Mohammed Daoud Khan

Born into the Afghan royal family and addressed by the prefix "Sardar", Khan started as a provincial governor and later a military officer before being appointed as prime minister by his cousin, King Mohammad Zahir Shah, serving for a decade. Having failed to persuade the King to implement a one-party system, Khan overthrew the monarchy in a virtually bloodless coup with the backing of Afghan Army officers, and proclaimed himself the first president of the Republic of Afghanistan, establishing an autocratic one-party system under his National Revolutionary Party.

Khan was known for his autocratic rule, social reforms. Under his regime, he headed a purge of communists in the government, and many of his policies also displeased religious conservatives and liberals who were in favor of restoring the multiparty system that existed under the monarchy. Social and economic reforms implemented under his ruling were successful, but his foreign policy led to tense relations with neighboring countries. In 1978, he was deposed and assassinated during the 1978 Afghan coup d'état, led by the Afghan military and the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). His body was discovered 30 years later and was identified by a small golden Quran gifted by King Khalid of Saudi Arabia he always carried. He received a state funeral. As commander, he led Afghan forces against the Safi during the Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947, and thereby came to national attention. Daoud's military victories contributed to his rise to power, including his later assumption of the office of prime minister.

From 1946 to 1948, he served as Defense Minister, then Interior Minister from 1949 to 1951. In 1948, he served as Afghan Ambassador to France.

In 1951, he was promoted to General and served in that capacity as Commander of the Central Corps of the Afghan Armed Forces in Kabul from 1951 to 1953.

Royal Prime Minister

Khan was appointed prime minister in September 1953 through an intra-family transfer of power, replacing Shah Mahmud Khan. His ten-year tenure was noted for his foreign policy turn to the Soviet Union, the completion of the Helmand Valley project, which dramatically improved living conditions in southwestern Afghanistan, as well as tentative steps towards the emancipation of women, giving women a higher public presence, which led to significant amounts of freedom and educational opportunities for them.

With the creation of an independent Pakistan in August 1947, Prime Minister Daoud Khan had rejected the Durand Line, which had been accepted as international border by successive Afghan governments for over a half a century. Khan supported a nationalistic reunification of the Pakistani Pashtun people with Afghanistan, but this would have involved taking a considerable amount of territory from the new nation of Pakistan and was in direct opposition to an older plan of the 1940s whereby a confederation between the two countries was proposed. The move further worried the non-Pashtun populations of Afghanistan such as the minority Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek, who suspected his intention was to increase the Pashtuns' disproportionate hold on political power. Moreover, Daoud Khan's project for the reunification of the Pashtun people failed to gain support from the majority of Pashtuns in Pakistan.

In 1960, Khan sent troops across the poorly-marked Durand Line into the Bajaur Agency of Pakistan in an attempt to manipulate events in that area and to press the Pashtunistan issue, but the Afghan forces were defeated by the Pashtun Tribal militias. During this period, the propaganda war from Afghanistan, carried on by radio, was relentless. In 1961, Daoud Khan made another attempt to invade Bajaur with larger Afghan army this time. However, Pakistan employed F-86 Sabres jets which inflicted heavy casualties against the Afghan army unit and the tribesmen from Kunar province who were supporting the Afghan army. Several Afghan soldiers were also captured and were paraded in front of international media, which in turn caused embarrassment for Daoud Khan. He was succeeded by Mohammad Yusuf.

In 1964, King Zahir Shah introduced a new constitution, for the first time excluding all members of the royal family from the Council of Ministers. Khan had already stepped down. In addition to having been prime minister, he had also held the portfolios of Minister of Defense and Minister of Planning until 1963.

Presidency and death

Daoud Khan visiting National Iranian Radio and Television in Iran, c. 1974. Khan was unsatisfied with King Zahir Shah's constitutional parliamentary system and lack of progress. He planned rebellion for more than a year before he seized power from the King on 17 July 1973. The coup was bloodless, and backed by a large number of army officers who were loyal to him, facing no resistance. Departing from tradition, and for the first time in Afghan history, he did not proclaim himself Shah, establishing instead a republic with himself as president. The role of pro-communist Parchamite officers in the coup led to him receiving the nickname "Red Prince" by some.

