TEHRAN, Iran, Dec. 27, 1979 (UPI) - Afghanistan President Hafizullah Amin was overthrown Thursday in a bloodless coup staged by his old-time political foe, Babrak Karmal, Iran's official Pars news agency said, quoting Radio Kabul. The coup followed a Christmas Day airlift of thousands of Soviet troops to Kabul, capital of neighboring Afghanistan. The troop deployment was reported by State Department officials in Washington on Wednesday and strongly criticized as "blatant military interference."
The new regime immediately imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Kabul and ordered residents to remain indoors.
The new ruler followed up with a broadcast pledge to grant the impoverished Afghans democratic freedoms and jobs.
The reported coup came against a background of growing discontent in the aftermath of a year-old armed insurrection by Moslems opposing the Soviet-backed, Marxist rule in effect in Afghanistan since the May 1978 coup which toppled Mohammad Daoud.
Political analysts in Tehran said any assessment of the change would have to wait until more details of the Soviet military airlift become available.
Karmal, founder of the Parcham Communist Party, served briefly as prime minister in the regime of assassinated former president Nur Mohammad Taraki. He was removed following ideological differences which led to a violent purge of all Parcham elements within the regime.
Karmal went on the air soon after seizing power Thursday evening and pledged "democratic freedoms for the Afghan peoples, release of political prisoners, jobs for all the unemployed and good relations with all neighbors (Iran, Pakistan and the Soviet Union)."
Pars said the first announcement about the change in Kabul was made over the Kabul radio at 7:45 p.m. (11:15 a.m. EST).
The broadcast said, "The tyrannical, murderous, treacherous, dictatorial and fascist regime of Hafizullah Amin has been overthrown."
The radio called on the Moslem clergy and all other "strata of people" to support the new regime.
Then it began broadcasting martial music.
Karmal said in a radio broadcast that the new regime would guarantee "democratic rights of all classes of society, respect the holy faith of Islam and the clergy."
The assurance appeared directed at rebellious Moslem insurgents, led by the Afghan Islamic clergy, who have waged a violent campaign to overthrow the two successive Marxist, Soviet-backed regimes in Kabul since former president Mohammad Daoud was overthrown in May 1978.
A broadcast appeal called for support from "all Moslems irrespective of their sect - the clergy, soldiers and tribesmen, government employees, intellectuals, male and female workers."
Karmal went on the air to promise democratic freedoms, employment and "real democracy."
He said he would take measures to encourage prominent Afghans to return home from their self-exile abroad.
Reports of a coup came after diplomatic sources in New Delhi said the deteriorating position of the old Marxist government in Kabul had precipitated an unprecedented Christmas airlift of thousands of Soviet troops and equipment to Afghanistan.
The reports said the airlift may have doubled the number of Soviet military personnel in Afghanistan to as many as 10,000 in the land-locked but strategic central Asian nation.
State Department spokesman Hodding Carter said, "We believe that members of the international community should condemn such blatant military interference into the internal affairs of an independent sovereign state. We are making our views known directly to the Soviets."
