[11] KhAD was created on 10 January 1980[15] and was officially announced by President Babrak Karmal, with 1,200 personnel inside the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan who took over intelligence responsibilities from KAM in December 1979, with most of them being pro-Parchamites.

The group was known as “the activists”[16] and was active until March 1980,[4] being initially headed by Mohammad Najibullah,[17] alongside Dr. Baha[4] who worked on establishing the structure that would later be referred to as KhAD.

After Soviet troops were deployed in Afghanistan, KhAD was expanded with Moscow's assistance, which includes sophisticated torture equipment.

[10] Najibullah took the opportunity of his post to rise within the PDPA before Major-General Ghulam Faruq Yaqubi took over KhAD duties in November 1985.

[20] KhAD was able to turn some mujahideen groups to work with the PDPA by providing incentives such as small arms or money in return for their loyalty by attending loya jirgas and other pro-PDPA activities.

[25][20] KhAD operatives additionally attempted to assassinate Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in 1987, using a remote-controlled car bomb and wounding two of his bodyguards.

[28] In March 1990, Lieutenant-General Shahnawaz Tanai attempted a coup, which was suppressed by the WAD-led Afghan National Guard (Gard-e-Milli), General Khushal Peroz and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar.

[18] During the civil war in the 1990s, Hezb-i-Islami, the Northern Alliance and the Taliban all recruited ex-KhAD officers and agents to act as their moles operating behind enemy territory.

Over time, the tasks seasoned recruits were asked to perform would only become more intense, being ordered to infiltrate the ranks of the Afghan mujahideen.

[31] Potential applicants may have been prompted to join KhAD as the role of officer provided material benefits, such as a salary ten times higher than that of a government official.

High-ranking KhAD officers, starting from the rank of colonel and upwards, received additional mandatory training in Moscow.

As part of this strategy, the KGB and KHAD deployed hundreds of young girls of Central Asian, and Russian origin to corrupt Pakistani society.

This influx initially targeted the major urban centers such as Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad, Multan, and Quetta.

Many of these prostitutes had connections to KGB and KHAD agents, with high-ranking government officials and Pakistan army officers being their primary targets.

[37] This led to the emergence of a "galemjum (prostitute) culture" in Pakistani society, which attracted professionals, the local commercial class, and frustrated youth in various urban centers.

According to a report by the US Defense Department, approximately 90% of the estimated 777 acts of international terrorism committed worldwide in 1987 took place in Pakistan.

[38] By 1988, KGB and KhAD agents were able to penetrate deep inside Pakistan and carry out attacks on mujahideen sanctuaries and guerrilla bases.

[41][42] Afghanistan's KHAD was one of four secret service agencies accused of perpetrating terrorist bombings in multiple Pakistani cities including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi during the early 1980s resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties.

[44][45] Between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, Afghanistan security agencies supported the terrorist organization called al-Zulfiqar, the group that hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines plane from Karachi to Kabul in 1981.

[20][18] These included the use of torture, the use of predetermined "show trials" to dispose of political prisoners, and widespread arbitrary arrest and detention.

Organizations such as Amnesty International continued to publish detailed reports of KhAD's use of torture and of inhumane conditions in the country's prisons and jails.

[53] On 29 February 2000, when The Netherlands had no diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a disputed report on the involvement of the KhAD on human rights abuses, partly based on secret sources, allegedly biased political sycophants from the side of the Taliban and the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI.

Hesamuddin Hesam and Habibullah Jalalzoy were found guilty of complicity to torture and violations of the laws and customs of war, committed in Afghanistan in the 1980s.