Khalq
Encyclopedia
Khalq was a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
. Its historical leaders were Presidents Nur Muhammad Taraki
and Hafizullah Amin
. It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by the same movement. It was supported by the USSR and was formed in 1965 when the PDPA was born. The Khalqist wing of the party was made up primarily of Pashtuns
from non-elite classes. However, their Marxism was often a vehicle for tribal resentments. Bitter resentment between the Khalq and Parcham
factions eventually led to the failure of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
that was formed as a result of the Saur Revolution
. It was also responsible for the radical reforms that encouraged the resistance of the people of Afghanistan, and eventually, to the creation of the Mujahideen
. Their radicalism was also responsible for the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan on December 1979.
held its First Congress on January 1, 1965. Twenty-seven men gathered at Nur Mohammed Taraki's house in Kabul
, elected Taraki PDPA Secretary General, Babrak Karmal
as Deputy Secretary General, and chose a five-member Central Committee
(or Politburo
).
Finally, Hafizullah Amin was the only Khalqi member of the PDPA to be elected to Parliament in 1969.
The newspaper was highly successful, especially among students. Its first edition sold 20,000 copies, and later editions numbered around 10,000 (there were only six editions altogether). On May 23, 1966, the authorities closed Khalq on the grounds that it was anti-Islamic, anticonstitutional, and antimonarchical. Karmal's faction founded Parcham, a weekly magazine that he published between March 1968 and July 1969. Parcham was shut down in June 1969 on the eve of parliamentary elections.
than Parcham, but their base of support was not strong among the masses, and much stronger in the military. Because of this, Khalq abandoned his party's traditional emphasis on working-class recruitment and sought to build his own power base within the officer corps. Khalq's influence at Kabul University
was also limited.
In 1973 the Khalq faction energetically began to encourage military personnel to join them. Taraki had been in charge of Khalq activity in the military. In 1973 he passed his recruitment duties to Amin. This move was highly successful: by the time of the communist coup, in April 1978, Khalq outnumbered Parcham by a factor of two or three to one. The Moscow-sponsored union of Parcham and Khalq may have been in preparation for his peaceful passage from the scene in the near future. The merger of Parcham and Khalq rapidly became unglued. However, Mir Akbar Khyber, a prominent leftist, was killed by the government and his associates. Although the government issued a statement deploring the assassination, the PDPA leaders feared that Daoud was planning to exterminate them all. In this way, both Khalq and Parcham forgot their internal rivalries and worked to overthrow the government.
On the eve of the communist coup, Hafizullah Amin
was the only member of the Central Committee
that was not arrested. The police did not sent him to immediate imprisonment, as it did with Politburo
members of the PDPA on April 25, 1978. He was the last person to be arrested, his imprisonment was postponed for five hours, during which time Amin, without having the authority and while the Politburo
members were in prison, instructed the Khalqi army officers to overthrow the government.
The Khalqist Army cells prepared for a massive uprising. On April 27 the Khalqist military leaders began the revolution by proclaiming to the cells in the armed forces that the time for revolution had arrived. Khalqist Colonel Mohammad Aslam Watanjar
was the Army commander on the ground during the Coup, and his troops gained control of Kabul. Colonel Abdul Qadir
, the leader of the Air Force squadrons, also launched a major attack on the Royal Palace, in the course of which President Mohammad Daoud Khan was killed.
of tens of thousands. The Khalqi policy of encouraging the education of girls, for example, aroused deep resentment in the villages. By putting Afghanistan on the revolutionary road the Khalq wing of the PDPA stirred the countryside into revolt.
President Nur Mohammad Taraki refused to tolerate any Parchamis in the military and insisted that all officers affiliate with Khalq. By June 1978 an estimated 800 Parchami military personnel were forced to quit the armed forces. Shortly after, the Khalqist wing in the Army, initiated a purge of Parchamis. They accomplished this performing the elimination of the opposition and removal of any restraints posed by the Parchamis. Hafizullah Amin
took over as prime minister in March 1979, retaining the position of field marshal and becoming vice-president of the Supreme Defence Council. Taraki remained President and in control of the Army, though now he reportedly devoted a lot of his time at the Royal Palace, which had been renamed the People's Palace. Events also tended to sub-divide the protagonists. The intense rivalry between Taraki and Amin within the Khalq faction heated up. In September 1979, Taraki's followers, with Soviet complicity, had made several attempts on Amin's life. The final attempt backfired. Amin's murder of Taraki divided the Khalqis. Rival military cliques divided the Khalqis further.
