Hostage crisis ‘helped trigger intervention’

Press, 29 December 1980, Page 8

Hostage crisis ‘helped trigger intervention’

NZPA-Reuter London The London “Sunday Times” said yesterday that new evidence showed that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was triggered by the seizing of the United States Embassy hostages in Iran last year. The newspaper said the Soviet Union expected a tougher response to the take-over from President Carter, and that it intervened in Afghanistan afterbeing refused the use of an Afghan military base close to the Iranian border. In the event the United States did not send troops to Iran.

A mistress of the late President Hafizullah Amin of Afghanistan who did not wish to be named, was quoted by the paper as saying that the Soviet Union requested the use of a base at Shindand on November 10 last year, six days after the hostages were taken. The newspaper quoted her as saying: “Amin told me he would never agree to

giving the Russians a military base in Afghanistan because the people would not tolerate it.” : It said that this account had been confirmed by one of the late President’s nephews, who fled the country after the Soviet-backed coup d’etat last December. President Amin was executed shortly after the coup.