KHAD
Encyclopedia
Khadamat-e Etela'at-e Dawlati (Dari
'خدمات اطلاعات دولتی') translates directly to English
as: "Government Information Agency". However, this phrase is more correctly translated as Government Intelligence Service. Khadamat-e Etela'at-e Dawlati, almost always known by its acronym KHAD (or KhAD), is the main security agency
and intelligence agency
of Afghanistan
, and also served as the secret police
during the Soviet
occupation. Successor to AGSA (Department for Safeguarding the Interests of Afghanistan) and KAM, KHAD was nominally part of the Afghan state, but it was firmly under the control of the Soviet
KGB
until 1989. In January 1986 its status was upgraded and it was thereafter officially known as the "Ministry of State Security"(Wizarat-i Amaniyyat-i Dawlati, or WAD).
After the December 1979 Soviet invasion, KAM was renamed and came under the control of the KGB. This was an agency specifically created for the suppression of the Democratic Republic's internal opponents. However, KHAD has continued to operate after the fall of the Soviet backed government in 1992 and acted as the intelligence arm of the United Front
or "Northern Alliance" during the Civil war in Afghanistan (1996–2001).
.
Its importance to Moscow
was reflected in the fact that it was chiefly responsible for the training of a new generation of Afghans who could be loyal to the Soviet Union. Another important area was work with tribes and ethnic minorities. KHAD collaborated with the Ministry of Nationalities and Tribal Affairs to foster support for the regime in the countryside. KHAD also directed its attention to Afghanistan's Hindu
and Sikh
religious minorities
KHAD was also responsible for co-opting religious leaders. It funded an official body known as the Religious Affairs Directorate and recruited pro-regime ulama
and mosque
attendants to spy on worshipers.
Some sources give 60 percent of the PDPA party membership as belonging to the armed forces, Sarandoy
, or KHAD.
, until he became President of Afghanistan
in 1986. Najibullah and other high officials were Parcham
is. As head of the KHAD apparatus, Najibullah was also extremely powerful.
Consequently, KHAD evolved into a Parchami stronghold, equally zealous in the suppression of enemies of the revolution. Thus, KHAD was zealous in suppressing Khalq
is in the government and in the armed forces.
There was a bitter rivalry between Najibullah and Sayed Muhammad Gulabzoi. Gulabzoi, a Khalq sympathizer, was Minister of the Interior and commander of Sarandoy ("Defenders of the Revolution"), the national gendarmerie
. Gulabzoi was one of the few prominent Khalqis remaining in office in a Parcham-dominated regime.
In late 1985, Najibullah was promoted to be a secretary on the PDPA Central Committee; in this capacity he may be able to exercise party authority over all security organs, including those attached to the Khalq-dominated defense and interior ministries. It was assumed to be a reward for the efficiency and ruthlessness of the secret police, which was in sharp contrast to the performance of the poorly trained and demoralized armed forces.
KHAD reportedly had some success in penetrating the leadership councils of several resistance groups, most of which were headquartered in Pakistan
. By the mid-1980s KHAD had gained a fearsome reputation as the eyes, ears, and scourge of the regime. Its influence was pervasive and its methods lawless. KHAD's activities reached beyond the borders of Afghanistan to neighboring Pakistan and Iran
.
On January 29, 1981 its headquarters in Kabul were attacked and destroyed by mujahideen
troops.
After establishment of Karzai government in 2001, KHAD was reestablished and Gen. Arif of the Northern Alliance became its chief. KHAD was directly controlled by the defense minister Mohammed Fahim
, who previously controlled it from 1992 until the Taliban took Kabul in 1996. There are some complains that KHAD was used as a tool against opponents by the Northern Alliance.
abuses in the mid-1980s. These included the use of torture
, the use of predetermined "show trial
s" to dispose of political prisoners, and widespread arbitrary arrest and detention. Secret trials and the execution of prisoners without trial were also common.
It was especially active and aggressive in the urban centers, especially in Kabul. Organizations such as Amnesty International
continued to publish detailed reports of KHAD's use of torture and of inhumane conditions in the country's prisons and jails.
KHAD also operated eight detention centers in the capital, which were located at KHAD headquarters, at the Ministry of the Interior headquarters, and at a location known as the Central Interrogation Office. The most notorious of the Communist-run detention centers was Pul-e-Charkhi prison
, where 27,000 political prisoners is thought to be murdered
. Recently mass grave
s of executed prisoners have been uncovered dating back to the Soviet era.
