occasion the regime was confronted with examples of determined
opposition. In January 1980, there were major displays of resist-
ance in Kandahar and Herat. In Kabul, there was a notable popular
uprising on 22 February 1980, fuelled by the distribution of so-
called ‘night letters’ (shabnamaha). Troops shot at the protesters
with live ammunition, and rockets were fired at them from heli-
copter gunships. Kakar estimates that 800 Afghans were killed
(Kakar, 1995: 117). While sheer force put down this uprising, it
did not break the spirit of the regime’s opponents. In April 1980, a
student procession in the grounds of Kabul University again ended
in a hail of bullets. One of the victims was Nihad, a girl from the
penultimate year of the Rabia Balkhi High School, whose death
was to become a defining event for anti-communist students (Gille,
1980: 10). The student resistance was ultimately crushed: fear and
in some cases poverty led to the denunciation to KhAD of some of
the most determined student leaders. However, it was a source of
mortification for the Parchamis, who were seen to be dependent
upon the USSR to control unarmed Afghans. One other form of
urban resistance also needs to be noted. In 1983, the regime struck
at some of Afghanistan’s most notable intellectuals, who had
formed a human rights group at Kabul University: these included
the Western-educated Hasan Kakar, Professor of History, and
Habib Hala, Professor of Journalism. Imprisoned after a farcical
show trial, these professors were adopted as ‘Prisoners of
Conscience’ by Amnesty International in London (Amnesty
International, 1984: 3). The costs to the regime of this act of
repression, publicised the world over, greatly exceeded any con-
ceivable benefit it could have delivered.
THE ROLE OF PAKISTAN
Pakistan played a major role in supporting certain Afghan resist-
ance figures almost from the moment of the Soviet invasion, and
more generally in helping to sustain resistance, which is more vul-
nerable when it lacks safe havens in one or more neighbouring
66 The Afghanistan Wars