Shahnavaz Tanay ( Pashto شهنواز تڼی ; born 1950 , Paktiya Province ) - Afghan statesman and military leader, Minister of Defense of Afghanistan ( 1988 - 1990 ). A career officer, he attempted a military coup against President Najibullah , which was crushed by government forces.
| Shahnavaz Tanay | |
|---|---|
| Pashto شهنواز تڼی | |
| Date of Birth | 1950 |
| Place of Birth | Host County, Paktia , Kingdom of Afghanistan  |
| Affiliation |  Afghanistan |
| Type of army | Airborne |
| Rank | Colonel General |
| Commanded |
|
| Battles / wars | Saurian revolution Afghan war Civil War in Afghanistan |
Content
Biography
Army and Political Career
Shahnavaz Tanay was born in 1950 in the Khost district of Paktiya province into a Pashtun family from the Tanai Sinaki clan [1] . He graduated from the Kabul Military Lyceum and the Infantry Department of the capital's Higher Military School (Harby Pokhantun) [2] .
He joined the PDPA , was a member of the Hulk faction. He was an active participant in the Saur revolution on April 27, 1978 [1] . In the period from 1978 to 1980, he served as commander of a commando battalion [3] . In 1980, Tanay became the commander of the Central (1st) army corps, and in 1984 - the chief of the General Staff and simultaneously from May 22, 1986 was a member of the DRA Defense Council and the leader of the Defense Council’s operational group [1] . Since 1984, a member of the Central Committee of the PDPA, and since October 1987 - a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Party [2] . In 1988, Shahnavaz Tanay was appointed Minister of Defense of Afghanistan.
The Tanai Rebellion
In August 1989, an underground sabotage and terrorist organization and a conspiracy to overthrow the ruling power, in which army officers were involved, were discovered in Kabul. By the end of the year, 127 people were arrested, including several generals of the Afghan army. This caused a negative reaction from Tanay, who, one day, leaving the president’s cabinet, indignantly said: “This is a conspiracy against me personally and against the Halkists” [4] . He took refuge in the Ministry of Defense and, threatening to raise an army, demanded the release of the arrested generals. In the end, Najibullah freed four generals. However, the conflict between the Minister of Defense and the President was not settled on this.
On March 6, 1990, Shahnavaz Tanay led an armed rebellion against Najibullah. On the morning of this day, he and a group of officers and strong guards arrived at the Bagram airfield 50 km north of Kabul [5] . On its side were the 4th and 15th tank brigades, as well as the 52nd regiment of communications and the 40th division. The general personally ordered the bombing of Kabul [4] . Fierce battles between government forces and rebels unfolded in the area of the Ministry of Defense and around Bagram air base. As a result, government forces managed to crush the resistance of the coup. At 12.25 a.m. on March 7, Tanay, along with other rebellious generals and their families, flew from Bagram airfield to Pakistan, where he met with Pakistani Army Chief General Aslam Beg and Pakistani intelligence chief Shamsur Rahman Kallu, and one of the leaders of the armed Opposition Gulbeddin Hekmatyar [4] . The next day, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the PDPA, Tanay was removed from its members, and on March 18, the plenum of the Central Committee expelled him from the party [4] .
After the rebellion
After the failure of the Tanai mutiny, according to some reports, he commanded the IPA forces in Logar Province for some time, and according to others, in 1996 he participated in the planning and conduct of the Taliban military operations in Nangarhar and Herat . On September 27, 1996, the Taliban took Kabul and executed Najibullah and his brother, who took refuge in a UN mission after the fall of the PDPA regime in 1992. Russian expert on the history of Afghanistan Vladimir Plastun in his work “Najibullah. Afghanistan in the grip of geopolitics ”describes Tanay’s activities on the side of the Taliban after they occupied Kabul:
Numerous staffing officers of the Pakistani special services were pulled into Kabul, as well as a group of former Halkists who sided with D [Vision] T [Aliban], led by the already mentioned Sh. N. Tanay, who was involved in identifying, detaining and executing active participants in suppressing the coup attempt, as well as prominent supporters of Najibullah, who remained in the capital [6] .
