self-designated ‘State Committee for the Emergency Situation’.
The coup collapsed within two days, and then the recriminations
began. The implications for Afghanistan were considerable, for two
reasons. First, the ‘State Committee’ (consisting of Vice-President
Gennadii Ianaev, Prime Minister Valentin Pavlov, Defence
Minister Dmitrii Iazov, Interior Minister Boriss Pugo, and KGB
Chief Vladimir Kriuchkov, as well as the hapless Tiziakov and
Starodubtsev) had included in its ranks a number of those most
committed to continuing support for Najibullah, most importantly
Kriuchkov. The fall of the ‘State Committee’ blew a gaping hole in
Najibullah’s support network in Moscow. Second, the failure of the
coup shifted the balance in Soviet politics decisively away from
Gorbachev (who had been responsible for promoting a number of
the plotters to the positions which they then used to move against
him), and in favour of his rival, the popularly elected President of
the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) within
the USSR, namely Boris El’tsin. As early as 14 July 1990, El’tsin
had argued that supplies of arms from Russia to Afghanistan had to
be stopped, and in September 1990, his envoy Iona Andronov had
invited Mujahideen leaders to visit Russia for talks (Maley, 1991c:
13). A clear sign that times had changed came on 10 November,
when a resistance delegation, led by Rabbani and including
Muhammadi, Asif Mohseni, Sayed Hamed Gailani, and Dr
Hashmatullah Mojadiddi, arrived in Moscow and held direct, high-
level discussions with Russian officials on Russian soil. The final
communiqué agreed on the need ‘to pass all power in Afghanistan
to an Islamic interim government’ (TASS, 15 November 1991).
Hekmatyar was so alarmed that he sent a message to Najibullah,
via Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, that ‘You and I could do
something in Afghanistan’ (Rubin, 1995b: 130, 172).
The most important policy development, however, came on 13
September 1991, and it signed the death warrant of Najibullah’s
regime. On that day, a joint statement was issued by the new Soviet
Foreign Minister, Boris Pankin, and US Secretary of State Baker, in
which they announced that the two countries would cease to deliver
‘lethal material and supplies’ to parties in Afghanistan from 1
The Interregnum of Najibullah, 1989–1992 187