The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

People’s Palace, where a joint meeting of the Central Committee, Revolutionary Council,and the government was to take place. Taraki and Amin drove in the same car.But what happened that day at the Kabul airport? Why had Amin been so late? Whydid Taraki’s plane spend so much time circling above the Afghan capital? The answers tothese questions only emerged with time.It turned out that the prime minister had been warned that a group of speciallytrained officers, allies of the “rebellious four,” would attempt to assassinate him upon hisappearance at the airport. It is difficult to gauge how credible the threat was, but Aminordered those loyal to him to conduct a thorough search of the airport facilities and replacethe guards on the highway leading from the airport to downtown Kabul. Anyone wholooked even remotely suspicious was to be detained, searched, and arrested without delayand until further notice. The process had to happen carefully and inconspicuously, so as notto arouse undue suspicion or rumor. Amin stayed in his residence until he was assured thatthe airport and highway were under the full control of his trusted forces. When he receivedconfirmation, he got into an unremarkable Volkswagen and drove himself to the airport tomeet his “favorite teacher,” without any guards.Earlier, a similar threat directed at Taraki had appeared on the desk of the head ofsecurity services, Assadullah Sarwari. Sarwari’s agents in Amin’s entourage reported thatthe plane with Taraki on board would be hit during its landing by a surface-to-air missilefired by an air defense force unit guarding the airport. Sarwari immediately sent operativesto each site that could pose a potential threat. He replaced the radio-locationcommunications operators on duty and removed almost all the officers who had been incharge of artillery units stationed around the airport. Only when he was completely516