On December 27, 1979 Soviet special forces stormed the Tajbeg Palace in Kabul in Operation Storm-333, killed Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin, and installed Babrak Karmal, the opening act of the Soviet invasion that began the decade-long Soviet-Afghan War. Amin had seized full power in September 1979 and killed his predecessor Taraki, alarming Moscow, which came to regard him as unreliable and possibly open to the West. The Soviet leadership decided to remove him and back the exiled Parcham leader Karmal.
On December 27, 1979, as part of the larger invasion, KGB and military special forces, including the so-called Muslim Battalion, assaulted the heavily guarded Tajbeg Palace; Amin was killed in the roughly one-hour battle, along with many of his guards and one of his young sons. Soviet radio announced that Amin had been condemned to death by a revolutionary tribunal, and Karmal was installed as head of state. The war lasted until 1989.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: Hafizullah Amin, killed on December 27, 1979 when Soviet special forces stormed the Tajbeg Palace.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Hafizullah Amin (Afghan leader killed in the assault)
Babrak Karmal (installed by the Soviets)
Soviet KGB and military special forces (which carried out the raid)
Sources
Operation Storm-333 was a military raid executed by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan on 27 December 1979 in which special forces and airborne troops stormed the heavily fortified Tajbeg Palace in Kabul and assassinated Afghan leader Hafizullah Amin, and it was the start of the Soviet-Afghan War.
The Soviet Union declared its plan to intervene on 12 December 1979 and initiated Operation Storm-333 on 27 December 1979, part of the larger Operation Baikal-79, and the assassination of Amin was part of a Soviet plan to take control of Afghanistan with support from the PDPA's Parcham faction, installing Babrak Karmal.
According to the Soviet Politburo, Amin had been executed by a tribunal for his crimes by the Afghan Revolutionary Central Committee, which then installed former Deputy Prime Minister Babrak Karmal as head of government, and Radio Kabul announced that Afghanistan had been liberated from Amin's rule.
During the operation Amin was killed, an unknown number of Afghan palace guards were killed while about 150 were captured, Amin's 11-year-old son died from shrapnel wounds, and the Soviets installed Babrak Karmal as Amin's successor.
Killings protocol applied: the deposed leader Amin was killed in the assault; the killing is cited and attributed, and the conflicting official Soviet account is recorded prominently: Moscow announced that Amin had been condemned to death by an Afghan revolutionary tribunal for crimes against the state, whereas he was in fact killed by Soviet special forces storming his palace. Casualty nuance recorded: sources give varying figures for Afghan dead (commonly around 200, including Amin and one of his young sons, with about 150 to 1,700 captured or surrendering) and Soviet losses (around 19 to 20); these are attributed as reported ranges rather than asserted as exact. Coding note: the dataset labels this a dissident coup with a killed fate; it was in substance a foreign (Soviet) special-operations assassination and regime installation, the first phase of the invasion, a nuance recorded here. Arc: this closes the Amin arc that ran through the March 27 and September 16, 1979 records; it opens the Soviet-Afghan War (1979 to 1989), which is later context. Amin's own poisoning by the KGB earlier on December 27, from which Soviet doctors unwittingly revived him, is recorded as a documented detail.
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Hafizullah Amin, killed on December 27, 1979 when Soviet special forces stormed the Tajbeg Palace..
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
Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
“More Afghan Refugees Reported In Pakistan After a Rebel Defeat: U.S. Notes Poison-Gas Reports Canadian Reports Poison-Gas Use,” March 6, 1980
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 →