Word: taraki
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...Thursday the real motive of the intervention was clear: Radio Kabul suddenly announced that President Amin, a tough, repressive Communist who had seized power only last September from former President Noor Mohammed Taraki, had been deposed. The new President, the broadcast said, was former Deputy Prime Minister Karmal. A later announcement specified that Amin had been convicted of "crimes against the people" and executed, along with members of his family. Radio Kabul failed to mention that in the upheaval, Soviet military units had entered combat for the first time since their border clashes against China...
...replace him was a Marxist intellectual little known in the West (see box). Karmal thus became the third Afghan leader to seize control of the government in the 20 months since the Communists first came to power in April 1978. As the new strongman, following the April coup, Taraki at first denied there had been a Communist takeover. But in the months that followed, internal struggles dangerously narrowed the government's base. As he attempted to keep the revolution on course, Taraki turned increasingly to Russian advisers to fill a shortage of trained manpower. The number of Soviets soon...
Ominously for Taraki and the Soviets, however, there were already rumblings of revolt among conservative Muslim tribesmen unhappy at the prospect of radical social and economic reforms. As the Marxists in Kabul pressed their case, the opposition gradually developed into a full-scale religious insurgency. In March, thousands of Afghans in Herat (pop. 150,000), a provincial capital 400 miles west of Kabul, rose in a revolt that lasted for several days. An estimated 20,000 civilians lost their lives; so did at least 20 Soviet advisers and their families in a series of brutal rebel attacks...
...last fall, some 22 of the country's 28 provinces were said to be in rebel hands. Amin, by now Taraki's Prime Minister, cracked down with repressive measures, including the execution of some 2,000 political detainees and the imprisonment of some 30,000 others. By the time Amin toppled Taraki and took over completely, the Afghan armed forces themselves were demoralized by purges and defections to the rebels, and clearly were hard put to contain the rebellion...
...Premier Aleksei Kosygin signed Moscow's telegram of congratulation to Amin, who is most unlikely to steer Afghanistan from its Marxist, pro-Moscow course. The Soviet leaders may be less happy with the erratic Amin than they profess. DeVoss has learned that on two occasions the Soviets advised Taraki to distance himself from Amin and reduce his power. Taraki responded by replacing Amin as Defense Minister last March. But he was unable to reduce Amin's influence with the top Khalq military officers; their support enabled him to repossess the defense portfolio in June and, presumably, to carry...