AFGHAN LEADER QUITS TOP POST, MOSCOW REPORTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000705870003-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 7, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: May 5, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000705870003-5
ARTICLE NEW YORK TIMES
?CN PAGEA= 5 May 1986
Afghan Leader
Quits Top Post,
MoscowReports
By SERGE SCHMEMANN
Special to The New York Times
MOSCOW, May 4 - Babrak Karmal, '
installed as leader of Afghanistan when
Soviet troops moved into the country in
1979, resigned today and was replaced
by the former chief of the Afghan se-
cret police, the Soviet press agency
Tass announced.
Mr. Karmal, who is 57 years old, re-
signed for health reasons, the report
said. His replacement, Najibullah, who
has only one name. was described by
Tass as a "great friend of the Soviet
Union."
The resignation was not altogether
unexpected. Mr. Karmal had not been
seen in public since he left Afghanistan
on a little-publicized trip to the Soviet
Union on March 30, from which he re-
turned only last Thursday, having
missed the celebration April 27 of the
1978 Afghan revolution..- ---
There have been unconfirmed re-
ports that Mr. Karmal had been in
Moscow for treatment of a serious ill-
ness, possibly lung cancer or leukemia.
The report said Mr. Karmal resigned
as General Secretary of the ruling Peo-
ple's Democratic Party of Afghani-
stan, the name for the Afghan Commu-
nist Party.
Mr. Karmal is still a member of the
Politburo and the President of the Pre-
sidium of the Revolutionary Council, a
largely ceremonial post. Effective
leadership of the country has passed to
Mr. Najibullah, a 39-year-old former
medical student who headed the Khad
secret police until late last year, w
he was promoted to party secretary
charged with overall security.
As head of the secret police, Mr.
Najibullah is assumed to have worked
closely with the K.G.B. His promotion
to party secretary last December was
seen as a evidence that he was under
consideration for the top leadership. "
Western diplomats said Moscow may j
have hoped to present in Mr. Najibul-
lah a leader less directly associated in
the public eye with the Soviet move into
Afghanistan than Mr. Karmal, and
more capable of tackling the rivalries
in the ruling People's Democratic
Party of Afghanistan.
Speaks of Need for Unity
According to Tass, Mr. Najibullah
spoke in his acceptance speech of the
need for unity in party ranks. He also
pledged to strengthen friendship with
"the party of great Lenin, the heroic,
responsive and great-hearted Soviet
people," Tass said.
Western analysts say 115,000 Soviet
troops are in Afghanistan supporting
the Kabul Government in its fight
against insurgents.
The reports of today's Central Com-
mittee meeting suggested that Mr.
Karmal was not present. The chairman
of the meeting was the Prime Minister,
Sultan Ali Keshtmand, and Tass quoted
from a resignation statement that it
said Mr. Karmal wrote, indicating that
he did not read It.
Toss reported that Mr. Najibullah
and the Central Committee warmly
praised Mr. Karmal, indicating that he
was not leaving in disgrace. But even if
health was the major reason for his
resignation, there was evidence indi-
cating that Moscow welcomed his
departure.
A Snub From Gorbachev
At the Soviet Communist Party con-
gress earlier this year, Mr. Karmal's
request for a personal meeting with Mi-
khail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader,
was conspicuously denied. Last month,
the Russians warmly welcomed Prime
Minister Keshtmand to Moscow, men-
tioning Mr. Babrak only in passing.
The change of command was an-
nounced on the eve of a new round of in-
direct talks in Geneva between Af-
ghanistan and Pakistan. The "prox-
imity talks" have been held occasion-
ally since 1982 with the mediation of the
United Nations, because Pakistan has
refused to deal directly with a repre-
sentative of the Kabul Government,
which it does not recognize.
In recent months, Moscow has been
seeking to shape a more flexible image
in regard to the Afghan war. At the
Soviet party congress in February, Mr.
Gorbachev said the Soviet Union would
like to withdraw its forces from the
country "in the nearest future."
He said the Russians had agreed with
the Afghans on a schedule for a phased
withdrawal "as soon as a political set-
tlement is reached that will insure an
actual cessation and dependably guar-
antee the nonresumption of foreign
armed interference in the internal af-
fairs" of Afghanistan.
A Party Divided
The Russians have also speeded ef-
forts over the past year to quell faction-
alism in the ruling party, and to
broaden the base of the Government.
The party has long been torn between
the Parcham faction and the Khalq fac-
tion, most of whose members are from
Pashtun tribes. Mr. Karmal, who is not
a Pashtun, belongs to the Parcham fac-
tion. Mr. Najibullah is one of the few
Pashtuns in the Parcham faction.
Western iploma_tt_ agreed that the,
new leader's most important qualifica-
tion was probably his long leadership of
the __~+_ tenet entice. According to
Western experts Khad has wn con-
s@ era v un er B elan since
the Soviet intervention.
Mr. Najibullah's official biography
says he was born in 1947 to a white-col-
lar family and joined the Communist
Party in 1965, the year after he finished
high school. He studied in the medical
department of Kabul University, and
was twice jailed for revolutionary ac-
tivities before he graduated in 1975.
An early ally of Mr. Karmal, he be-
came a Central Committee member in
1975 and joined the Revolutionary
Council created after the April 1978
Communist takeover. He was sent to
Iran as ambassador, then thrown out of
the party for plotting against the Khalq
faction, which was then dominant. He
returned with the Soviet intervention in
1979, and took over khad.
Mr. Najibullah became a full mem-
ber of the Politburo in 1981. He is a lieu-
tenant-general of the army.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/07: CIA-RDP90-00965R000705870003-5