In late October, Amin made a military sweep against the insurgents, victoriously driving 40,000 people - mostly non-combatants - across the border into Pakistan. At the end of 1979 there were 400,000 Afghan refugees, mostly in Pakistan
. The USSR attempted to temper the Khalqis' radicalism, urging attendance at mosques, inclusion of Parchamis and non-communists in the government, and a halt to the unpopular land reform movement. Most of this advice was ignored. The last Khalq President, Hafizullah Amin, was assassinated after Soviet intelligence forces took control of the government and installed Babrak Karmal
, a Parcham
i, in his place.
The purging of Parchamis had left the military forces so dominated by Khalqis that the Soviets had no choice but to rely upon Khalqi officers to rebuild the army. Khalq officers and men expressed bitterness over the preferential treatment given their Parcham rivals by the Parcham dominated regime. Disaffected Khalqis often assisted the Mujahideen. Khalqis in the armed forces often accused their Parchami officers of using them as cannon fodder and complained that young Parchami men were exempted from compulsory military service. A show of this was that, in 1980, at the April military parade celebrating the Saur Revolution, many Tank Corps continued to display the Red Flag of Khalq, instead of the new national flag adopted by Babrak Karmal
.
left the country, President Najibullah suffered, to a lesser degree, the same disadvantage that Karmal had when he was installed as General Secretary of the PDPA by the Soviets. This fact was shown by the fierceness of the resistance to Najibullah's appointment within the Parcham faction. This split persisted, forcing President Najibullah to straddle his politics between whatever Parcham
i support he could maintain and alliances he could win from the Khalqists.
In December 1989, 127 Khalqist military officers were arrested for an attempted coup. Twenty-seven officers escaped and later showed up at a press conference with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
in Peshawar
. Former Minister of Tribal Affairs, Bacha Gul Wafadar and Minister of Civil Aviation Hasan Sharq were among the conspirators. In March 1990, once again the Mujahideen
leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
cooperated in a coup attempt, this time led by the Khalqist Defense minister
Shahnawaz Tanai
. Tanai was apparently also supported by those important Khalqist who remained in the Politburo
, Assadullah Sarwary and Mohammad Gulabzoi, respectively their country's envoys to Aden
and Moscow
. They were said to have been intimately connected with the coup and with Gral Tanai. However, Tanai had no direct control of troops inside Kabul. The plot misfired and failed because of faulty communications.
was captured, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
gained the support of some Khalqi (and mostly Pashto) hardliners, including the Minister of Internal Affairs Raz Mohammad Paktin and then Defence Minister Mohammad Aslam Watanjar
. Another example of this is the fact that Gral Tanai has (according to western diplomatic sources) acted as an agent for ISI
by providing the Taliban a skilled cadre of military officers.
In this way, the Khalqi faction were once again involved in the war, using his pilots to fly the Mig-23 and Sukhoi
fighters of what was left of the Afghan Air Force
, driving Soviet Tanks and using Soviet Artillery
. With no central government and fighting for different groups, Khalq was merely a pawn in the Afghan Civil War between the Afghan Northern Alliance and the Taliban.
in 2002.
(It is highly likely that Nur al-Haq Olumi and Noorul Haq Uloomi are different transliterations of the same person's name.)
People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a communist party established on the 1 January 1965. While a minority, the party helped former president of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, to overthrow his cousin, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and established Daoud's Republic of Afghanistan...
. Its historical leaders were Presidents Nur Muhammad Taraki
Nur Muhammad Taraki
Nur Muhammad Taraki was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War. Taraki was born near Kabul and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his political career as a journalist...
and Hafizullah Amin
Hafizullah Amin
Hafizullah Amin was the second President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan....
