54 Facts About Mohammad Najibullah

Mohammad Najibullah was the General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan from 1986 to 1992.

Mohammad Najibullah was sent into exile as Ambassador to Iran during Hafizullah Amin's rise to power.

Mohammad Najibullah returned to Afghanistan following the Soviet intervention which toppled Amin's rule and placed Babrak Karmal as head of the state, the party and the government.

Mohammad Najibullah was a member of the Parcham faction led by Karmal.

In 1985, Mohammad Najibullah stepped down as the state security minister to focus on PDPA politics; he had been appointed to the PDPA Secretariat.

Mohammad Najibullah accused Karmal of trying to wreck his policy of National Reconciliation, a series of efforts by Mohammad Najibullah to end the conflict.

Mohammad Najibullah remained open to dialogue with the mujahideen and other groups, made Islam an official religion, and invited exiled businessmen back to re-take their properties.

Mohammad Najibullah was born on 6 August 1947 in the city of Gardez in the Paktia Province of the Kingdom of Afghanistan.

Mohammad Najibullah belonged to the Ahmadzai clan of the Ghilji tribe of Pashtuns.

Mohammad Najibullah was educated at Habibia High School in Kabul, at St Joseph's Higher Secondary School in Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir, India, and at Kabul University where he began studying in 1964 and completed his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 1975; however, he never practiced medicine.

In 1965, during his study in Kabul, Mohammad Najibullah joined the Parcham faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and was twice imprisoned for political activities.

Mohammad Najibullah served as Babrak Karmal's close associate and bodyguard during the latter's tenure in the lower house of parliament.

In 1980, Mohammad Najibullah was appointed the head of KHAD, the Afghan equivalent to the Soviet KGB, and was promoted to the rank of Major General.

Mohammad Najibullah was appointed following lobbying from the Soviets, including Yuri Andropov, then KGB Chairman.

Mohammad Najibullah reported directly to the Soviet KGB, and a big part of KHAD's budget came from the Soviet Union itself.

Mohammad Najibullah was appointed to the PDPA Secretariat in November 1985.

Mohammad Najibullah succeeded Karmal as PDPA General Secretary on 4 May 1986 at the 18th PDPA meeting, but Karmal still retained his post as Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council.

When Mohammad Najibullah took the office of PDPA General Secretary, Karmal still had enough support in the party to disgrace Mohammad Najibullah.

Karmal went as far as to spread rumours that Mohammad Najibullah's rule was little more than an interregnum, and that he would soon be reappointed to the general secretaryship.

The Soviet leadership wanted to ease Karmal out of politics, but when Mohammad Najibullah began to complain that he was hampering his plans of National Reconciliation, the Soviet Politburo decided to remove Karmal; this motion was supported by Andrei Gromyko, Yuli Vorontsov, Eduard Shevardnadze, Anatoly Dobrynin and Viktor Chebrikov.

The reason for this move, according to Mohammad Najibullah, was the need for real-power sharing.

Mohammad Najibullah stated that only the extremist part of the opposition could not join the planned coalition government.

Several figures of the intelligentsia took Mohammad Najibullah's offer seriously, even if they sympathised or were against the regime.

Mohammad Najibullah reassured the inter-party opposition that he would not give up the gains of the Saur Revolution, but to the contrary, preserve them, not give up the PDPA's monopoly on power, or to collaborate with reactionary Mullahs.

In 1992, Mohammad Najibullah appealed to the United States to help Afghanistan become a bulwark against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism.

Mohammad Najibullah encouraged the development of the private sector in industry.

The only means of survival seemed to Mohammad Najibullah was to retain the Soviet presence.

Mohammad Najibullah repeated his claims that his government could not survive if Ahmad Shah Massoud remained alive.

Gorbachev called an emergency session of the Politburo to discuss his proposal, but Mohammad Najibullah's request was rejected.

From 1989 to 1990, the Mohammad Najibullah government was partially successful in building up the Afghan defence forces.

