when a regiment of the Soviet 105th Airborne Division, based in
Ferghana in the Turkestan Military District, was unexpectedly
instructed to begin training with newly mobilised motorised div-
isions (Bradsher, 1999: 89–90).
The Soviet 105th Airborne Division provided the spearhead for
the invasion. Directed from Termez in Uzbekistan by Soviet
Marshal Sergei L. Sokolov, its troops began to fly to the Bagram
Airbase, north of Kabul, from 29 November. Two weeks later it
had been joined by a substantial armoured unit. From 11 p.m. on
24 December, more of the 105th Airborne began to arrive at
Khwaja Rawash airport in Kabul, with Soviet Airborne troops also
flying to Bagram, to the Shindand base near Herat, and to
Kandahar. Troops of the 360th Motorised Infantry Division crossed
the Afghan border near Termez, and headed for Kabul. The crunch
came in Kabul on 27 December. While some accounts (for ex-
ample Dobbs, 1996: 18–19) paint Amin as craving Soviet assis-
tance, his relocation from the Arg to the Tajbeg Palace in southern
Kabul – almost as far from Kabul airport as one can go without
actually leaving the city – suggests otherwise. It was there that he
met his end. The elimination of Amin (‘Operation AGAT’) was the
responsibility of Department 8 of Directorate S of the First Chief
Directorate of the KGB. The Head of Department 8, Vladimir
Krasovskii, and of Directorate S, Vadim V. Kirpichenko, flew to
Kabul to supervise the operation, which was under the direct con-
trol of Krasovskii’s deputy, A. I. Lazarenko. According to
Kirpichenko, Ambassador Tabeev was not informed in advance of
the operation to eliminate Amin. The assault group which stormed
the Tajbeg Palace was led by Colonel Grigorii Boiarinov, who was
killed by forces loyal to Amin (Andrew and Mitrokhin, 1999:
389–91), but it succeeded in killing Amin and a number of his
relatives who were with him at the time. At about the time that this
was happening, an explosion knocked out the Kabul telephone sys-
tem, and at 8.45 p.m., a radio station in the USSR, transmitting on
the same frequency as Radio Kabul, overpowered its signal and
broadcast a recording in which Babrak Karmal announced the
overthrow of Amin. In this there was a rich irony, for during his
34 The Afghanistan Wars