Activities and affiliations

Government and administration Afghanistan state institutions 1909–1978 ✕ Shot dead

Afghan prince who overthrew his cousin to found a republic, then was killed five years later in the same palace by a communist coup

At the 1977 Moscow summit he told Brezhnev bluntly: 'We will never allow you to dictate to us how to run our country… Afghanistan shall remain poor, if necessary, but free in its acts and decisions.'

A Barakzai prince appointed prime minister by his cousin King Zahir Shah in 1953, Daoud Khan pursued a decade of Soviet-leaning modernization, earning the moniker 'Red Prince,' and pressed the Pashtunistan dispute to the brink of war with Pakistan. In 1973 he overthrew the monarchy in a bloodless coup backed by leftist army officers and declared himself the first president of the Republic of Afghanistan, but then purged the communists from his government, imposed a one-party constitution, and pivoted his foreign policy toward Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the West. He and 18 members of his family were shot dead by Khalqist army officers inside the Arg palace during the Saur Revolution of April 1978, a flashpoint that installed the PDPA regime and set the stage for the Soviet-Afghan War.

Political and party leadership People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) 1947–1996 ✕ Tortured to death

The last communist president of Afghanistan, who outlasted the Soviet withdrawal by three years before the Taliban tortured and hanged him

"I didn't want to be president, you talked me into it, insisted on it, and promised support. Now you are throwing me and the Republic of Afghanistan to its fate." To Shevardnadze, autumn 1991

A Pashtun doctor who joined the PDPA's Parcham faction as a student, Najibullah rose through six brutal years at the helm of KHAD, the Afghan secret police, where his ruthless efficiency drew the attention of Yuri Andropov and the KGB. Installed by Moscow as party leader in 1986, he launched a 'National Reconciliation' that restored Islam, introduced multi-party politics, and erased communist symbols from the constitution, yet the war ground on; he opposed the Soviet withdrawal, pleading with Shevardnadze to leave volunteers to defend the Kabul highway, but after February 1989 held power alone for three more years. When Soviet dissolution ended aid and General Dostum defected, his government collapsed in 1992; he sheltered in the UN compound in Kabul, until Taliban fighters dragged him out in September 1996, tortured and castrated him, and hung his corpse from a traffic pole.