Babrak Karmal he descended from Hindu ancestors of Kashmir. In 1986, Karmal announced that he, and his brother Mahmud Baryalay, were Pashtun because their mother came from the Mullakhel branch of the Pashtuns. However, this was controversial, considering that lineage in Afghanistan is supposed to be traced through the father, not the mother. The accusation that he was of Indian Muslim ancestry comes from the fact that his birthname, Sultan Hussein, is a common Indian Muslim name. In addition, Karmal's own father denied his own ethnicity; Karmal's father was a Tajik. To further confuse the matter, Karmal spoke Dari (Persian) and not
Babrak Karmal Karmal's succession; a GRU report noted that the majority of the PDPA leadership would support Assadullah Sarwari's ascension to leadership. According to the GRU, Sarwari was a better candidate as he could balance between the Pashtuns, Tajiks and Uzbeks; Najibullah was a Pashtun nationalist. Another viable candidate was Abdul Qadir, who had been a participant in the Saur Revolution. Najibullah was appointed to the PDPA Secretariat in November 1985. During Karmal's March 1986 visit to the Soviet Union, the Soviets tried to persuade Karmal that he was too ill to govern, and that he should resign. This backfired, as a