Babrak Karmal Rashid Dostum and possibly helped remove the Najibullah government from power in 1992. He eventually left Afghanistan again for Moscow. Not long after, in 1996, Karmal died from liver cancer. Karmal was born Sultan Hussein on 6 January 1929, was the son of Muhammad Hussein Hashem, a Major General in the Afghan Army and former governor of the province of Paktia, and was the second of five siblings. His family was one of the wealthier families in Kabul. His ethnic background is disputed, some claim that he was Tajik who represented himself as a Ghilzai Pashtun but others claim that
Babrak Karmal in the pre-communist administration of Muhammad Daoud Khan, decreased, turning negative by 1982 at 70.3 million $US. The only economic activity which grew substantially during Karmal's rule was export and import. Karmal observed in the spring of 1983 that without Soviet intervention, "It is unknown what the destiny of the Afghan Revolution would be ... We are realists and we clearly realize that in store for us yet lie trials and deprivations, losses and difficulties." Two weeks before this statement Sultan Ali Keshtmand, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, lamented the fact that half the schools and three-quarters of