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Time - Man of the Year
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1992-09-10
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THE WEEK, Page 16WORLDThe Ox Is Gored In Afghanistan
Najibullah flees as rebels seize a key air base
President Najibullah beat the odds for three years after
Soviet troops quit Afghanistan, but as rebel mujahedin scored one
strategic triumph after another, his time finally ran out. The
forces of the most powerful Islamic fundamentalist commander,
Ahmad Shah Massoud, faced little government resistance and
captured the regime's air base at Bagram, 40 miles north of
Kabul, and two key garrisons guarding northern approaches to the
capital. The gains put in serious jeopardy a U.N.-brokered peace
process that would finally end Afghanistan's 14-year-old civil
war.
A shrewd politician, the burly Najibullah -- known as "the
ox" to his countrymen -- headed the secret police before the
Soviets, who saw him as a likely guarantor of communist rule,
put him in power in 1986. Najibullah had defied just about
everyone's expectation when his regime survived the 1989
withdrawal of Soviet military forces and fought the mujahedin
to a standstill. But he remained heavily dependent on financial
and military aid from Moscow; when the disintegrating Soviet
Union and the U.S. agreed last year to end all support for their
Afghan clients -- Washington having backed the mujahedin -- the
President knew his days were numbered.
With the rebels closing in, Najibullah hastily resigned
and tried to flee to New Delhi. But by that time he was too
late. The Kabul airport was already under the control of forces
loyal to a new military council composed of regime generals, who
appeared to be in charge. Najibullah was believed to have taken
sanctuary at U.N. offices in Kabul. U.N. envoy to Afghanistan
Benon Sevan, meanwhile, was still trying to arrange for a 15-man
interim council acceptable to all parties. His task was hampered
by the age-old ethnic tensions that have surfaced and was
likely to be overtaken by the rebels' military momentum.