42 Diaries From the Frontline
By Sameer Arshad Khatlani
Afghan diplomat Masood Khalili had enrolled for PhD after finishing his master’s degree from Delhi University, when communists seized power in Kabul in April 1978. His father, iconic poet and academic Khalilullah, called him from Baghdad, where he was the Afghan ambassador, to break the news. He warned Khalili that the communists had come and Russians will follow. “Go get your PhD from the mountains of Afghanistan,’’ Khalilullah told his 28-year-old son. Khalili immediately left Delhi to join Afghan rebels as a political officer in Peshawar, before entering Afghanistan.
Khalilullah’s fears came true the following year when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Khalili responded by crisscrossing the country, mostly on his donkey, for the next nine years to mobilise Afghans against the occupiers. Read more
Source: The Indian Express
