was that at Pul-e Charkhi, but equally frightening were those at
the Prime Ministry (Sedarat), KhAD-e Shashdarak, KhAD-e
Panj, KhAD-e Nizami, the 400-bed hospital, and military gar-
risons (Akram, 1996: 206). To staff these facilities, the organisa-
tion built up a staff which by 1987 numbered an estimated
‘15,000 to 30,000 professionals and about 100,000 paid inform-
ers’ (Rubin, 1995a: 133). According to Bradsher, people joined
not out of ideological commitment, but ‘for exemption from mili-
tary conscription, ten times as much pay as government clerical
workers, and access to liquor, prostitutes, and extortion money’
(Bradsher, 1999: 137–8).
KhAD and the creation of a deracinated ‘janissary’ class
One of the most intriguing of KhAD’s roles related to orphans.
On 5 September 1981, a new body was established called the
‘Foster Home of the Fatherland’ (Parwareshgah-i Watan), of
which Najibullah was the first head; his successor, from
November 1981 to August 1986 was Karmal’s wife, Mahbouba.
Its headquarters were in the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul.
Again, this body reflected Soviet practice from an earlier era; in
January 1921, the Head of Lenin’s secret police, Feliks
Dzerzhinskii, had been appointed to head the Commission for the
Amelioration of the Life of Children (Komissiia po uluchsheniiu
zhizni detei) which was set up to deal with the problem of waifs
(besprizornye or besprizorniki) during the Russian civil war
(Leggett, 1981: 246–7; Stolee, 1988: 68). Superficially, the pro-
tection of orphans of war is a commendable undertaking, but in
this case there were more sinister overtones. In the Soviet Union,
orphanages became major recruiting grounds for secret policemen
(chekisti). And in Afghanistan, even before the ‘Foster Home’
was established, reports had begun to surface of school children
being removed to the USSR (‘Des lycéens afghanes déportées en
U.R.S.S.’, Les Nouvelles d’Afghanistan, no. 3, February–March
1981: 13). Subsequent more detailed research (Laber, 1986) sug-
gested that the objective of this exercise was to create a ‘janis-
The Karmal Period, 1979–1986 101