The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

loyal to his military oath and Daoud as everybody else in the building, but now everythinghad changed. Now he was on the other side of the barricade.But, if all went according to Qadir’s plan, the tanks currently driving towards the citywould soon arrive and begin firing at headquarters, precisely at the offices of the seniorstaff. Just at that moment Musa Khan called Qadir to his office. Qadir became nervous. Hereported the president’s order to the general, and told him that he had already ordered thepilots from Bagram to take off. He then urged the general to go down to the first floor forsafety. The elderly commander didn’t entirely understand Qadir’s intentions, but hecomplied. Just as they hurried downstairs, an armored vehicle began firing upon thecompound, blasting large-caliber machine gun rounds—first through the second floorwindows, then the first floor windows. A piece of shattered glass cut Qadir’s forehead.“You are under arrest, Mr. General,” Qadir informed the frightened commander. “Sitquietly; someone will be here shortly to escort you into custody.”Qadir himself went back upstairs to his office and began calling the Bagram Air Base.When he recalled those hours later, Qadir could not understand one thing: why didall of his attempts to contact the military detachments fail? He had been using the secretpasswords given to him by Amin, but there was no response. Where had the plan gonewrong?“I only started to understand the problem later,” Qadir told us. “It turns out Amingave the password ‘Helmand’ and the response ‘River’ to one party, and the password‘Flood’ and response ‘Hurricane’ to another party. The first group turned out to be theKhalqi officers who were the closest to him. The second party was also composed of theKhalqi, but they were not as close to him. The Parchamis in the party didn’t even know45