On 29 February 2000, when The Netherlands had no diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a disputed report on the involvement of the KHAD in the human rights abuses, partly based on secret sources, allegedly biased political sycophants from the side of the Taliban and the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI
. Some of its conclusions were already published in the Dutch press before the official publication of the full report. This report, quoted frequently in the cases of Afghan asylum seekers to support the exclusion ground of article 1F of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
in the national refugee policy of the Netherlands, was also published in an English translation on 26 April 2001. In 2008 another report on this matter was published by the UNHCR. In this report some conclusions of the Dutch report were contested.
On October 14, 2005, the District Court in the Hague convicted two high-ranking KhAD officers who sought asylum in the Netherlands in the 1990s. Hesamuddin Hesam and Habibullah Jalalzoy were found guilty of complicity to torture and violations of the laws and customs of war, committed in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Hesam was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. He was the head of the military intelligence service, the KhAD-e-Nezamy and deputy minister of the Ministry of State Security (WAD). Jalalzoy was the head of the unit investigations and interrogations within the military intelligence of the KhAD. He was sentenced to 9 years imprisonment. On January 29, 2007, the Dutch appeal court upheld the sentences. The judgements were confirmed by the Dutch Supreme Court on July 10, 2008.
On June 25, 2007, the District Court in the Hague acquitted another senior KhAD officer. General Abdullah Faqirzada was one of the deputy heads of the KhAD-e-Nezamy from 1980 until 1987. Although the court held it plausible that Faqirzada was closely involved with the human rights abuses in the military branche of the KhAD, it concluded there was no evidence for his individual involvement nor his command responsibility
for the specific crimes the charge was based upon. On July 16, 2009, the Dutch appeal court upheld the acquittal.
Pashto language
Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...
'خدمات اطلاعات دولتی') translates directly to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as: "Government Information Agency". However, this phrase is more correctly translated as Government Intelligence Service. Khadamat-e Etela'at-e Dawlati, almost always known by its acronym KHAD (or KhAD), is the main security agency
Security agency
A security agency is a governmental organization which conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies...
and intelligence agency
Intelligence agency
An intelligence agency is a governmental agency that is devoted to information gathering for purposes of national security and defence. Means of information gathering may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public...
of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, and also served as the secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
during the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
occupation. Successor to AGSA (Department for Safeguarding the Interests of Afghanistan) and KAM, KHAD was nominally part of the Afghan state, but it was firmly under the control of the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
until 1989. In January 1986 its status was upgraded and it was thereafter officially known as the "Ministry of State Security"(Wizarat-i Amaniyyat-i Dawlati, or WAD).
After the December 1979 Soviet invasion, KAM was renamed and came under the control of the KGB. This was an agency specifically created for the suppression of the Democratic Republic's internal opponents. However, KHAD has continued to operate after the fall of the Soviet backed government in 1992 and acted as the intelligence arm of the United Front
United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan
The United Islamic Front , known in the West and Pakistan as the Northern Alliance, was a military-political umbrella organization created by the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 1996 under the leadership of Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud...
or "Northern Alliance" during the Civil war in Afghanistan (1996–2001).
Directors of KHAD and its predecessors
| No. | Organization | Director | Took office | Left office | Political party |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | AGSA | Assadullah Sarwari Assadullah Sarwari Assadullah Sarwari is an Afghan politician, who belongd to the Khalq faction of the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan.... |
April 1978 | September 1979 | PDPA People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a communist party established on the 1 January 1965. While a minority, the party helped former president of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, to overthrow his cousin, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and established Daoud's Republic of Afghanistan... - Khalq Khalq Khalq was a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Its historical leaders were Presidents Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin. It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by the same movement. It was supported by the USSR and was formed in 1965 when the PDPA was born... |
| 02 | KAM | Asadullah Amin | September 1979 | December 1979 | PDPA People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a communist party established on the 1 January 1965. While a minority, the party helped former president of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, to overthrow his cousin, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and established Daoud's Republic of Afghanistan... - Khalq Khalq Khalq was a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Its historical leaders were Presidents Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin. It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by the same movement. It was supported by the USSR and was formed in 1965 when the PDPA was born... |
| 03 | KhAD | Mohammad Najibullah Mohammad Najibullah Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai , originally merely Najibullah, was the fourth and last President of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is also considered the second President of the Republic of Afghanistan.-Early years:Najibullah was born in August 1947 to the Ahmadzai... |
