been brought by the KGB to Moscow. The two men discussed ways of restoring party unity and getting rid of Amin. News of this meeting apparently leaked to Amin, perhaps through Major Tarun.
That evening, at his lodging on the Lenin Hills overlooking Moscow, Taraki met Alexander Petrov, a KGB officer who had previously worked in Afghanistan. Petrov warned him that Amin was plotting against him. Taraki replied, ‘Don’t worry. Tell the Soviet leadership that for the time being I am in complete control of the situation, and that nothing happens without my knowing about it.’7 He repeated this optimistic assurance to Brezhnev as he left Moscow for the onward flight to Kabul.
The Russians were by no means so sure. That same night, Colonel Kolesnik (a code name adopted for the purpose of this operation: his real name was Kozlov), the GRU staff officer who was later to plan and direct the storming of Amin’s palace in Kabul, briefed Major Khalbaev, the commander of the Muslim Battalion, to join his men in Tashkent and prepare them to fly to Kabul to protect Taraki. He showed Khalbaev a picture of Taraki and said, ‘The order to protect that man comes straight from Brezhnev himself. If he dies, then you and your battalion had better not come back alive.’ The men of the Muslim Battalion were ordered to hand in all their documents and don Afghan uniform, ready to move at a moment’s notice. But Andropov was already considering various covert ways of removing Amin, including kidnapping him and taking him to the Soviet Union. He persuaded Brezhnev and Taraki that the Muslim Battalion should stay where it was, at least for the time being.
On 11 September Taraki flew back to Kabul. Amin had already begun to take his own measures. Taraki’s aircraft was made to circle over Kabul for a whole hour while Colonel Yakub, the Chief of the General Staff, completely revised the security arrangements to ensure that they were under the control of Amin’s men.8 As soon as he had landed, Taraki demanded that Amin tell him what had happened to the four ministers, the Gang of Four. ‘Don’t worry, they’re all safe and well,’ replied Amin. The two men then drove together to the Central Committee in town, where Taraki reported on his trip to Havana.
The next morning the row over the four ministers continued. Amin claimed that the four men had been behind an attempt to assassinate him while Taraki was away. They should be sacked and punished. Taraki asked Amin to accept their apologies, then reinstate them. Amin retorted that if the ministers did not go he would refuse to follow any of Taraki’s further instructions.
Meanwhile the four ousted ministers were operating out of the presidential palace, Abdur Rahman’s Arg, which the Communists had renamed the House of the People. Watanjar rang round all the commanders of the Kabul garrison to find out which of them was loyal to Taraki. They immediately reported these approaches to Colonel Yakub, who told Amin. Gulabzoi suggested to Taraki that he ask for the Soviet battalion stationed in Bagram to be sent to Kabul to guard him. Taraki told him that was unnecessary. The quarrel had been settled. In any case it was inappropriate for him to hide behind Soviet bayonets.9 Gulabzoi told him that there had been a shoot-out that morning at the Ministry of Security when Amin’s men had come to arrest Sarwari. Two people had been killed. Gulabzoi again asked Taraki to act. Again Taraki calmed him down, saying all was going according to plan. Tarun faithfully reported these goings-on to Amin.
By now the Russians were getting far more deeply involved, though this brought them no greater influence on events. On the evening of 13 September the four ousted ministers came to the Soviet Embassy. In the name of Taraki they asked for Soviet help to arrest Amin. Less than two hours later, Tarun rang from the palace to say that Amin had arrived there. He and Taraki were both asking the Russians to join them.
The Russians judged that the situation had become critical. ‘The possibility that H [Hafizullah] Amin might order the military units loyal to him to take up arms against Taraki,’ they later telegraphed to Moscow, ‘could not be excluded. Both groups were trying to enlist our support. For our part we were sticking firmly to the line that the situation in the leadership must be normalised along party lines, i.e. collectively. At the same time we were trying to restrain both groups from acting in haste and without thinking.’10
Hoping they might calm things down, Puzanov and his three senior colleagues went to the palace. Taraki and Amin were waiting for them. The Russians read out another appeal for unity from Brezhnev. Taraki welcomed the appeal in fulsome terms. Amin followed suit, asserting in even more sycophantic language that he was honoured to serve under Taraki: if service to Taraki and the revolution required his own death, he would be happy to make the sacrifice.11 The four Russians left, satisfied by the appearance of reconciliation.