. It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by the same movement. It was supported by the USSR and was formed in 1965 when the PDPA was born. The Khalqist wing of the party was made up primarily of Pashtuns
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
from non-elite classes. However, their Marxism was often a vehicle for tribal resentments. Bitter resentment between the Khalq and Parcham
Parcham
Parcham was the name of one of the factions of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The Parcham faction seized power in the country after toppling Hafizullah Amin....
factions eventually led to the failure of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was a government of Afghanistan between 1978 and 1992. It was both ideologically close to and economically dependent on the Soviet Union, and was a major belligerent of the Afghan Civil War.- Saur Revolution :...
that was formed as a result of the Saur Revolution
Saur Revolution
The Saur Revolution is the name given to the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan takeover of political power from the government of Afghanistan on 28 April 1978. The word 'Saur', i.e...
. It was also responsible for the radical reforms that encouraged the resistance of the people of Afghanistan, and eventually, to the creation of the Mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
. Their radicalism was also responsible for the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan on December 1979.
Early political history
The People's Democratic Party of AfghanistanPeople's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a communist party established on the 1 January 1965. While a minority, the party helped former president of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, to overthrow his cousin, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and established Daoud's Republic of Afghanistan...
held its First Congress on January 1, 1965. Twenty-seven men gathered at Nur Mohammed Taraki's house in Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
, elected Taraki PDPA Secretary General, Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal was the third President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is the best known of the Marxist leadership....
as Deputy Secretary General, and chose a five-member Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
(or Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
).
Finally, Hafizullah Amin was the only Khalqi member of the PDPA to be elected to Parliament in 1969.
Khalq - Parcham division of the PDPA
The party was weakened by bitter, and sometimes violent, internal rivalries. The Khalq faction was more tribal, whereas the Parcham had more support among the urban population and middle classes. Especially on the ideological level, Karmal and Taraki differed in their perceptions of Afghanistan's revolutionary potential:- Taraki believed that revolution could be achieved in the classical Leninist fashion by building a tightly disciplined working-class party.
- Karmal felt that AfghanistanAfghanistanAfghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
was too undeveloped for a Leninist strategy and that a national democratic front of patriotic and anti-imperialist forces had to be fostered in order to bring the country a step closer to socialist revolution.
The newspaper was highly successful, especially among students. Its first edition sold 20,000 copies, and later editions numbered around 10,000 (there were only six editions altogether). On May 23, 1966, the authorities closed Khalq on the grounds that it was anti-Islamic, anticonstitutional, and antimonarchical. Karmal's faction founded Parcham, a weekly magazine that he published between March 1968 and July 1969. Parcham was shut down in June 1969 on the eve of parliamentary elections.
The Republican Revolution of 1973
Khalq was excluded from the new government because of its lack of good political connections and its go-it-alone policy on noncooperation. Taraki did advocate a united front briefly after former Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud Khan's takeover in an attempt to gain places in the government for his followers, but this effort was unsuccessful. The Khalqis claimed to be more leftist and more independent of the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
than Parcham, but their base of support was not strong among the masses, and much stronger in the military. Because of this, Khalq abandoned his party's traditional emphasis on working-class recruitment and sought to build his own power base within the officer corps. Khalq's influence at Kabul University
Kabul University
Kabul University is located in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. It was founded in 1931 but officially opened for classes in 1932. Kabul University is currently attended by approximately 7,000 students, of which 1,700 are women. As of 2008, Hamidullah Amin is the chancellor of the university...
was also limited.
In 1973 the Khalq faction energetically began to encourage military personnel to join them. Taraki had been in charge of Khalq activity in the military. In 1973 he passed his recruitment duties to Amin. This move was highly successful: by the time of the communist coup, in April 1978, Khalq outnumbered Parcham by a factor of two or three to one. The Moscow-sponsored union of Parcham and Khalq may have been in preparation for his peaceful passage from the scene in the near future. The merger of Parcham and Khalq rapidly became unglued. However, Mir Akbar Khyber, a prominent leftist, was killed by the government and his associates. Although the government issued a statement deploring the assassination, the PDPA leaders feared that Daoud was planning to exterminate them all. In this way, both Khalq and Parcham forgot their internal rivalries and worked to overthrow the government.
