1. Lieutenant General Shahnawaz Tanai was an Afghan military officer and politician who served as the Chief of General Staff of the Afghan Army during the Soviet-Afghan War until his defection to neighbouring Pakistan following a failed coup d'etat in 1990.
Shahnawaz Tanai was a hardline member of the Khalq faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and leader of at least the majority of the Khalqist faction since its former leader Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy was exiled as Ambassador to the Soviet Union as part of the political preparation of the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in September 1988.
Shahnawaz Tanai returned in 2005 and created a political party.
Shahnawaz Tanai was described as a "radical nationalist" who, despite being fiercely pro-Soviet, still maintained secret contacts with certain mujahideen members.
Shahnawaz Tanai was born in 1950 in Dargai village, located in Khost, Afghanistan to a poor ethnic Pashtun family, belonging to the Shahnawaz Tanai tribe.
Shahnawaz Tanai joined the Afghan Army in 1968 and served in its commando forces unit.
Shahnawaz Tanai received his military training in the Soviet Union where he first studied infantry tactics and later excelled in military leadership.
Shahnawaz Tanai survived through the years of bloodshed that followed during the Saur Revolution.
Shahnawaz Tanai was recognized as a hawk and a sworn enemy of the Mujahideen, and he even urged firing Scud missiles at Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, in retribution for their support for the Afghan mujahideen.
Shahnawaz Tanai sought a military solution to the Soviet-Afghan War, as opposed to the party's policy of national reconciliation.
Shahnawaz Tanai was a notable participant of the 1989 Battle of Jalalabad during the First Afghan Civil War.
On 6 March 1990, when the trial of army officers from the PDPA's Khalq faction was about to start, Shahnawaz Tanai launched a coup with the help of renegade mujahideen commander, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, against the then President Mohammad Najibullah.
Shahnawaz Tanai had secret sporadic contacts with the hardline Islamist Hekmatyar.
The expected uprising by the Afghan Army did not take place: Shahnawaz Tanai had no direct control of troops inside Kabul.
Shahnawaz Tanai escaped by helicopter to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he was greeted and publicly accepted as an ally by Hekmatyar.
Later it was alleged, but never proven, that Shahnawaz Tanai had assisted the Taliban, more specifically by providing the fundamentalist group with personnel from the disbanded Afghan Commando Forces, Afghan Army and KHAD.
Nonetheless, the Northern Alliance trumpeted the claim that Shahnawaz Tanai had supported the Taliban, although this was quite easily disproven, and their own ranks included former communist leaders like Abdul Rashid Dostum.
Shahnawaz Tanai was latterly the leader of the Afghanistan Peace Movement party.
Shahnawaz Tanai drove from Islamabad to the border town of Torkham, where he crossed over to Afghanistan to be warmly received by his supporters.
Shahnawaz Tanai was then escorted in a convoy of vehicles to Kabul, where he resided.
Shahnawaz Tanai did not stand as a presidential candidate in the 2004 elections, but his movement was enrolled as the 29th political party for the 2004 elections, and it was expected that his influence would bring back Afghan communists from Pakistan and elsewhere, where they had fled, to play a political role.
Shahnawaz Tanai campaigned for a bigger role for Pashtuns, former jihadi leaders and religious parties, and he openly criticised United States policies that perpetuated the Northern Alliance domination in Kabul.
Shahnawaz Tanai was accused of working for Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence.
Shahnawaz Tanai was considered a Pashtun nationalist, making him a liability to Pakistan.
On 7 March 2022, it was announced that Shahnawaz Tanai had died at the age of 72 in an Islamabad hospital.