Babrak Karmal Babrak Karmal Babrak Karmal (Dari/, born Sultan Hussein; 6 January 1929 – 1 or 3 December 1996) was an Afghan politician who was installed as President of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union when they invaded in 1979. Karmal was born in Kamari and educated at Kabul University. When the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was formed, Karmal became one of its leading members, having been introduced to Marxism by Mir Akbar Khyber during his imprisonment for activities deemed too radical by the government. He eventually became the leader of the Parcham faction when the PDPA split in 1967, with
1981 in Afghanistan and consumer goods. According to UN statistics, 1.7 million Afghans have so far fled to Pakistan and some 400,000 to Iran in order to escape the strife in their country. President Karmal gives up the post of prime minister; he is succeeded in that position on June 11 by Sultan Ali Keshtmand, another trusted member of the Parcham faction of the PDPA. Keshtmand is also put in direct charge of the National Patriotic Front, set up in December 1980 with the intention of rallying the people behind Karmal's Marxist revolutionary government. Karmal announces a new set of proposals for negotiations