The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

“A”—participated in the storming of the Tajbeg Palace. Paratroopers from the 103rdDivision, who had recently arrived by air from the Soviet Union, were en route to assistthem. Amin had no chance of survival.When the battle for the palace moved up to the second floor, Amin collected himself,rose from the bed, and, holding containers with saline solution, his veins still tapped bysyringes, walked out into the corridor. Alexeyev, a military physician, later recalled, “Hewas walking along the corridor in his underwear, holding bottles filled with saline solutionlike grenades, his body reflecting fire from the palace halls. His five-year-old son ran outfrom his room crying and pressed himself against Amin’s legs. They tried to hide behind thebar stand from the wall of fire, the very bar that Amin had been showing off to his guestsjust hours before. That’s where they were killed by grenade shrapnel.”In a few minutes, when the result of the battle was clear, a group consisting of twoSoviets and two Afghans * approached Amin’s lifeless body. They turned Amin onto hisback, compared him to a photograph, and, once they were sure of his identity, one of theAfghans shot the former leader and “commander” of the April Revolution at point blankrange.Colonel Kolesnik from GRU, who was in charge of the operation, and GeneralDrozdov from the KGB, who was in charge of the special forces, signed the identificationprotocol of Hafizullah Amin, after which the corpse was wrapped in a curtain, taken away,and buried near where the Muslim Battalion had been stationed. The bodies of his twosons, also victims of the assault, were buried nearby.* These Afghans were Sarwari and Gulabzoi, who participated in the operation of storming the palace. Theywere in the second echelon.717