In general, middle eastern wars happened as they happened in real history, with USSR supporting Ba'athist and other Arab socialist regimes, and of course lots of insurgents, militias and PMCs all over the place.

[s]Afghanistan's a big place[/s] Afghanistan fell into chaos after Soviet withdrawal from the region, and stuff went down as it did IRL.

The Sept 11 attacks did take place, and so did the Iraq war; Soviet support to Saddam was however insufficient to prevent NATO from overthrowing him.