On the eve of the communist coup, Hafizullah Amin
Hafizullah Amin
Hafizullah Amin was the second President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan....
was the only member of the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
that was not arrested. The police did not sent him to immediate imprisonment, as it did with Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
members of the PDPA on April 25, 1978. He was the last person to be arrested, his imprisonment was postponed for five hours, during which time Amin, without having the authority and while the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
members were in prison, instructed the Khalqi army officers to overthrow the government.
The Khalqist Army cells prepared for a massive uprising. On April 27 the Khalqist military leaders began the revolution by proclaiming to the cells in the armed forces that the time for revolution had arrived. Khalqist Colonel Mohammad Aslam Watanjar
Mohammad Aslam Watanjar
Mohammad Aslam Watanjar was an Afghan General and Politician. ] He started the "Saur Revolution".Watanjar later became a member of the politburo in the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, playing prominent roles in the communist coup as well as the coup that overthrew the...
was the Army commander on the ground during the Coup, and his troops gained control of Kabul. Colonel Abdul Qadir
Abdul Qadir Dagarwal
Abdul Qadir Dagarwal , a colonel, was the leader of the Afghan Air Force squadrons that attacked the Radio-TV Station during the 1978 Coup that started the Saur Revolution....
, the leader of the Air Force squadrons, also launched a major attack on the Royal Palace, in the course of which President Mohammad Daoud Khan was killed.
The Saur Revolution (April 1978 - April 1992)
The Saur Revolution, as the new government labeled its coup d'état (after the month in the Persian calendar in which it occurred), was almost entirely the achievement of the Khalq faction of the PDPA. Khalq's victory was partially due to Daoud's miscalculation that Parcham was the more serious threat. This success gave it effective control over the armed forces, a great advantage over its Parchami rival. During the first months of the revolution, Cabinet membership was split eleven to ten, with Khalq in the majority.Khalq as Government (April 1978 - December 1979)
However, the initial, moderate, approach to Islam taken by the PDPA was quickly abandoned as the Khalqists sought to consolidate their hold on power. Khalq dominated the Revolutionary Council, which was to serve as the ruling body of the government. The Khalq leadership ran the country by issuing a series of eight edicts. They suspended all laws except those on civil matters. Another exception was the criminal law of the Daoud period, retained as a repressive instrument. They also embarked on a campaign of radical land reform accompanied by mass repression in the countryside that resulted in the arrest and summary executionSummary execution
A summary execution is a variety of execution in which a person is killed on the spot without trial or after a show trial. Summary executions have been practiced by the police, military, and paramilitary organizations and are associated with guerrilla warfare, counter-insurgency, terrorism, and...
of tens of thousands. The Khalqi policy of encouraging the education of girls, for example, aroused deep resentment in the villages. By putting Afghanistan on the revolutionary road the Khalq wing of the PDPA stirred the countryside into revolt.
President Nur Mohammad Taraki refused to tolerate any Parchamis in the military and insisted that all officers affiliate with Khalq. By June 1978 an estimated 800 Parchami military personnel were forced to quit the armed forces. Shortly after, the Khalqist wing in the Army, initiated a purge of Parchamis. They accomplished this performing the elimination of the opposition and removal of any restraints posed by the Parchamis. Hafizullah Amin
Hafizullah Amin
Hafizullah Amin was the second President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan....
took over as prime minister in March 1979, retaining the position of field marshal and becoming vice-president of the Supreme Defence Council. Taraki remained President and in control of the Army, though now he reportedly devoted a lot of his time at the Royal Palace, which had been renamed the People's Palace. Events also tended to sub-divide the protagonists. The intense rivalry between Taraki and Amin within the Khalq faction heated up. In September 1979, Taraki's followers, with Soviet complicity, had made several attempts on Amin's life. The final attempt backfired. Amin's murder of Taraki divided the Khalqis. Rival military cliques divided the Khalqis further.