January 1980 | May 1986 | PDPA People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a communist party established on the 1 January 1965. While a minority, the party helped former president of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, to overthrow his cousin, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and established Daoud's Republic of Afghanistan... - Parcham Parcham Parcham was the name of one of the factions of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The Parcham faction seized power in the country after toppling Hafizullah Amin.... |
| 04 | KhAD - WAD | Ghulam Faruq Yaqubi | May 1986 | April 1992 | PDPA People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was a communist party established on the 1 January 1965. While a minority, the party helped former president of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, to overthrow his cousin, Mohammed Zahir Shah, and established Daoud's Republic of Afghanistan... - Parcham Parcham Parcham was the name of one of the factions of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The Parcham faction seized power in the country after toppling Hafizullah Amin.... |
| 05 | KhAD | Mohammed Fahim Mohammed Fahim Mohammad Qasim Fahim is an Afghan military commander, politician and the First Vice President since November 2009. He was the Defense Minister of the Afghan Transitional Administration, beginning in 2002 and also served as Vice President from June 2002 to December 2004... |
April 1992 | December 2004 | United Front United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan The United Islamic Front , known in the West and Pakistan as the Northern Alliance, was a military-political umbrella organization created by the Islamic State of Afghanistan in 1996 under the leadership of Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud... |
Organization
Little is known of its internal organization and most of its records were either destroyed by the Taliban (along with its headquarters) or were taken to Moscow by the KGB (particularly ones which outlined membership, informants, and assignments with Soviet or KGB personnel) where they remain classified to this day. KHAD's system of informers and operatives extended into virtually every aspect of Afghan life, especially in the government-controlled urban areas. Aside from its secret police work, KHAD supervised ideological education at schools and colleges, ran a special school for war orphans, and recruited young men for the militiaMilitia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
.
Its importance to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
was reflected in the fact that it was chiefly responsible for the training of a new generation of Afghans who could be loyal to the Soviet Union. Another important area was work with tribes and ethnic minorities. KHAD collaborated with the Ministry of Nationalities and Tribal Affairs to foster support for the regime in the countryside. KHAD also directed its attention to Afghanistan's Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
and Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
religious minorities
KHAD was also responsible for co-opting religious leaders. It funded an official body known as the Religious Affairs Directorate and recruited pro-regime ulama
Ulema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
and mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
attendants to spy on worshipers.
Some sources give 60 percent of the PDPA party membership as belonging to the armed forces, Sarandoy
Sarandoy
The Sarandoy were a gendarme police force of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in the 1980s, during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. They were administered by the Ministry of the Interior, and led by Sayed Muhammad Gulabzoi...
, or KHAD.
Political factions
KHAD also had a political role that was clearly unintended by the Soviets. It was initially headed by Mohammad NajibullahMohammad Najibullah
Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai , originally merely Najibullah, was the fourth and last President of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He is also considered the second President of the Republic of Afghanistan.-Early years:Najibullah was born in August 1947 to the Ahmadzai...
, until he became President of Afghanistan
President of Afghanistan
Afghanistan has only been a republic between 1973 and 1992 and from 2001 onwards. Before 1973, it was a monarchy that was governed by a variety of kings, emirs or shahs...
in 1986. Najibullah and other high officials were Parcham
Parcham
Parcham was the name of one of the factions of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The Parcham faction seized power in the country after toppling Hafizullah Amin....
is. As head of the KHAD apparatus, Najibullah was also extremely powerful.
Consequently, KHAD evolved into a Parchami stronghold, equally zealous in the suppression of enemies of the revolution. Thus, KHAD was zealous in suppressing Khalq
Khalq
Khalq was a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. Its historical leaders were Presidents Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin. It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by the same movement. It was supported by the USSR and was formed in 1965 when the PDPA was born...
is in the government and in the armed forces.
There was a bitter rivalry between Najibullah and Sayed Muhammad Gulabzoi. Gulabzoi, a Khalq sympathizer, was Minister of the Interior and commander of Sarandoy ("Defenders of the Revolution"), the national gendarmerie
Gendarmerie
A gendarmerie or gendarmery is a military force charged with police duties among civilian populations. Members of such a force are typically called "gendarmes". The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary describes a gendarme as "a soldier who is employed on police duties" and a "gendarmery, -erie" as...
. Gulabzoi was one of the few prominent Khalqis remaining in office in a Parcham-dominated regime.
In late 1985, Najibullah was promoted to be a secretary on the PDPA Central Committee; in this capacity he may be able to exercise party authority over all security organs, including those attached to the Khalq-dominated defense and interior ministries. It was assumed to be a reward for the efficiency and ruthlessness of the secret police, which was in sharp contrast to the performance of the poorly trained and demoralized armed forces.
