Soviets suffer '10,000 casualties’

Press, 28 August 1980, Page 6

Soviets suffer '10,000 casualties’

NZPA-Reuter London The Soviet Union has suffered about 10,000 casualties since its invasion of Afghanistan last December, and the wounded are being evacuated to Eastern Europe rather than to the Soviet Union, informed Western sources have said. They were unable to give any detailed analysis of the Soviet casualties, but said Afghan resistance fighters, though badly in need of arms, had withstood the might of the Soviet forces in a sustained test.

Analysing conflicting reports from the area, they gave an over-all picture of the Soviet and Afghan Armies controlling the principal roads during daytime, and resistance fighters controlling the mountains, remoter .mountain passes, and valleys. Soviet military forces in Afghanistan total between 80,000 and 100,000 men despite the limited withdrawal announced in June, the sources said.

They were being armed with new and better equipment, including the AK-S assault rifle, a new version of the AK47 rifle, the sources reported. Its bullets produced an impact similar to dumdum bullets, which are outlawed internationally, they said. Cluster bombs filled with small r.eedle-like arrows are also being introduced, they added. The demoralised Afghan Army and Air Force had suffered large-scale desertions and probably now totalled no more than 35,000 men, the sources said.