201st Corps (Afghanistan) Prime Minister of Afghanistan. His command has also been referred to as the Central Command and Central Forces. The Central Corps was headquartered at Amanullah's Darulaman Palace. On the opening day of Parliament in October 1965, a violent student demonstration among which Babrak Karmal was at the forefront forced Zahir Shah's new prime minister Yousef to resign. Two students were killed when the new corps commander, General Abdul Wali, sent in troops to restore order. In 1978 the corps consisted of the 7th and 8th Divisions, the Republican Guard Brigade, two commando regiments, the 4th and 15th Armoured Brigades, and
Babrak Karmal campaign for Karmal's dismissal, but Andrei Gromyko discussed the possibility of Karmal's resignation with Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1982. While it was Gorbachev who would dismiss Karmal, there may have been a consensus within the Soviet leadership in 1983 that Karmal should resign. Gorbachev's own plan was to replace Karmal with Mohammad Najibullah, who had joined the PDPA at its creation. Najibullah was thought highly of by Yuri Andropov, Boris Ponomarev and Dmitriy Ustinov, and negotiations for his succession may have started in 1983. Najibullah was not the Soviet leadership's only choice for