201st Corps (Afghanistan)

Previous Afghan formations in the Kabul area included the Central Army Corps, from at least 1978 through the 1990s, and possibly earlier. The Central Army Corps was a very influential formation.

In 1953, Lieutenant General Mohammed Daoud Khan, first cousin of the King who had previously served as Minister of Defence, was transferred from command of the Central Corps in Kabul to become Prime Minister of Afghanistan.[13] His command has also been referred to as the Central Command and Central Forces. The Central Corps was headquartered at Amanullah's Darulaman Palace.[14] On the opening day of Parliament in October 1965, a violent student demonstration among which Babrak Karmal was at the forefront forced Zahir Shah's new prime minister Yousef to resign. Two students were killed when the new corps commander, General Abdul Wali, sent in troops to restore order.[15]

In 1978 the corps consisted of the 7th and 8th Divisions, the Republican Guard Brigade, two commando regiments, the 4th and 15th Armoured Brigades, and several support units. The 4th Armoured Brigade played a key role in spearheading the Saur Revolution of 1978. An accessible Kabul Times article of the period describes what it claims as the 15th Armoured Division's celebrations of the Saur Revolution, and gives the division commander's name as Major Mohammed Amin. The Corps began to be worn away by desertions, with one of the first, involving a brigade of the 7th Division, occurring in mid-May 1979 on the road from Gardez to Khost. The whole brigade, maybe 2000 strong, reportedly joined the mujahadeen.[16] Reportedly they surrendered on the condition that they be allowed to keep their uniforms and weapons and join the anti-government struggle.

"As late as September 1982,"[17] the commander of the Central Corps, a General variously reported as Wodud (Joes) or Abdul Wadood (Yousaf and Adkin), was shot in his office.[18] The 8th Division is extensively referenced in Ali A. Jalali and Lester Grau's Afghan Guerrilla Warfare: In the Words of the Mujahideen Fighters, c. 2001.

In response to a Taliban attack towards Herat from the south in March–April 1995, the Kabul government airlifted a reported 2,000 troops from the Central Corps to Herat.[19] This was the first airlift of its kind since 1992. BBC's Summary of World Broadcasts for 1999 reports a radio transcript from Kabul noting that the former commander of the Central Corps, Mola Abdurraof Akhond, was appointed a commander elsewhere.[20]

The Central Corps appears to have been reactivated in August 2003.[21] The creation of the corps was planned to place army brigades under a central command structure for the first time, and create a command and control headquarters. Maj Gen Mohammed Moiun Faqir, an ethnic Pashtun, was appointed as corps commander. It was one of the first recipients of new Afghan National Army battalions trained by the United States, with its strength in July including five to six of the new battalions within two brigades.[22] Soon afterwards, a training team from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Irwin was sent to Kabul to assist the leadership of the newly forming 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, of the Central Corps form an effective tank unit, using T-62s.[23]

In March 2004, fighting between two local militias took place in Herat. It was reported that Mirwais Sadiq (son of warlord Ismail Khan) was assassinated in unclear circumstances. Thereafter a bigger conflict began that resulted in the death of up to 100 people. The battle was between troops of Ismail Khan and Abdul Zahir Nayebzada, a senior local military commander blamed for the death of Sadiq.[24] Nayebzada commanded the 17th Herat Division of the Defence Ministry's 4th Corps.[25] In response to the fighting, about 1,500 newly trained Central Corps soldiers were sent to Herat in order to bring the situation under control.

The 8th Division was still active in July 2004, when defence minister Mohammed Fahim was considering pushing back against Karzai's removal of him from the position of Karzai's running mate for first vice-president. Fahim and his faction Shura-e Nazar commanded the loyalty of the formation, which was described as having ''..an estimated 5,000 loyal troops stationed in the Shomali Plain—the fertile land just north of Kabul—and in the capital itself.''[26]

Following the crash of Kam Air Flight 904 in 2005, ISAF made numerous unsuccessful helicopter rescue operation attempts. ANA soldiers also searched for the plane. The Ministry of Defense ordered the ANA's Central Corps to assemble a team to attempt a rescue of victims presumed to be alive. The crash site was at an altitude of 11,000 feet (3,400 m) on the peak of the Chaperi Mountain, 20 miles (32 km) east of Kabul.[27]