Afghanistan, 1978 — military coup
Event Summary
On 27–28 April 1978 the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) staged a violent coup, the Saur Revolution. President Mohammed Daoud Khan and most of his family were executed at the Arg presidential palace in Kabul. The uprising created a socialist Afghan government with Nur Muhammad Taraki as the PDPA's General Secretary, closely aligned with the Soviet Union, and marked the beginning of decades of conflict.
Films & Footage
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Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
How It Unfolded
Hand-coded by Coup Atlas from the sources on this page, using a fixed list of tactics. Only events we have read through carry this coding, so most records do not have it yet.
- Led by
- Military
- How long it took
- 2 days from first move to resolution
- Troop movements in the capital or key cities
- Assassination or killing of the incumbent or senior figures
- Seizure of the presidential palace / seat of government
- Seizure of broadcasters / coup declaration on state media
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
70004271978- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-700-1978-04-27
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Mohammed Daoud Khan, President of Afghanistan (overthrown, killed).
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; killed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →