Mohammad Najibullah

4th General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan

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Lived 1947–1996, aged 49

Wikipedia
60 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1947–1996
Aged 49
Known for
The Forbidden Reel
2020

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

He ran Afghanistan's secret police with brutal efficiency, then tried to hold the country together as the Soviets pulled out and the mujahideen closed in. When his government collapsed in 1992, he couldn't escape Kabul — four years later, the Taliban dragged him from UN shelter and killed him.

Biography

About

Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai was a Kabul University graduate who rose through the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan after the 1978 Saur Revolution, spending time as ambassador to Iran before returning when the Soviets installed Babrak Karmal. As head of KHAD, the Afghan equivalent of the KGB, he built one of the most brutally efficient security apparatuses in the country — work that caught Moscow's attention and earned him a seat in the PDPA Politburo by 1981. Mikhail Gorbachev installed him as General Secretary in 1986, and he became president the following year, inheriting a civil war…

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