afghanistanmeeting and despite pleas by both Soviet and Afghan officials he refused
to meet with Brezhnev again.
The spat in Moscow was the last straw as far as Brezhnev was concerned
and it was decided that Da’ud had to go. Soviet officials in Kabul were
instructed to reconcile the warring Parcham and Khalq factions of the
pdpa. Moscow then put on a show of strength; border police briefly occu-
pied the disputed island of Urta Tagai in the Amu Darya, while Soviet
military transports overflew Afghanistan without seeking prior clear-
ance from Kabul. President Da’ud retaliated by ordering his ministers not
to accept any further offers of Soviet aid and considered reducing the
number of personnel in the Soviet embassy. In November Da’ud reshuffled
his cabinet yet again and set up a Central Council consisting of trusted
Muhammadzais. However, in the process he resurrected a long-standing
family feud. Sultan Mahmud Khan Ghazi, Shah Mahmud’s third son, who
was head of Aryana Afghan Airlines and the Civil Aviation Authority and
whose mother-in-law was a daughter of Loynab Khushdil Khan, was angry
that neither he nor any of the Loynabs or Serajis were given seats on this
Council. When Da’ud ignored his protests, the Ghazis and Serajis resigned
from the government.
A few days later, the confrontation with the pdpa led to bloodshed
when ‘Ali Ahmad Khurram, the minister of planning, was assassinated. His
killer, Muhammad Marjan, had gained access to the Minister in his office,
where he drew a pistol and demanded he take him to President Da’ud, but
once in the street Marjan shot Khurram dead. President Da’ud used the
occasion of Khurram’s funeral to publicly accuse Moscow of interference
in Afghanistan’s internal affairs and implied that the kgb were behind
the assassination. Under interrogation, however, Marjan claimed to have
acted in the name of the ‘Islamic Revolution’, but the Parchamis were prob-
ably correct when they accused Marjan of being a Khalqi. Remarkably,
Marjan was not executed, and following the Taraki coup he was pardoned.
He ended his days in Moscow living under an assumed name, and was
described as a ‘crazy, stupid person’. 29
As tensions between Moscow and Kabul and between President Da’ud
and the pdpa reached crisis point, Da’ud made one final attempt to win
the support of the usa and its allies in the Arab world. In early 1978 Da’ud
paid a state visit to Egypt where he praised Sadat’s peace deal with Israel
and signed an agreement allowing Egyptian officers to train Afghan army
and police cadets. Twenty-five individuals accused of involvement in the
Islamist coup of December 1973 were put on trial in February 1978 and
convicted of treason. While most of the accused were sentenced to life