Hafizullah Amin

August 1, 1929 – December 27, 1979

Afghan communist of the Khalq faction who ousted and killed Nur Muhammad Taraki in 1979 and was himself killed by Soviet troops when they invaded that December.

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Biography

Hafizullah Amin was born in 1929 in Paghman near Kabul to a Ghilzai Pashtun family. He studied mathematics at Kabul University, trained as a teacher and became principal of Kabul's Avesina High School. In 1957 he went to Columbia University's Teachers College, where he earned a master's degree in education and was drawn to Marxism; a second stay in the United States in the early 1960s ended without a doctorate.

Back in Afghanistan he joined the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and its Khalq faction, entered the party's central committee in 1966-67 and in 1969 became the only Khalqist elected to parliament. He was the chief organizer of the April 1978 Saur Revolution, which overthrew Mohammad Daoud Khan and brought the party to power.

Under Nur Muhammad Taraki he served as foreign minister, then prime minister and defence minister, and became the regime's strongman, overseeing the mass arrests and executions of its opponents. In September 1979 he ousted Taraki, had him killed, and took over as party leader and head of state.

His three months in power saw the revolt against the regime spread and relations with Moscow sour. On 27 December 1979 Soviet special forces stormed the Tajbeg Palace and killed him at the start of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.