Mohammad Nabi Azimi
{{Short description|Afghan General (1943 - 2021)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{Infobox military person
| name = Mohammad Nabi Azimi
| image =
| caption = A picture of General Mohammad Nabi Azimi from his military passport, 1979
| birth_date = 11 August 1943
| death_date = 3 March 2021
| birth_place = Kabul, Kingdom of Afghanistan
| death_place = Tashkent, Uzbekistan
| nickname = Nabi
| allegiance = Parcham faction of People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)
| branch = Afghan Army
| serviceyears =
| rank = General
| unit =
| commands = 14th Division (Ghazni)
17th Division (Herat)
7th Division (Kabul)
Deputy Defense Minister and Garrison Commander of Kabul
| battles = 1973 Afghan coup d'état
Soviet-Afghan war
| awards =
| relations =
| laterwork = Writer
}}
General Mohammad Nabi Azimi. (Dari: جنرال محمد نبی عظیمی) was the Deputy Defense Minister of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) who played a critical role in the fall of President Mohammad Najibullah. General Mohammad Nabi Azimi was an ethnic Tajik who belonged to the Parcham faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan.{{cite book |last=Rubin |first=Barnett |authorlink=Barnett Rubin |title=The fragmentation of Afghanistan |year= 1995|publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn= 0-300-05963-9 |page=156}}{{Cite web|url=http://tech.mit.edu/V112/N21/afghan.21w.html|title = Afghan Leader Najibullah Forced to Resign by Rebels - the Tech}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-04-17-mn-701-story.html|title = Afghan Leader Forced Out by Army, Rebels| website=Los Angeles Times |date = 17 April 1992}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/26/world/after-14-years-afghan-guerrillas-easily-take-prize.html|title=After 14 Years, Afghan Guerrillas Easily Take Prize|newspaper=The New York Times|date=26 April 1992|last1=Gargan|first1=Edward A.}} He was also the ambassador to the United Kingdom.{{Cite book |last=Azimi |first=General Nabi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M5aSDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT199 |title=The Army and Politics: Afghanistan: 1963-1993 |date=2019-04-11 |publisher=AuthorHouse |isbn=978-1-7283-8701-7 |language=en}}
Role in the Second Battle of Zhawar
In 1986, General Azimi was in charge of the DRA forces at the Second Battle of Zhawar in Paktia Province which was waged against mujahideen forces under Jalaluddin Haqqani. The large-scale offensive against the mujahideen base quickly ran into difficulties: Numerous operative battalions of the 38th Commando Brigade were wiped out in a botched heliborne assault against fortified positions, as some commandos mistakenly landed in Pakistan. General Azimi withdrew to Kabul on "important business" and ordered the arrest of the helicopter unit commander. He was replaced by another DRA officer and a Soviet general took over the operation.{{cite web
|url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/2001/010900-zhawar.htm
|title=THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE CAVES:THE BATTLES FOR ZHAWAR IN THE SOVIET-AFGHAN WAR
|accessdate=2010-09-24
|last= Grau
|first=Lester W.
|author2=Ali Ahmad Jalali
|date=September 2001
|publisher=Globalsecurity.org }}
Post-Soviet withdrawal
In 1990, along with General Abdul Rashid Dostum, General Azimi was involved in the fight against Hezb-i Islami.Afghanistan Justice Project. "Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, 1978-2001." 2005. Accessed at: http://www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/ [Accessed on 10 November 2009], pg 55.
In early 1992, DRA leader Najibullah lost control of Northern Afghanistan, following the defection of the pro-government militia of Abdul Rashid Dostum, and on March 18, he announced his intention to resign. General Azimi, now Deputy Defense Minister, chose to defect, along with Army Chief of Staff Muhammad Asif Delawar and Kabul garrison commander Abdul Wahid Baba Jan. General Azimi appeared on Afghanistan National Television saying, "I assure my countrymen that we will have peace in the very near future. There is no need for war anymore."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/18/world/afghan-guerrillas-order-kabul-army-to-surrender-city.html|title = Afghan Guerrillas Order Kabul Army to Surrender City|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 18 April 1992}}
On March 21, General Azimi made contact with General Dostum, and on April 15, he flew 600-1000 of General Dostum's troops into Kabul Airport and took control of it. The next day in Kabul, Najibullah confronted General Azimi and the other generals and accused them of treason. Apparently afraid that General Azimi had taken control of his security detail, he then tried to flee to the airport. But, finding it controlled by hostile forces, he was forced to take refuge in a United Nations compound.{{cite book |last=Maley |first=William |title=The Afghanistan Wars |url=https://archive.org/details/afghanistanwars00male |url-access=limited |year=2002 |publisher=Palgrave MacMillan |location=London |isbn=0-333-80291-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/afghanistanwars00male/page/n200 190]–191}} General Azimi then made contact with resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, and urged him to seize the capital. He hoped that he might effect a peaceful transition of power like Dostum had managed in Mazar-i-Sharif. However, Massoud was unwilling to do this, so long as an agreement to form a government had not been reached between the Pakistan-based mujahideen parties. He entered Kabul on April 25 in response to an offensive by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had allied with officers from the Khalq faction to infiltrate the capital. Fighting between the opposing factions broke out immediately.Rubin, pp. 270–271
General Azimi has since written many books, one of which is titled "[https://rahparcham1.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%88-%D9%88-%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA-%D9%80-%D9%86%D8%A8%DB%8C-%D8%B9%D8%B8%DB%8C%D9%85%DB%8C.pdf Ordu va Siyasat Dar Seh Daheh Akheer-e Afghanistan]" ("[https://www.amazon.com/Army-Politics-Afghanistan-1963-1993/dp/1728387027 Army and Politics in the Last Three Decades in Afghanistan]") (Peshawar: Marka-e Nashrati Mayvand, 1998).