The first event to signal the eventual overthrow of the
Afghan government came on the night of July 17, 1973.
Something roared like thunder. The earth shook a
little and we heard the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire... A siren went
off in the distance. Somewhere glass shattered and someone
shouted.
It was the first
night of the "bloodless coup" by Prince Mohammed Daoud Khan, who had overthrown the
government of his cousin, King Zahir Shah, who was away in Italy. Rather than name
himself Shah, Daoud instead made himself President of Afghanistan, and he declared
the nation a democracy. Daoud allied himself with the Russians, who supplied Afghanistan
with advanced weapons for years. In 1977, Daoud attempted to disassociate his nation
with the USSR, angering Soviet officials. Daoud was assassinated on April 28, 1978, the
day after a coup d'tat by Russian-backed Afghan rebels. The new rebel government
announced that Daoud had resigned, but his body was eventually found in a mass grave
near Kabul in June 2008.
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