Afghan rebel rifts thwart U.S. policy

Press, 30 April 1981, Page 16

Afghan rebel rifts thwart U.S. policy

By

JAMAL RASHEED

American intelligence' is trying to persuade the divided Afghan rebel movement to form a united national front, which the United States could then recognise and openly supply with weapons. A senior State Department intelligence analyst said this month that the United States would like to see the creation of a “jirga” or tribal council, which would then elect a national leadership and high command. This is also the view of Mr Robert Neumann, the Reagan Administration’s expert on Afghanistan, who spent seven years in Kabul as United States Ambassador and is now Ambassador-designate to Saudi Arabia. After last month's hint by President Reagan that the United States might openly supply arms to the Afghan rebels, the United States is clearly embarrassed that the Afghan resistance is now even more deeply divided than when Mr Reagan took over. In February, the shaky alliance of six Islamic groups finally split apart. United States attempts to persuade, former King Zahir Shah out of his Rome exile to head a Government-in-exile have also failed.

The State Department sees three main divisions within the score of groups making up the Afghan resistance. One: The "Islamic fundamentalists," which the United States is hesitant to support, still smarting as it is from the revolution in Iran; Two: Pro-Western traditionalist or feudal lords, whom the Americans are experienced in dealing with throughout Asia and who include Syed Ahmed Gailani, head of the National Islamic Front; Three: The "internal front” made up of breakaway groups from the Khalq and Parcham Communist Parties plus a scattering of Maoists. Based largely in the ethnic minorities in Afghanistan, the last are doing a lot of the fighting within the country. The United States would obviously not be keen to support such a front. One of the large fundamentalist groups, Hezbi-i-Islam, led by Gulbuddin Hekmetyar, has refused to join any united front. Gulbuddin said at the Islamic summit in Saudi Arabia in January that he had been receiving arms and money from “private sources in the Arab world.”

Mr Neumann's apointment as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia has aroused speculation that the United States is going to use Saudi Arabia as a conduit for arms supplies and money to the Afghans. The Saudi’s have alread.y been helping the Afghan refugees lavishly. Three weeks ago they gave $l5 million to Islamic guerrillas in Peshawar. Pakistan, for the war effort. But as Pakistan offers the only land route available to the Americans for arms supplies to the Afghans, President Zia of Pakistan must be first won over and strengthened. President Reagan has already offered- $5OO million a year in military assistance to Pakistan but President Zia is bargaining for-an immediate $2 billion of weaponry at cut rates. There is also a division in Islamabad between a group of Pakistani generals who want total alignment with the United States and the Pakistani bureaucracy, led by the Foreign Minister, Mr Agha Shahi, which would prefer talks with Kabul and a reduction of tension. — Copyright, London Observer Service.