Afghans strafe refugees

Press, 4 December 1981, Page 6

Afghans strafe refugees

NZPA-Reuter Islamabad Afghan helicopter gunships attacked two buses, two villages and a frontier post inside Pakistan yesterday, killing five people in a new escalation of border violations. The Afghan Charge d’Affaires in Islamabad (Mr Mohammad Rafik Shamreiz) was later summoned to the Foreign Ministry for the third time in two weeks to receive a strong protest against the attack in which three civilians also were wounded. Authoritative sources said Pakistan regarded the attack as the most grave violation of its border since Soviet troops arrived in Afghanistan two years ago. A Foreign ministry statement said two helicopters launched the attacks on four locations in an area about 80km south-west of Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province, where about one-fifth of the 2.3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan have settled. The helicopters intruded about 7km into Pakistani territory, spending nearly 30 minutes on their rocket and strafing mission, the statement said. Unlike previous Foreign Ministry comments on a series of increasing border violations over the last three months, yesterday’s statement gave a warning for the first time that “Pakistan would be justified in taking appropriate countermeasures in exercise of its right to self-defence.” The previous highest death toll alleged in an Afghan air attack inside Pakistan was two Pakistani soldiers killed in September last year. At the United Nations last week, Pakistan complained that its air space was violated 23 times by Afghan aircraft from October 5 to November 2.