Soviets buy loyalty

Press, 4 September 1980, Page 7

Soviets buy loyalty

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi The Soviet military, bogged down in its fight against rebels in Afghanistan, has divided the country into seven military regions and set up a new highly paid Afghan volunteer force, informed sources have said in New Delhi. The sources, quoting reliable reports from Kabul, said the new plan was drawn up by Soviet advisers and approved by the third plenum of Afghanistan’s ruling People’s Democratic Party at the end of July. The final go-ahead for the plan came from a high-pow-ered Soviet military delegation that visited . Kabul last month, the’ sources said. '■ They said that’ each , of the seven regions are headed by a’ member of the People’s Democratic Party presidium or central committee , and at

tached to each one is a Soviet general and 1000 Soviet 1 commando troops in addition to available forces. i The sources said that vast financial resources had been made available for the new ; security set-up including the use of Afghan volunteers who are receiving about i 7000 Afghanis (about $177) a month, ten times the former pay of Afghan soldiers. The Russians and the So-viet-backed Afghan Government of Babrak Karmal were also using people from one tribe against another, ] thus using historic enmities to track down and wipe out rebels, the sources said. (Other sources have said that the tribes have been paid $l.B. million in bribes to join the fight against the rebels). In this way a group of volunteers from the Paktia

region near the Pakistan border had been sent to Parwan province north of Kabul and Badakhshan in the north-east to root out rebels of different tribes in those Under the new security arrangements the newly created Kabul region had been put under the Communications Minister (Mr Mohammed Aslam Watanjar), and the sources said his appointment seemed to have given “punch” to operations] against rebels in and around i Kabul. The sources said the new volunteer militia wore uniforms,, were heavily armed, and were designed to bolster or in most cases, replace the demoralised . Afghan Army, which has shrunk from 80,000 to about 30,000, mainly owing to defections and purges.