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.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1965Joined PDPA Parcham faction
- 1977PDPA Central Committee member
- 1978Ambassador to Iran, soon dismissed; exile in Eastern Europe
- 1980–1985Director of KHAD (state security)
- 1986–1992PDPA General Secretary
- 1987–1992President of Afghanistan
- 1992–1996Sheltered in UN compound, Kabul
Related historical events
- 1979–1989The Soviet-Afghan WarAfghan president, National Reconciliation policySucceeding Karmal in 1986, he pursued National Reconciliation but repeatedly pressed Moscow to delay the withdrawal and to leave volunteer troops behind. He held on for three more years after the Soviet departure.
- 1985–1989The New Thinking and the End of the Cold WarKey party in the Soviet Afghanistan withdrawal negotiationsAhead of the Soviet withdrawal, he pleaded for a continued military presence to stabilize his regime, while Shevardnadze proposed keeping volunteers to defend the highway to Kabul.
Sanctuary Without Asylum: The UN Compound Years, 1992–1996
After he was ousted in April 1992, Najibullah took refuge in the UN compound in Kabul and never left it before 1996. He tried to fly out to India but was stopped at Kabul Airport, which troops loyal to his former general Abdul Rashid Dostum now controlled. India hesitated to grant him political asylum for fear of damaging relations with the new mujahideen government, and also refused him shelter at its embassy in Afghanistan, arguing this risked provoking 'subcontinental rivalries'. The UN tried to arrange safe passage; Dostum blocked it. In 1994 India sent the diplomat M. K. Bhadrakumar to Kabul to negotiate his departure with Ahmad Shah Massoud, who refused; Bhadrakumar later wrote that he believed Massoud wanted to keep Najibullah available as a strategic asset.
During these years Najibullah occupied himself by translating Peter Hopkirk's book The Great Game into his native Pashto. Unlike most members of the old regime, he was not granted amnesty by the Islamic State of Afghanistan, and UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali pleaded with the Rabbani government to let him leave the country, without success. When the Taliban closed in on Kabul in September 1996, Massoud's faction offered him a chance to flee; he refused. Officers who were with him until the end said he distrusted Massoud because his militia had repeatedly fired rockets at the UN compound and had effectively barred him from leaving.
On the evening of 26 September 1996 unknown armed men came for him at the UN compound. English-language accounts record that he was abducted from UN custody, shot in the head, and that Taliban members are alleged to have dragged his corpse behind a truck through the streets of Kabul. The next day his body and that of his brother, General Shahpur Ahmadzai, were hanged from a traffic light pole outside the Arg presidential palace. Russian-language accounts date the killing to the early hours of 27 September, describing UN staff reports that he was taken at about 1:30 a.m. and killed around 4:30 a.m. after torture. The bodies were later handed to the International Committee of the Red Cross and buried at Gardez in Paktia Province after funeral prayers by their fellow Ahmadzai tribesmen.
Responsibility for the killing is disputed. Soviet journalists Plastun and Andrianov, who knew Najibullah personally, the US Special Envoy to Afghanistan Peter Tomsen, the former Afghan National Directorate of Security, and several Pashtun nationalists including the former Pakistani senator Afrasiab Khattak have claimed that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was behind it, working with Taliban members, in part as revenge for the 1989 Battle of Jalalabad and over Najibullah's opposition to the Durand Line. Other accounts describe it simply as an act of Taliban fighters.