There is information that in 2001 the United States considered Tanay, who was then in the Pakistani city of Peshawar , as one of the possible partners in the fight against the Taliban.
In 2005, Tanay lived in Pakistan in the city of Rawalpindi and announced his intention to return to Afghanistan and engage in political activities. In the same year, he led the political party Di Afghanistan Di Suli Gurzand Gund (Afghanistan Peace Movement), which took part in the parliamentary elections.
In 2007, a number of Afghan historians accused Tanay of involvement in the assassination of Najibullah, believing that it was the people who were faithful to Tanay who knew the capital streets well, unlike the Taliban fighters, who took Najibullah from the UN mission. Tanay himself has denied all these allegations [7] .
Tanay's personality
Specialist in the history of Afghanistan Mikhail Slinkin gives the following portrait of Tanay:
As his close friends and colleagues recognized, it surprisingly combined political illiteracy and outstanding military talent, decisiveness and adventurism, the courage of a military man and treachery in everyday life, a sense of camaraderie and hypertrophied arrogance, power loving and Bonapartist inclinations. Evil principles in his character and behavior prevailed significantly. Among the army cohort of convinced Halkists, he was certainly one of the most odious figures [2] .
General Mahmut Gareev , who was the head of the Soviet task force under President Najibullah, says:
In general, we must pay tribute to him: Tanay was an energetic, capable officer, a true military professional. He possessed a strong will, great capacity for work, and stood out among the Afghan officers for his organizational qualities. I first met him in the early 80s, when he was the commander of the 1st Army Corps, defending Kabul together with Soviet troops. Unlike many Afghan commanders, he was constantly in units subordinate to him, actively delving into their device and combat training. <...> Tanay’s weakness was his political limitation, which allowed some more experienced politicians to draw him into various dubious political intrigues. Sometimes he clashed with the president, his entourage, with ministers of other power structures on trifles and in general had a very inactive character [5] .
He also emphasizes:
He is small in stature, but physically strong and hardy, possessing good practical acumen. But the post of Minister of Defense is inevitably associated with participation in resolving military-political issues. And his ambitions far did not correspond to the level of his political development and thinking. He obviously lacked flexibility and maturity in political issues [8] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 TANAY Shah-Navaz (Russian) , The Personnel Base "Who is Who in Central Asia".
- ↑ 1 2 3 Slinkin M.F. . People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan in power. The time of Taraki-Amin (1978-1979) (1999.). Archived on September 30, 2007.
- ↑ Khristoforov V.S. Afghanistan. The ruling party and the army (1978-1989). - M .: Boundary, 2009. - S. 156. - ISBN 978-5-98759-052-2 BBK 66.3 (5Af) +68.48 (5Af) X 93.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Slinkin M.F. . AFGHANISTAN. PAGES OF HISTORY (80–90s of XX century) / Section 4. GENERAL rebellion Sh.N. TANAYA (2003). (inaccessible link)
- ↑ 1 2 Gareev M.A. Afghan suffering. - M .: Insan, 2002 .-- S. 137-142. - ISBN 5-85840-312-3 UDC 930.24 BBK 66.4 (0) G20.
- ↑ Plastun V.N., Andrianov V.V. . Najibullah. Afghanistan in the grip of geopolitics (1999.).
- ↑ A group of protesters demanded that Shahnavaz Tanay , the Afghanistan.Ru Information Portal, be brought to trial (May 7, 2009).
- ↑ Gareev M.A. Afghan suffering. - M .: Insan, 2002. - S. 261. - ISBN 5-85840-312-3 UDC 930.24 BBK 66.4 (0) G20.
Bibliography
- Afghanistan. A brief biographical guide. M., 2004.
- Korgun V.G. History of Afghanistan. XX century. M., 2004.S. 442.