Although he was close to the Soviet Union during his prime ministership, Khan continued the Afghan policy of non-alignment with the Cold War superpowers. Nor did he bring drastic pro-Soviet change to the economic system.

A coup against Khan, which may have been planned before he took power, was repressed shortly after his seizure of power. In October 1973, Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal, a former prime minister and a highly respected former diplomat, was arrested in a coup plot and died in prison before his trial set for December 1973. This was at a time when Parchamites controlled the Ministry of Interior under circumstances corroborating the widespread belief that he had been tortured to death by the leftists. According to one account, Daoud Khan planned to appoint Maiwandwal as prime minister, leading to the Parchamite Minister of Interior, Faiz Mohammad, along with fellow communists, framing Maiwandwal in a coup plot, then torturing him to death without Daoud Khan's knowledge. Louis Dupree wrote that Maiwandwal, one of few Afghan politicians with an international reputation, could have been a leader in a democratic process and therefore a target for communists. One of the army generals arrested under suspicion of this plot with Maiwandwal was Mohammed Asif Safi, who was later released. Khan personally apologized to him for the arrest.

In 1974, he signed one of two economic packages that aimed to greatly increase the capability of the Afghan military. At this time, there were increasing concerns that Afghanistan lacked a modern army comparable to the militaries of Iran and Pakistan.

In 1975, his government nationalized all banks in Afghanistan, including Da Afghanistan Bank, Afghanistan's central bank.

Khan wanted to lessen the country's dependence on the Soviet Union and attempted to promote a new foreign policy. In 1975 he visited some countries in the Middle East, including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, all of which were anti-Soviet states, He also visited India. The 130 passengers of PIA B707 had deplaned before the explosion took place and thus no one was harmed in the explosion inside the aircraft.

At the same time, Afghanistan also faced several short lived uprisings in retaliation in eastern Afghanistan and in Panjshir valley, which Afghanistan blamed on Pakistan. There was also deployment of additional troops by both the countries along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union

Khan met Leonid Brezhnev on a state visit to Moscow from 12 to 15 April 1977. He had asked for a private meeting with the Soviet leader to discuss with him the increased pattern of Soviet actions in Afghanistan. In particular, he discussed the intensified Soviet attempt to unite the two factions of the Afghan communist parties, Parcham and Khalq. Brezhnev described Afghanistan's non-alignment as important to the USSR and essential to the promotion of peace in Asia, and warned him about the presence of experts from NATO countries stationed in the northern parts of Afghanistan. Daoud bluntly replied:"we will never allow you to dictate to us how to run our country and whom to employ in Afghanistan. How and where we employ the foreign experts will remain the exclusive prerogative of the Afghan state. Afghanistan shall remain poor, if necessary, but free in its acts and decisions"

After returning to Afghanistan, he made plans that his government would downscale its relationship with the Soviet Union, and instead forge closer contacts with the West as well as the oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Iran. Afghanistan signed a co-operative military treaty with Egypt and by 1977, the Afghan military and police force were being trained by Egyptian Armed Forces. This angered the Soviet Union because Egypt took the same route in 1974 in distancing itself from the Soviet Union.

Communist coup and assassination

After the murder of Mir Akbar Khyber, the prominent Parchamite ideologue, his funeral on 19 April 1978 served as a rallying point for the Afghan communists. An estimated 1,000 to 3,000 people gathered to hear speeches by PDPA leaders such as Nur Muhammad Taraki, Hafizullah Amin and Babrak Karmal.

