The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

an armed uprising against the regime. I invited you here in order to develop the plan forsuch an uprising.”Qadir spent the following days developing the plan: How many tanks would beneeded to storm the presidential palace, the Ministry of Defense, the airports, and otherimportant sites, as well as to block the main roads? Who of Daoud’s allies should bearrested prior to the uprising, and who should be executed right away? He considered howto organize communications between the rebellious military detachments. Watanjar hadpromised to allocate at least twenty tanks and twenty armored vehicles in the first hours ofthe revolution. The colonel thought that it would be a sufficient number to guaranteesuccess. He knew that their force would increase as other military and artillerydetachments were captured. Qadir was not concerned about aviation. That was under hiscontrol.One issue that did greatly concern this professional plotter was the integrity of theKhalq-Parcham alliance. He had not seen a single Parchami at the military meetingsplanning the coup, and all the secret orders to the army had been given exclusively to Khalqfaction members. Qadir guessed that Amin either didn’t trust the Parchamis or wanted toreap the benefits of the situation for himself.Events were developing rapidly. The party’s favorite, Khyber, was murdered. Hisfuneral procession was transformed into mass demonstrations. Daoud used thedemonstrations as an excuse to arrest the key leaders of the PDPA. For some reason Aminwas the last to be imprisoned. Before his arrest, he managed to send an oral message toQadir to begin the military uprising the next day at 8 a.m.When Qadir, groggy and irritated after a sleepless night, entered the headquarters43