Momin had developed secret ties with the Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud and was passing on secret information to Massoud which led to Mohammad Najibullah ordering the sacking of Momin which was carried out by Juma Achak, an Achakzai Pashtun who served as Commander of the Northern Zone and was known to hold Pashtun chauvinist views.

On 18 March 1992 Mohammad Najibullah offered to resign, leading to many Pashtun Khalqist and Mohammad Najibullah loyalists to ally with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin in order to prevent non Pashtuns from seizing Kabul.

Not long before Kabul's fall, Mohammad Najibullah appealed to the UN for protection after his guards fled, which was rejected.

India refused to let him take refuge at the Indian embassy in Afghanistan as it risked creating "subcontinental rivalries" and reprisals against Kabul's Indian community, arguing that Mohammad Najibullah would be far safer at the UN compound.

In 1994, India sent senior diplomat M K Bhadrakumar to Kabul to hold talks with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the defence minister, to consolidate relations with the Afghan authorities, reopen the embassy, and allow Najibullah to fly to India, but Massoud refused.

Bhadrakumar wrote in 2016 that he believed Massoud did not want Mohammad Najibullah to leave as Massoud could strategically make use of him, and that Massoud "probably harboured hopes of a co-habitation with Najib somewhere in the womb of time because that extraordinary Afghan politician was a strategic asset to have by his side".

The reasons for his refusal might have been that unlike other members of the former regime, Mohammad Najibullah had not been granted amnesty by the Islamic State of Afghanistan.

Mohammad Najibullah was at the UN compound when unknown soldiers came for him on the evening of 26 September 1996.

Mohammad Najibullah was abducted from UN custody, and shot in the head.

Mohammad Najibullah made it clear that he would never allow Taliban forces to kill former President Najibullah.

News of Mohammad Najibullah's murder was greeted with widespread international condemnation, particularly from the Muslim world.

The United Nations issued a statement which condemned the killing of Mohammad Najibullah, and claimed that it would further destabilise Afghanistan.

Mohammad Najibullah is a very popular figure amongst Pashtun Nationalists many of whom view his fall as the biggest blow to the Pashtun Nationalist Movement.

The fall of Mohammad Najibullah was considered by Afghan Mellat Wakman faction leader Anwar ul-Haq Ahady as "the end of Pashtun dominance in Afghan politics".

Mohammad Najibullah is often referred to as a communist by some; however, his rule from 1987 to 1992 was marked with a shift away from communism towards Islamic socialism and a mixed economy.

In terms of policy, Mohammad Najibullah can be best compared to Daoud Khan, who ruled the Republic of Afghanistan before the PDPA took power in 1978.

Mohammad Najibullah's government featured many former ministers of the Daoud Khan government.

Mohammad Najibullah was in support of restoration of the monarchy to some capacity, he restored Zahir Shah's citizenship and actively encouraged Zahir Shah to take part in negotiations, Mohammad Najibullah's wife Fatana Najib is related to former Afghan King Amanaullah.

Mohammad Najibullah was a Pashtun Nationalist being hailed as the first Afghan leader to speak Pashto at the UN General Assembly and having Afghan Cosmonaut Abdul Ahad Momand making Pashto the 4th language spoken in space under his leadership.

Mohammad Najibullah often questioning the legitimacy of Pakistan's existence claiming it was "born out of British colonialism".

Mohammad Najibullah whose father was a Pashtun Nationalist, had strong ties to the Pashtun Nationalist community in the Pashtun majority North West Frontier province.

Mohammad Najibullah was present during the funeral for Pashtun Nationalist leader Abdul Ghaffar who was granted military honors.

Mohammad Najibullah attempted to hand over the control of non Pashtun ethnic militias to Pashtun leaders as he had grown to distrust many northern militias such as Abdul Rashid Dostum's Uzbek militia which had committed atrocities and started to open channels with Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Mohammad Najibullah was married on 1 September 1974 to Fatana Najib, principal of the Peace School whom he met when she was an eighth-grade student and he was her science tutor.