The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

inciting uprising. Strange. So why were there no provocations? Perhaps that was notDaoud’s game after all. Perhaps there is another, more powerful, more insidious, unseenforce that is interested in the collapse of the PDPA and the cooling of Afghan-Sovietrelations? Of course, Daoud seems to be quite an independent and self-sustaining figure tomany, but who knows what’s really going on behind the curtain? Something is not right.Something is obviously not right.”Time passed, one hour after another. Morning followed night and day followedmorning. Karmal sensed that something very important was taking place beyond the prisonwalls. Some events were unfolding which he was powerless to influence. He heard therumble of passing tanks, followed by the sounds of shooting. What began as single shotsescalated into a continuous cannonade. The customary city noise changed dramatically.Peddlers stopped shouting, taxis stopped honking, the noises of pedestrian activity ceased.“What is happening? ‘Mirab * has become the prisoner of the flow,’” Karmal remembered apoem he had heard from someone or read somewhere.Suddenly he heard the quick shuffle of army boots, gruff military commands, and thejingle of keys in the prison corridor behind his door. It was about 5 p.m. when the cell doorswung open and a major wearing a black jumpsuit, a tank helmet, and equipped with aKalashnikov entered his cell and happily proclaimed that Comrade Babrak was free.“What’s happening?” Karmal asked the officer.“Revolution!” he responded heatedly.“And Taraki? What happened with Taraki?”“He and Comrade Amin, like you, were just freed from prison.”* Mirab: a person responsible for distributing water for irrigation.77