On that fateful morning, however, driving with his armed bodyguard and a team of UN officers, Najibullah’s convoy was refused entry into the Kabul airport. The password he used throughout the journey from home to the airport did not work at the penultimate checkpoint. The airport was under the control of Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan of Uzbek heritage, who led a local militia against the Mujahideen in the northern province of Jowzjan, and had been receiving political, financial, and military patronage from Najibullah. In a total “wild card,” as the then Indian ambassador to Kabul Vijay K Nambiar terms it, Dostum turned hostile towards his patron, and shut down the airport for the next 24 hours. On the airport’s runway stood a plane, and in the plane awaited Sevan. Dostum’s men had decided not to storm the plane, and Sevan had decided not to disembark.
After a furious exchange of abuses with and impotent threats to Dostum’s men, Najibullah turned his convoy around.