Afghan authorities announced Sunday they had found mass graves containing the remains of nine relatives of ex-president Mohammad Daud Khan, shot dead in a Soviet-backed coup three decades ago.
The body of Khan, also killed in the 1978 military coup, is thought to be among those recovered from the two graves on the outskirts of the capital that were found to contain 29 bodies, deputy public health minister Faizullah Kakar told reporters.
"We have identified nine members of Mr. Daud Khan's family but not that of himself," said Kakar, head of a commission appointed by President Hamid Karzai in April to locate the body of Khan, Afghanistan's first president.
Work to identify Khan's body was underway, he said. The nine included Khan's wife, a son, two daughters, his sister and an 18-month-old grandchild as well as other relatives, Kakar said. They were identified through their clothing, teeth, height and other characteristics, he added.
"We're 100 percent sure about our findings," he said. Some of the other 29 bodies in the graves, where they were neatly placed side by side, were in military uniform, he said.
Khan and 18 members of his family were shot dead on the night of April 27-28, 1978 when Soviet-backed communists stormed into the presidential palace in the centre of Kabul. Their bodies were secretly buried and the graves were found after tip-offs from former soldiers.
The following year the Soviet Union invaded, occupying Afghanistan for a decade before they were defeated by an Afghan uprising. Khan, who died when he was 68, had himself gained power in a coup, toppling King Zahir Shah, his cousin, in 1973 to end the monarchy and establish a republic.