Word: karmal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...insurgents' main advantage is a moral and spiritual one. The vast majority of Aghanistan's 14 million to 18 million people are devout Muslims. The Soviet invaders are widely resented, even despised, as godless interlopers, and consequently so is their principal Afghan standin, Karmal. The President probably has the support of no more than 10% of the population. "The people question his legitimacy and view him as an atheist who has sold himself completely to the Soviet Union," said a senior Western diplomat in Kabul. "Karmal's No. 1 problem is to get some political support from...
...national unity" government that Karmal unveiled last week was obviously designed to extend his narrow base. For the first time since Noor Mohammed Taraki's Marxist coup in 1978, the 20-member Cabinet includes three politicians from outside the card-carrying ranks of the ruling Communist People's Democratic Party, as well as five senior military officers. Four of the officers were also named to the seven-member Praesidium, the main executive body. The government grandly announced the disbanding of the dread KAM secret police, which it said Hafizullah Amin had used for "his own criminal ends...
...effort to ingratiate himself with the Muslim majority, Karmal also tried to give his government an Islamic coloration. Official broadcasts over the government-controlled radio were preceded by the traditional invocation to "God, the compassionate, the merciful." The ruling party called for religious ceremonies to mark a national day of mourning for victims of the Amin regime...
...service to Islam became a main theme in Karmal's diplomatic overtures toward Iran. He fired off a telegram to "Gracious Brother, Most Reverend Imam," the Ayatullah Khomeini. Karmal's message almost reverently appealed for an Afghan-Iranian revolutionary entente based on "Islamic brotherhood" and a shared hostility toward "American world imperialism-the No. 1 irreconcilable enemy of all the people of the world." Karmal promised that his government "will never allow anybody to use our soil as a base against Islamic revolution in Iran"-adding that "we expect our Iranian brethren to resume a reciprocal stance...
...cuts through lands occupied by the rebellious Baluch peoples, who live astride Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Baluchis, who have long yearned for autonomy, might welcome a Soviet-inspired Afghan invading force that would promise to honor the Baluchis' "legitimate aspirations" -as Afghanistan's new President, Babrak Karmal, has vowed to do. A friendly regime in a breakaway Baluchistan would give the Soviets an outlet to the Arabian Sea at the port of Gwadar and, from there, access to the Persian Gulf. "If I were a Russian," General Fazal told Carrington, "I would take the soft underbelly...