Editing Mohammad Daoud Khan (section)

=== Communist coup and assassination ===
{{Further|Saur Revolution}}
[[File:Day after Saur revolution in Kabul (773).jpg|thumb|250px|Outside the front gates of [[Arg (Kabul)|the Arg]] (the presidential palace, formerly the chief royal palace) in Kabul, the day after the [[Saur Revolution]] (28 April 1978)]]

After the murder of [[Mir Akbar Khyber]], the prominent [[Parcham|Parchamite]] ideologue, his funeral on 19 April 1978 served as a rallying point for the Afghan communists. An estimated 1,000 to 3,000 people gathered to hear speeches by PDPA leaders such as [[Nur Muhammad Taraki]], [[Hafizullah Amin]] and [[Babrak Karmal]].<ref>Ishiyama, John (2005). "The Sickle and the Minaret: Communist Successor Parties in Yemen and Afghanistan After the Cold War". ''Middle East Review of International Affairs''</ref>

Shocked by this demonstration of communist unity, Khan ordered the arrest of the PDPA leaders, but he acted too slowly. It took him a week to arrest Taraki, Karmal managed to escape to the [[USSR]], and Amin was merely placed under house arrest. Khan had misjudged the situation and believed that Karmal's Parcham faction was the main communist threat. In fact, according to PDPA documents, Amin's Khalq faction had extensively infiltrated the military and they outnumbered Parcham cells by a factor of 2 to 3. Amin sent complete orders for the coup from his home while it was under armed guard, using his family members as messengers.

The army had been put on alert on 26 April because of a presumed coup. On 27 April 1978, a [[coup d'état]], beginning with troop movements at the military base at [[Kabul International Airport]], gained ground slowly over the next twenty-four hours as rebels battled units loyal to Daoud Khan in and around the capital.

Khan and most of his family were [[assassinated]] during the coup by members of the [[People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan]] (PDPA). The coup climaxed in [[Arg (Kabul)|the Arg]], the former chief royal palace, during the early hours of 28 April 1978,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ghaus |first=Abdul Samad |url=https://archive.org/details/dli.pahar.3616 |title=The fall of Afghanistan: an insider's account |date=1988 |publisher=Pergamon-Brassey's Intern. Defense Publ |isbn=978-0-08-034701-1 |location=Washington |pages=200}}</ref> involving heavy fighting and many deaths.<ref>"There was, therefore, little to hinder the assault mounted by the rebel 4th Armored Brigade, led by Major Mohammad [[Aslam Watanjar]], who had also been prominent in Daoud's own coup five years before. Watanjar first secured the airport, where the other coup leader, Colonel Abdul Qadir, left by helicopter for the [[Bagram Airfield|Bagram air base]]. There he took charge and organized air strikes on the royal palace, where Daoud and the presidential guard were conducting a desperate defense. Fighting continued the whole day and into the night, when the defenders were finally overwhelmed. Daoud and almost all of his family members, including women and children, died in the fighting. Altogether there were possibly as many as two thousand fatalities, both military and civilian." p. 88 of Ewans, Martin (2002) ''Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics'' HarperCollins, New York, [https://books.google.com/books?id=rpS-j5uSetAC&pg=RA1-PA88&sig=QtdTpTnFrys0BuZxn37-RdB8QEU p. 88] {{ISBN|0-06-050507-9}}</ref> Shortly afterwards, the new military leaders announced that Khan had been killed for refusing to pledge allegiance to the new regime by Lieutenant Imamuddin of the 444th Commando Battalion.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/29/newsid_2970000/2970317.stm|title=1978: Afghan coup rebels claim victory|date=29 April 1978|via=news.bbc.co.uk}}</ref> Upon Daoud's assassination, Afghan singer Fazal Ghani wrote the song “[[Khalq]]i Nizam” which mocked the former president for his baldness and for being “finished with one strike”, which was aired on [[Radio Television Afghanistan]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-03-05 |title=Fazal Ghani (PDPA) Fazal ghani فضل غنی ورته وګنډی خراړی - video Dailymotion |url=https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2irr3e |access-date=2024-04-01 |website=Dailymotion |language=en}}</ref>