AFGHANISTAN: Steel Fist in Kabul

A Soviet coup overthrows Amin and sets a fearsome precedent

It was the most brutal blow from the Soviet Union's steel fist since the Red Army's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. In a lightning series of events last week, Afghanistan's President Hafizullah Amin was overthrown, and subsequently executed, in a ruthless coup mounted by the Soviet Union and carried out with the firepower of Soviet combat troops. In Amin's place, Moscow installed Babrak Karmal, a former Deputy Prime Minister long considered to be a Soviet protégé, but not before Russian troops were forced...

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