Rebels attacking at will

Press, 22 February 1980, Page 6

Rebels attacking at will

By

MICHAEL GOLDSMITH

...I, of the Associated Press (through NZPA) Kabul Anti-communist Muslim rebels are virtually in control of Afghanistan’s main supply route from Pakistan, attacking civilian traffic at will and outmanoeuvring the illtrained Afghan soldiers sent to “pacify” the area. Four Western reporters, representing the Associated Press, Reuters, the French news agency, Agence FrancePresse, and the London “Daily Telegraph,” travelled in a convoy of trucks and buses that was repeatedly ambushed last week in a gorge on the highway from Jalalabad to Kabul.

One bus passenger was injured by gunfire. Many others were robbed of all their cash and valuables. After remaining immobilised between two rebel positions for four hours, the convoy abandoned the trip and returned to Jalalabad. The Soviet Army , was nowhere to be seen. Jalalabad, 160 km east of Kabul, is near the Pakistan border and the entry point for. most of Afghanistan’s consumer goods. Drivers in the convoy said the Afghan Army has been unable to prevent the almost daily rebel ambushes on the road to Kabul.

At least six vehicles in the reporters’ convoy, including one large modern bus, were

set on fire and remained as smouldering wrecks on the road. Three Government trucks were pushed into the swirling Kabul River. The rebels did not shoot to kill but to halt the convoy. Some windows were shattered among the 40 vehicles. A bullet grazed the cheek of one bus passenger.

Two Afghan armoured cars supposedly protecting the convoy fired their machineguns wildly at the mountainside with no visible effect. At one point, an armoured car placed itself so close to the sheltered side of a crowded bus that the bus was shielding it from the snipers and the armoured car could not have fired back without killing bus passengers.