its airstrip's 3 km runway served as a base for helicopter operations by Soviet forces. Operation Magistral was an offensive launched to relieve it at the end of 1987. The first convoys reached Khost at the end of December 1987. When the main Soviet force had withdrawn, Mujahideen groups cut off Khost once again, as they had done since 1981.