Strange bedfellows in Afghanistan

http://countrystudies.us/afghanistan/116.htm

Hekmatyar further alienated his colleagues by his involvement in an attempt at a coup against Najibullah's government in March of 1990. It was led by Defense Minister Shah Nawaz Tanai, a Khalqi. Hekmatyar's forces were to attack Kabul simultaneously. The plot misfired because of faulty communications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnawaz_Tanai#Coup_of_March.2C_1990

In March 1990, when the trial of the Khalqi officers was about to start, Tanai launched a coup with the help of renegade mujahideen commander, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, against the then President Mohammad Najibullah. He stated that he didn't disagree with President Najibullah's views, but rather with his policy on the military.
Najibullah was transferring all the privileges of the Army to the tribal militias and in particular to his special guard. I was against this because the Afghan Army was losing efficiency. Hekmatyar ordered his fighters to intensify their attacks against the Kabul regime in support of Tanai. The success of the coup was taken for granted.
The Pakistan government's involvement in this abortive affair was transparently obvious. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's plea to the other six party leaders to aid Tanai and Hekmatyar was rebuked as a disgrace to the jihad. Most of the factions viewed Gral. Tanai as an opportunistic war criminal and hardline communist who had been responsible for the carpet-bombing of portions of the major western city of Herat in March 1979.
The expected uprising by Afghan Army didn't take place: Tanai had no direct control of troops inside Kabul. He ordered air strikes against government buildings (Air Force Commander Abdul Qadir Aqa was an accomplice who also later fled to Pakistan). The plot misfired and failed because of faulty communications.
President Najibulllad appeared on TV at 10 p.m. the same night to prove that he was physically there and in effective control of the state apparatus. The President gathered the support of important Parchami militias, including the elite Special Guard to defuse the plot.
Tanai was apparently also supported by those important Khalqis who remained in the Politburo, Assadullah Sarwary and Mohammad Gulabzoi, respectively their country's envoys to Aden and Moscow, were said to have been intimately connected with the coup and with Gral Tanai.


So WI if this ad hoc alliance of hardliners in both the PDPA and the mujahideen had managed to take over Kabul?
 
Given how Hekmatyar represented the most extreme of the mujahadeen (his were the sort who would throw acid in the faces of women who wouldn't wear the veil) and this other fellow the most ruthless of the Communists, once they'd taken power, how long could they cooperate?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend is something that oftentimes lasts only as long as "my enemy" is there.
 
Given how Hekmatyar represented the most extreme of the mujahadeen (his were the sort who would throw acid in the faces of women who wouldn't wear the veil) and this other fellow the most ruthless of the Communists, once they'd taken power, how long could they cooperate?

Not for long. The question is who'd win the subsequent power struggle. Khalq was dominant in the armed forces (at least before those officers were arrested) while Hekmatyar's group was Pakistan's favorite.
 
If the the coup wins I don't think that the Khalq faction would last long, the USSR was nearing it's desintegration,and I doubt that either Pakistan or Iran want the semi-stalinist Khalq faction back in power.
 
If the the coup wins I don't think that the Khalq faction would last long, the USSR was nearing it's desintegration,and I doubt that either Pakistan or Iran want the semi-stalinist Khalq faction back in power.

Of course Khalq was on its way out along with the entire PDPA. But that's in the longer term. The question is whether Hezbi Islami or however the hell you spell it will defeat them now or if they secure power long enough to see Yeltsin cut off supplies. Unless the changed situation leads Gorbachev to do it himself - the Soviets had invaded in 1979, after all, because the then-ruling Khalq was incompetent at home and unreliable abroad - in which case my money's on Hekmatyar.
 
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