Najibullah

1947 - 1996

President of Afghanistan from 1986 to 1992.

Najibullah was born in Kabul in 1947 into an Ahmadzai family of the Gilzai Pushtuns. He was educated at Habibia High School and studied medicine at Kabul University, graduating in 1975. He was active in politics at a young age and was a founding member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in 1965. When the PDPA split in 1967, he and Babrak Karmal became the leaders of the Parcham faction. After the Saur Revolution in 1978 Najibullah was named ambassador to Iran in an effort by the Khalq faction to send the Parchamis out of the country. He returned to Kabul in 1980, when Babrak Karmal was named president, and was made president of the Afghan secret police, Khad. In 1986 he became secretary-general of the PDPA and president of Afghanistan.

Najibullah was a powerful and ruthless leader, the strongest and most capable of the four PDPA presidents. He made a number of attempts to reunite the country and to subdue the Islamic resistance by modifying the Marxist ideology of the PDPA, by moving the country away from socialism, and by restoring the role of religion. However, he was unable to overcome the PDPA's initial mistakes or to make himself acceptable to the mojahedin. In 1992, three years after the departure of the Soviet military, his government collapsed, and he fled to the United Nations compound in Kabul, where he sought sanctuary.

In September 1996 the Taliban captured Kabul. One of their first acts was to storm the United Nations compound, where they shot and killed Najibullah and his brother. His body was hung on a lamppost on the streets of Kabul.

Bibliography

Adamec, Ludwig. Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, 2d edition. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997.

Ewans, Martin. Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

— GRANT FARR