Later they heard (and reported to Moscow—incorrectly) that Amin and Taraki had reached some agreement. They did not know the details. But they congratulated themselves that their visit, and the appeal from Comrade Brezhnev, had calmed things down: ‘Amin did not resort to extreme actions, as he was convinced that the Soviet side would not support any actions which might aggravate the situation in the Afghan leadership and work against the unity of the PDPA.’12 This massive misjudgement was a measure of how far the Soviet representatives were out of touch with what was actually going on.
The following morning Puzanov and his three senior colleagues called on Taraki once again. At last Taraki spoke openly about his difficulties with Amin. Dmitri Ryurikov, a Soviet diplomat acting as Puzanov’s executive assistant and interpreter, recorded the conversation in the diary he was keeping for his ambassador.
‘I noticed long ago,’ Taraki told the Russians, ‘that Amin has the tendency to concentrate power in his own hands but I did not attach any particular significance to this. However, recently this tendency has become dangerous.’ He went on to complain about Amin’s refusal to accept criticism, the way he was building up his own public position, the authoritarian way he treated his ministers, and the way he had placed his relatives in key government and party posts. ‘One family is ruling the country just as it was in the times of the King and Daud.’
Reversing the assurances he had given to Brezhnev, Taraki now confessed that he had had doubts about Amin even before he left for Havana. Since his return Sarwari had informed him of three separate conspiracies launched by Amin, who had aborted them once he realised that they had been uncovered.
He went on to tell the Russians that his talks with Amin the previous day had not (as they had thought) resulted in agreement. Amin had again demanded that the four ministers be sacked. Taraki had accused Amin of persecuting them and forcing them into hiding. He, Taraki, was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and Amin must obey his orders. Amin had smiled and said that, on the contrary, it was he who commanded the troops. Now, said Taraki, open conflict could not be ruled out. He was prepared to go on working with Amin, but only if Amin abandoned his present policies of repression.
The Russians suggested that Amin be invited to join the discussions, and Taraki telephoned him accordingly. As they were waiting, the KGB representative, General Boris Ivanov, remarked that there were persistent rumours of a plot to kill Amin when he got to the palace. Taraki pooh-poohed the idea.
Taraki’s aide Tarun then went out to meet Amin. A few minutes later, there was a burst of automatic fire on the other side of the door. Gorelov went to the window and saw Amin running towards his car. There was blood on the sleeve of his shirt.
Ryurikov was sent out to see what had happened. Tarun was lying halfway down the stairs. He had bullet wounds in his head and chest. A sub-machine gun was lying on the floor. There was still gun smoke in the stairwell. Taraki’s wife was there too: she had come out of the bedroom to see what was going on.
Taraki’s bodyguard came in and reported with a crisp military salute that, when Amin had begun to walk up the staircase, Tarun had told Taraki’s guards to leave and threatened them with his pistol. When they refused he fired at one of them and they killed him immediately.
Taraki then rang Amin to tell him that what had happened was the result of a misunderstanding with the guards. But after he put the receiver down he told the Russians that it had been a deliberate provocation. He agreed that the Russians should go to see Amin straight away.
All the Afghans involved in the shoot-out on the staircase died then or soon afterwards. None of the Russians actually saw what happened. This has left room for two alternative explanations. The first is that it was a put-up job by Amin designed to give him the excuse to arrest Taraki. The second is that there really was an attempt to get rid of Amin that went wrong. Ryurikov later inclined to the former view: assassination was not Taraki’s style, whereas Amin came from a family which was notorious for the bloody way in which it conducted its feuds and its political intrigues.13
Amin himself fled to the Ministry of Defence, and ordered his troops to surround the Palace, disarm the guard, and arrest Taraki. Two hours later Kabul Radio announced that Taraki and the four ministers had been relieved of their posts. That night many of Taraki’s people were arrested and some were shot, including the two guards who had opened fire on Amin. Taraki told his wife that Amin would not touch him: the Soviet comrades would not allow Amin to make a fool of himself. But the couple were soon taken under guard to a room in a smaller building within the palace complex. The room had not been used for some time and was thick with dust. Taraki
