Word: babrak
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Kabul is waiting for something to happen-riots, guerrilla action, a tightening of curfew, the replacement of Moscow's puppet party boss Babrak Karmal, army or police mutiny, perhaps an even more overt Soviet takeover. However ill founded, however paranoid, the constant rumors have a reality of their own in shaping the war psychosis of the occupied city. The men seen in the streets with guns, the façade of power, are Afghans. The real occupiers, the Soviets, are invisible, except for their helicopters, the jet contrails, the daily barrage of Pravda-phrased media propaganda, the Cyrillic script...
...puppet government of Babrak Karmal, which the U.S.S.R. had forcibly installed at the time of the Christmas invasion, appeared to be on the verge of collapse. It was not only shown up as ineffective, it was practically invisible as well. A proclamation that imposed martial law on Kabul effectively gave ultimate civil as well as military authority to Moscow's army commander. With this tacit admission by the Soviets that they were the only real authority in the country, some diplomatic observers predicted they might also soon do away altogether with the fiction of an indigenous government and replace...
...Soviets inherited a demoralized, poorly trained, desertion-prone Afghan army that has no stomach or heart for fighting the Muslim insurgents. Meanwhile, the rebels show no sign of melting away before the overwhelming firepower of Soviet tanks, artillery and supersonic fighter-bombers. The Moscow-installed government of President Babrak Karmal already appears to be as discredited as Nguyen Van Thieu ever was in Saigon. Even the explanations for the invasion that Soviet officials are giving out in Moscow have a lamely defensive, Viet Nam-era ring: "We had no choice. We had to live up to our commitments...
...floundering Kabul government of Party Boss Babrak Karmal was ordered to clamp martial law and a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the capital. Soviet troop reinforcements were rushed into the city to put down growing disturbances. Nonetheless, firefights that caused at least 50 casualties broke out in several parts of the city. As rebel leaders threatened to mount a full-scale attack on Kabul in March, intelligence officials in Washington could scarcely contain their glee at the Soviets' discomfiture. Said one defense analyst: "They've really got their feet in the quagmire...
...only in the mountain passes but also reportedly in Kabul and other cities. There were unconfirmed rumors from the Afghan capital of widespread looting by Soviet troops, and even of gunfights involving Cabinet members in the government of national unity named by the U.S.S.R.'s puppet strongman, Babrak Karmal. The wildest story was that Karmal had been deposed in favor of former Secret Police Chief Assadullah Sarwari, a hard-line Stalinist...