Hafizullah Amin

Hafizullah Amin

Hafizullah Amin (born August 1, 1929 in Paghman , † December 27, 1979 in Kabul ) was a communist Afghan politician and from September 14, 1979 until his assassination by Soviet special forces president of the country.

Life

youth

Amin was born in Paghman (near Kabul ) in very simple circumstances as a member of the Ghilzai Pashtuns. First he studied at the University of Kabul , then until 1957 in the USA . After a brief stay in Afghanistan, he returned to the United States in 1962, continued his studies and earned his doctorate. It was in the United States that he first heard about the Stalinist purges and was enthusiastic about the idea of ​​fighting the bourgeoisie.

After his final return from the USA he became a member of the Democratic People's Party of Afghanistan (DVPA) and one of the leaders of the party alongside Nur Muhammad Taraki and Babrak Karmal . Amin and Taraki belonged to the Leninist Chalq faction within the party, while Karmal belonged to the moderate Parcham faction.

Seizure of power

Amin was probably one of the masterminds of the Saur revolution against Daoud Khan in April 1978, as a result of which Muhammad Taraki became president. Amin was head of Afghanistan's secret police after the coup, while Babrak Karmal became prime minister .

In power, the three men carried out land reform and began to turn the country into a Stalinist dictatorship. In particular, the forced secularization and the murder of the upper class led to broad resistance among the population. As a result, around 30 mujahideen groups were founded between 1978 and 1979 .

Overtaxed by the increasing violence, Taraki tried to get the Soviet Union to intervene militarily in the conflict, which was rejected by the Soviet Politburo .

There were also disputes within the DVPA about the political objectives.

Assassination of Tarakis

In February 1979, the American ambassador to Kabul, Adolph Dubs , was kidnapped and killed by Islamic fundamentalists. This led to a new leadership dispute within the DVPA and the strength of the Chalq faction against the more moderate Parcham faction. Then Karmal went into exile in Moscow .

After a long dispute, Amin was appointed Prime Minister of Afghanistan in March 1979. At the same time, Taraki met with Leonid Brezhnev , the head of state and party of the Soviet Union . In view of Amin's actions against his own party and the increase in power of the former head of the secret service, it was decided to remove Amin from all offices. Upon return, Taraki ordered Amin to meet. Amin agreed to the meeting, but wanted the Soviet ambassador to attend the meeting as protection.

Amin already suspected that he should be switched off and drove with some of his guards to the agreed meeting point at the People's Palace on September 13, 1979. There security forces opened fire on him. Amin fled and returned with stronger powers. He could switch the palace guards and arrest Taraki. On October 8, Amin ordered the rival's murder. The ex-president was likely suffocated with a pillow. A few days later, the Afghan media announced that Taraki had died of an "unknown disease".

Presidency

With the assassination of Taraki, Hafizullah Amin took power and tried to put down the resistance that was still spreading in the country. As a result, the civil war escalated.

The Soviet Union initially did not react to the bloody change of government in Kabul. Amin was loyal to the Soviet Union, but could not contain the growing unrest in the country. The Soviet side feared that Amin might eventually turn to the USA and ask for support there, which could have led to the stationing of troops of the US armed forces on the sensitive northwest border with the USSR. The Politburo decided on December 11, 1979 to liquidate Amin and dissolve his government.

The Afghan army had attempted a coup before that. As a result, units of the KGB , the ALFA group and the 154th independent Spetsnaz division, were stationed at the Soviet embassy in Kabul. Officially, they were supposed to "protect" the president.

The KGB had managed to smuggle one of its agents into the presidential palace as a cook. He was supposed to try to poison Hafizullah Amin, his nephew Asadullah Amin and the head of counterintelligence Mohammed Yaqub. This plan initially failed on October 13, 1979, only Asadullah Amin suffered from symptoms of intoxication and was flown to Moscow .

As a result of the events, Amin moved his residence to the Tajbeg Palace, which was better guarded on the outskirts of Kabul.

death

The KGB units were also relocated near the palace as they were officially charged with guarding the president. At the same time, they spied out the site, as the Soviet Union did not have any maps of the site around the palace at the time.

On the morning of December 27, 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began with Operation Storm-333 . Soviet troops landed at Kabul airport.

The Afghan Politburo was first poisoned with sleeping pills after its morning session and then arrested. Amin, who believed that the Soviet Union finally wanted to support him with troops, first ate his breakfast, which, as it later turned out, was poisoned. The intervention of a (Soviet) doctor kept Amin alive, but some of his employees and family members died as a result of the poisoning. Shortly thereafter, Soviet soldiers of the 9th Company of the 345th Independent Paratrooper Regiment and units of the 154th Independent Spetsnaz Division stormed the area around the palace and initially killed Amin's guard. Then the Spetsnaz units of the ALFA group, divided into the ZENITH and GROM groups, entered the palace and killed Amin and one of his sons with a hand grenade.

literature

• Thomas T. Hammond: Red Flag Over Afghanistan: The Communist Coup, the Soviet Invasion, and the Consequences. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado 1984, ISBN 0-86531-444-6 .
• Gregory Feifer: The great gamble . The Soviet was in Afghanistan. HarperCollins , 2006, ISBN 0-06-114318-9 , Invasion Considered, pp. 21st ff .

http://content.library.arizona.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p16127coll6/id/11040/rec/1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Afghan Death List Published: Families of forcibly disappeared end 30 yr wait - Afghanistan Analysts Network
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Gregory Feifer: The great gamble . The Soviet was in Afghanistan. HarperCollins , New York 2006, ISBN 0-06-114318-9 , Invasion Considered, pp. 21st ff .
3. ^ Kabul New Times. (Kabul, Afghanistan), 1980-01-02 :: Kabul Times. Retrieved February 7, 2018 .