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 1981. In 1982 it was reported that the government spent around 22 percent of total expenditure. When the political solution failed (see "PDPA base" section), the Afghan government and the Soviet military decided to solve the conflict militarily. The change from a political to a military solution did not come suddenly. It began in January 1981, as Karmal doubled wages for military personnel, issued several promotions, and decorated one general and thirteen colonels. The draft age was lowered, the obligatory length of arms duty was extended and the age for reservists was increased to thirty-five years of age. In June