In late October, Amin made a military sweep against the insurgents, victoriously driving 40,000 people - mostly non-combatants - across the border into Pakistan. At the end of 1979 there were 400,000 Afghan refugees, mostly in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. The USSR attempted to temper the Khalqis' radicalism, urging attendance at mosques, inclusion of Parchamis and non-communists in the government, and a halt to the unpopular land reform movement. Most of this advice was ignored. The last Khalq President, Hafizullah Amin, was assassinated after Soviet intelligence forces took control of the government and installed Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal was the third President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is the best known of the Marxist leadership....
, a Parcham
Parcham
Parcham was the name of one of the factions of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The Parcham faction seized power in the country after toppling Hafizullah Amin....
i, in his place.
The Parcham Government and Soviet invasion (December 1979 - April 1989)
Khalqi-Parchami differences began to rend the military as Khalqi leaders, fearful that the Parchamis retained their cellular organization within the military, mounted massive purges of Parchamis. Thanks to Amin's efforts in the 1970s, the officer corps consisted largely of Khalqis. The Army was also not immune to antigovernment sentiment. Soldiers began to desert and mutiny. Herat was the site of an uprising in March 1979 in which a portion of the town's military garrison joined. The rebels butchered Soviet citizens as well as Khalqis.The purging of Parchamis had left the military forces so dominated by Khalqis that the Soviets had no choice but to rely upon Khalqi officers to rebuild the army. Khalq officers and men expressed bitterness over the preferential treatment given their Parcham rivals by the Parcham dominated regime. Disaffected Khalqis often assisted the Mujahideen. Khalqis in the armed forces often accused their Parchami officers of using them as cannon fodder and complained that young Parchami men were exempted from compulsory military service. A show of this was that, in 1980, at the April military parade celebrating the Saur Revolution, many Tank Corps continued to display the Red Flag of Khalq, instead of the new national flag adopted by Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal was the third President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is the best known of the Marxist leadership....
.
Najibullah Administration (1986-1992)
After the 40th Soviet ArmySoviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
left the country, President Najibullah suffered, to a lesser degree, the same disadvantage that Karmal had when he was installed as General Secretary of the PDPA by the Soviets. This fact was shown by the fierceness of the resistance to Najibullah's appointment within the Parcham faction. This split persisted, forcing President Najibullah to straddle his politics between whatever Parcham
Parcham
Parcham was the name of one of the factions of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The Parcham faction seized power in the country after toppling Hafizullah Amin....
i support he could maintain and alliances he could win from the Khalqists.
In December 1989, 127 Khalqist military officers were arrested for an attempted coup. Twenty-seven officers escaped and later showed up at a press conference with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan Mujahideen leader who is the founder and leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party and paramilitary group. Hekmatyar was a rebel military commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and was one of the key figures in the civil war that followed the...
in Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
. Former Minister of Tribal Affairs, Bacha Gul Wafadar and Minister of Civil Aviation Hasan Sharq were among the conspirators. In March 1990, once again the Mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan Mujahideen leader who is the founder and leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party and paramilitary group. Hekmatyar was a rebel military commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and was one of the key figures in the civil war that followed the...
cooperated in a coup attempt, this time led by the Khalqist Defense minister
Afghan Defense Ministry
The Afghan Ministry of Defense is an organ of the Central Government of Afghanistan, overseeing the entire military of Afghanistan. , it is headed by Abdul Rahim Wardak, a former mujahid who also received some military training in the United States...
Shahnawaz Tanai
Shahnawaz Tanai
Lieutenant General Shahnawaz Tanai is a former communist general. He was chief of Afghanistan's army under the russians-backed Republic of Afghanistan...
. Tanai was apparently also supported by those important Khalqist who remained in the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
, Assadullah Sarwary and Mohammad Gulabzoi, respectively their country's envoys to Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
and Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. They were said to have been intimately connected with the coup and with Gral Tanai. However, Tanai had no direct control of troops inside Kabul. The plot misfired and failed because of faulty communications.
