a house divided, 1933–73The assassination of Ambassador Dubs and the fall
of President TarakiIn February 1979 the usa became unwillingly embroiled in what now
threatened to be a regional conflict. On St Valentine’s Day, Adolph ‘Spike’
Dubs, the u.s. ambassador, was kidnapped at gunpoint and held hostage
in the Kabul Hotel, a curious choice given that this hotel in downtown
Kabul was full of Soviet and Eastern European diplomatic staff as well as
kgb agents. When the u.s. Embassy tried to contact Hafiz Allah ’Amin,
the Foreign Minister, he was conveniently unavailable and the embassy’s
pleas to Afghan and Soviet security forces to allow time for negotiation
were ignored. Instead Afghan security forces, advised by Russian mili-
tary and kgb agents, stormed the room and Dubs and all the kidnappers
died in a hail of bullets. 34 The perpetrators were never identified, but
the State Department rejected the Afghan government’s official version,
which blamed Yunus Khalis, an ally of Gulbudin Hikmatyar. The ballis-
tic evidence suggested that Dubs had been executed – he had been shot
four times in the head at close range – and u.s. officials suspected the
pdpa was behind the assassination, either in a naive attempt to discredit
the Islamist resistance or to force the usa and nato powers to disengage
with Afghanistan. When State Department protests to the Afghan Foreign
Ministry were ignored, the u.s. dramatically reduced its humanitarian
assistance and all but essential usaid and embassy personnel were with-
drawn. The u.s. ambassador was not replaced, though a chargé d’affaires
remained behind. A few months later President Carter gave the green
light to the cia to supply medicines and communications equipment to
the Peshawar Islamists.
Meanwhile internally the uneasy alliance between Khalq and Parcham
fell apart. In August 1978 President Taraki ordered the arrest of several
prominent Parchami ministers, accusing them of plotting a coup. The
head of Parcham, Babrak Karmal, however, evaded arrest, was given sanc-
tuary in the Soviet embassy and a few days later quietly shipped out to
Czechoslovakia. On 29 March 1979 the 17th Infantry Division in Herat
mutinied and precipitated a popular uprising that led to the slaughter of
hundreds of pro-government supporters, Soviet advisers and their families.
President Taraki frantically telephoned the Soviet Premier, Alexei Kosygin,
to plead for the intervention of Soviet ground forces to retake the city, but
the request was refused. 35 Instead, Moscow airlifted weapons and heavy
armour into the Shindand airbase and sent Ilyushin jets to bomb rebel pos -
itions, causing the deaths of thousands of civilians and seriously damaging