Involvement in the civil war
In the mid-1980s, KHAD enjoyed a formidable measure of autonomy in relation to other Afghan state institutions.KHAD reportedly had some success in penetrating the leadership councils of several resistance groups, most of which were headquartered in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. By the mid-1980s KHAD had gained a fearsome reputation as the eyes, ears, and scourge of the regime. Its influence was pervasive and its methods lawless. KHAD's activities reached beyond the borders of Afghanistan to neighboring Pakistan and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
.
On January 29, 1981 its headquarters in Kabul were attacked and destroyed by mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
troops.
After establishment of Karzai government in 2001, KHAD was reestablished and Gen. Arif of the Northern Alliance became its chief. KHAD was directly controlled by the defense minister Mohammed Fahim
Mohammed Fahim
Mohammad Qasim Fahim is an Afghan military commander, politician and the First Vice President since November 2009. He was the Defense Minister of the Afghan Transitional Administration, beginning in 2002 and also served as Vice President from June 2002 to December 2004...
, who previously controlled it from 1992 until the Taliban took Kabul in 1996. There are some complains that KHAD was used as a tool against opponents by the Northern Alliance.
Human rights abuses
KHAD was also accused of human rightsHuman rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
abuses in the mid-1980s. These included the use of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, the use of predetermined "show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
s" to dispose of political prisoners, and widespread arbitrary arrest and detention. Secret trials and the execution of prisoners without trial were also common.
It was especially active and aggressive in the urban centers, especially in Kabul. Organizations such as Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
continued to publish detailed reports of KHAD's use of torture and of inhumane conditions in the country's prisons and jails.
KHAD also operated eight detention centers in the capital, which were located at KHAD headquarters, at the Ministry of the Interior headquarters, and at a location known as the Central Interrogation Office. The most notorious of the Communist-run detention centers was Pul-e-Charkhi prison
Pul-e-Charkhi prison
Pul-e-Charkhi , also known as Afghan National Detention Facility, is the largest prison in Afghanistan east of Kabul. Construction of the jail began in the 1970s by order of former president Mohammed Daoud Khan and was completed during the 1980s...
, where 27,000 political prisoners is thought to be murdered
Democide
Democide is a term revived and redefined by the political scientist R. J. Rummel as "the murder of any person or people by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder." Rummel created the term as an extended concept to include forms of government murder that are not covered by the...
. Recently mass grave
Mass grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple number of human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. There is no strict definition of the minimum number of bodies required to constitute a mass grave, although the United Nations defines a mass grave as a burial site which...
s of executed prisoners have been uncovered dating back to the Soviet era.
On 29 February 2000, when The Netherlands had no diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a disputed report on the involvement of the KHAD in the human rights abuses, partly based on secret sources, allegedly biased political sycophants from the side of the Taliban and the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
. Some of its conclusions were already published in the Dutch press before the official publication of the full report. This report, quoted frequently in the cases of Afghan asylum seekers to support the exclusion ground of article 1F of the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
The United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees is an international convention that defines who is a refugee, and sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum and the responsibilities of nations that grant asylum. The Convention also sets out which people do not...
in the national refugee policy of the Netherlands, was also published in an English translation on 26 April 2001. In 2008 another report on this matter was published by the UNHCR. In this report some conclusions of the Dutch report were contested.
On October 14, 2005, the District Court in the Hague convicted two high-ranking KhAD officers who sought asylum in the Netherlands in the 1990s. Hesamuddin Hesam and Habibullah Jalalzoy were found guilty of complicity to torture and violations of the laws and customs of war, committed in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Hesam was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. He was the head of the military intelligence service, the KhAD-e-Nezamy and deputy minister of the Ministry of State Security (WAD). Jalalzoy was the head of the unit investigations and interrogations within the military intelligence of the KhAD. He was sentenced to 9 years imprisonment. On January 29, 2007, the Dutch appeal court upheld the sentences. The judgements were confirmed by the Dutch Supreme Court on July 10, 2008.
On June 25, 2007, the District Court in the Hague acquitted another senior KhAD officer. General Abdullah Faqirzada was one of the deputy heads of the KhAD-e-Nezamy from 1980 until 1987. Although the court held it plausible that Faqirzada was closely involved with the human rights abuses in the military branche of the KhAD, it concluded there was no evidence for his individual involvement nor his command responsibility
Command responsibility
Command responsibility, sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard, and also known as superior responsibility, is the doctrine of hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes....
for the specific crimes the charge was based upon. On July 16, 2009, the Dutch appeal court upheld the acquittal.