Babrak Karmal government. Mikhail Gorbachev, then General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, said, "The main reason that there has been no national consolidation so far is that Comrade Karmal is hoping to continue sitting in Kabul with our help." Karmal's position became less secure when the Soviet leadership began blaming him for the failures in Afghanistan. Gorbachev, worried over the situation, told the Soviet Politburo "If we don't change approaches [to evacuate Afghanistan], we will be fighting there for another 20 or 30 years." It is not clear when the Soviet leadership began to
Sultan Mohammed Ali al-Kitbi Sultan Mohammed Ali al-Kitbi Sultan Mohammed Ali al-Kitbi (1970, United Arab Emirates—14 December 2015, Taiz, Yemen) was a colonel of the United Arab Emirates Army who became one of the most senior officers killed during the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in the Yemeni civil war. He was also the highest ranking UAE officer to have been killed. In his legacy, the standard issue of the UAE armed forces rifle, the CAR 816, is named Caracal Sultan and bears an engraving honoring him. Mohammed Ali al-Kitbi was born around 1970 in the United Arab Emirates and has served in its armed forces