Shocked by this demonstration of communist unity, Khan ordered the arrest of the PDPA leaders, but he acted too slowly. It took him a week to arrest Taraki, Karmal managed to escape to the USSR, and Amin was merely placed under house arrest. Khan had misjudged the situation and believed that Karmal's Parcham faction was the main communist threat. In fact, according to PDPA documents, Amin's Khalq faction had extensively infiltrated the military and they outnumbered Parcham cells by a factor of 2 to 3. Amin sent complete orders for the coup from his home while it was under armed guard, using his family members as messengers.

The army had been put on alert on 26 April because of a presumed coup. On 27 April 1978, a coup d'état, beginning with troop movements at the military base at Kabul International Airport, gained ground slowly over the next twenty-four hours as rebels battled units loyal to Daoud Khan in and around the capital.

Khan and most of his family were shot dead during the coup by members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) inside the Gulkhana Palace of the Arg . The coup climaxed in the Arg, the former chief royal palace, during the early hours of 28 April 1978, Shortly afterwards, the new military leaders announced that Khan had been killed for refusing to pledge allegiance to the new regime by Lieutenant Imamuddin of the 444th Commando Battalion. Upon Daoud's assassination, Afghan singer Fazal Ghani wrote the song "Khalqi Nizam" which mocked the former president for his baldness and for being "finished with one strike", which was aired on Radio Television Afghanistan.

Body and state funeral On 28 June 2008, his body and those of his family were found in two separate mass graves outside the walls of Pul-e-Charkhi prison, District 12 of Kabul city. Initial reports indicate that sixteen corpses were in one grave and twelve in the other.

On 17 March 2009, General Daoud was given a state funeral. His only surviving child, Dorkhanai, attended the funeral.

Daoud and following family members that were killed on the same day on 28 April 1978 are buried at an incomplete hilltop tomb located 2.5 km west of Darul Aman Palace, Kabul. Some Afghans fondly consider him to be the best leader their country has had in modern times. During his regime, all significant positions in the government, army and educational institutions were held by Pashtuns. His attempt at the Pashtunisation of Afghanistan reached such an extent that the word 'Afghan' started being used to refer only to Pashtuns and not to the other minority groups who collectively formed a majority in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Armed Forces were allied with Daoud Khan and supported his goal of promoting Pashtuns to higher posts in the Afghan Armed Forces. In 1963, Afghan Uzbeks were barred from becoming high-ranking officers in the Afghan armed forces. Similarly only a few Tajiks were allowed to hold the position of officer in the Afghan army, while other ethnicities were excluded from those positions, despite making up more than 50% of the Royal Afghan Army's personnel.

Daoud Khan viewed the Afghan armed forces as a crucial vector in the Pashtunisation of Afghan state. The Panjshir uprising in 1975 is also believed to be result of anti-Pashtun frustration which had been building up in Panjshir valley as result of Daoud Khan's policies.

Personal life

In September 1934, Daoud Khan married his cousin, Princess Zamina Begum (11 January 1917 – 28 April 1978), sister of King Zahir (15 October 1914 – 23 July 2007). The couple had four sons and four daughters: 1. Zarlasht Daoud Khan (1953 – k. 1978) 2. Khalid Daoud Khan (1947 – k. 1978). Had a son: Tariq Daoud Khan 3. Wais Daoud Khan (1947 – k. 1978). Had four children: Turan Daoud Khan (1972–) Ares Daoud Khan (1973 – k. 1978) Waygal Daoud Khan (1976 – k. 1978) Zahra Khanum (1970–) 4. Muhammad Umar Daoud Khan (1934 – k. 1978). Had two daughters: Hila Khanum (1961 – k. 1978) Ghazala Khanum (1964 – k. 1978) 5. Dorkhanai Begum 6. Shinkay Begum (1940 – k. 1978). Had two daughters: Ariane Heila Khanum Ghazi (1961–) Hawa Khanum Ghazi (1963–) 7. Torpekay Begum. Had three children: Shah Mahmud Khan Ghazi Daud Khan Ghazi Zahra Khanum Ghazi

Ancestry