Afghan Civil War (1992-2001)
At the end, however, the former Khalqists either joined or allied themselves with the Taliban or other Mujahideen warlords after the collapse of President Najibullah's Government in April, 1992. A perfect example of this was that, once KabulKabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
was captured, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an Afghan Mujahideen leader who is the founder and leader of the Hezb-e Islami political party and paramilitary group. Hekmatyar was a rebel military commander during the 1980s Soviet war in Afghanistan and was one of the key figures in the civil war that followed the...
gained the support of some Khalqi (and mostly Pashto) hardliners, including the Minister of Internal Affairs Raz Mohammad Paktin and then Defence Minister Mohammad Aslam Watanjar
Mohammad Aslam Watanjar
Mohammad Aslam Watanjar was an Afghan General and Politician. ] He started the "Saur Revolution".Watanjar later became a member of the politburo in the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, playing prominent roles in the communist coup as well as the coup that overthrew the...
. Another example of this is the fact that Gral Tanai has (according to western diplomatic sources) acted as an agent for ISI
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
by providing the Taliban a skilled cadre of military officers.
In this way, the Khalqi faction were once again involved in the war, using his pilots to fly the Mig-23 and Sukhoi
Sukhoi
Sukhoi Company is a major Russian aircraft manufacturer, headquartered in Begovoy District, Northern Administrative Okrug, Moscow, famous for its fighters...
fighters of what was left of the Afghan Air Force
Afghan Air Force
The Afghan Air Force , formerly the Afghan National Army Air Corps and Afghan National Army Air Force , is one of seven "corps" of the military of Afghanistan, responsible for air defense and air warfare. It was officially established in 1924 and for most of its history has functioned as a small...
, driving Soviet Tanks and using Soviet Artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
. With no central government and fighting for different groups, Khalq was merely a pawn in the Afghan Civil War between the Afghan Northern Alliance and the Taliban.
Karzai Administration (2002-Present)
Other Khalqists have developed fairly close relations with the current regime, after the defeat of the Taliban and the ascendance of Hamid KarzaiHamid Karzai
Hamid Karzai, GCMG is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking office on 7 December 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001...
in 2002.
- General Babrak Shinwari, former head of the youth affairs section of the PDPA under Taraki and AminHafizullah AminHafizullah Amin was the second President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan....
, who migrated to PeshawarPeshawarPeshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....
in PakistanPakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
in the winter of 1992. He later helped found the Afghanistan-Pakistan People Friendship Society and was elected member of the Loya JirgaLoya jirgaA loya jirga is a type of jirga regarded as "grand assembly," a phrase in the Pashto language meaning "grand council." A loya jirga is a mass meeting usually prepared for major events such as choosing a new king, adopting a constitution, or discussing important national political or emergency...
by a council of elders from Nazyan Shinwari area of Nangarhar province.
- Another former Khalqist general who has enjoyed the protection of powerful politicians in the current Afghan government is the former PDPA governor of KandaharKandaharKandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
, Nur al-Haq Olumi, who enjoys the patronage of Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim.
- The National Unity Party (Motahed-e Melli Hezb) was established on 2003. In this way, the Khalqi faction of the Homeland PartyDemocratic Watan Party of AfghanistanThe Democratic Watan Party of Afghanistan is a political party in Afghanistan.It emerged out of the Parcham faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan...
is once again attempting to participate in Afghan politics. It is now led by former Khalqist General Noorul Haq Uloomi.
(It is highly likely that Nur al-Haq Olumi and Noorul Haq Uloomi are different transliterations of the same person's name.)
Prominent members
- Nur Mohammad Taraki
- Hafizullah AminHafizullah AminHafizullah Amin was the second President of Afghanistan during the period of the communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan....
- Shahnawaz TanaiShahnawaz TanaiLieutenant General Shahnawaz Tanai is a former communist general. He was chief of Afghanistan's army under the russians-backed Republic of Afghanistan...
- Mohammad Aslam WatanjarMohammad Aslam WatanjarMohammad Aslam Watanjar was an Afghan General and Politician. ] He started the "Saur Revolution".Watanjar later became a member of the politburo in the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, playing prominent roles in the communist coup as well as the coup that overthrew the...