Soviet heavy guns hammer Afghan city

Press, 7 December 1981, Page 9

Soviet heavy guns hammer Afghan city

NZPA-Reuter Quetta Soviet troops have launched a three-pronged attack on Kandahar, using long-range artillery and 'helicopter gunships to flush out Muslim rebels holding it since September, according to travellers arriving . at Quetta, a Pakistan city on the Afghan' border. Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second biggest town, is south-wesf of Kabul near the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. Large parts of the city, including the main bazaar and city streets were under the rebels’ control but Kandahar airport, .where a Soviet air base is, was being used as a launching pad against the guerrillas, the sources said. Residents reported “unprecedented casualties in the very intensive” SovietAfghan air and land attacks. Travellers said that shops

were closed for two days early this month in protest against the high civilian casualty rate in three adjoining . villages near the main airport where Soviet tanks are stationed. The Soviet offensive began on November 26 and continued till December 2. Afghan sources said. But nearly all of the 230,000 residents in the city were fully backing the Mujahedeen. the travellers said. Since the rebels’, take-over of the city several joint Soviet-Afghan attempts to recapture it had reportedly failed, but this time the Soviets were using a changed strategy, travellers said. Using 122 mm field guns and with MIL 24 gunships in support, the Soviets surrounded the three suburban villages and heavily shelled the. area. In Zakar Shareef alone the Soviet shelling,

starting at 9 a.m. continued until 8 p.m.. travellers said. Another eastern -sector town, Deh Khawaja, was a “living monument of the enemy's atrocities." they said. The entire shopping centre had been destroyed and no house was left there without cracks, they said. ' . The sources, quoting residents, said that before the attack the Soviet-Afghan- soldiers launched a .manhunt and took away 21'males of the town to be ultimately “slaughtered in a farm.”“Nobody knows their crime, most , of them were clergymen from the town's ■religious school,” travellers said. Deh ’Khawaja is a sacred place in Afghanistan, where the shrine of the Muslim saint, Khawaja Najumuddin, is situated. The religious school, Najumu Madaris, in the area is named alter this

saint. Travellers said the KabulKandahar highway was already blocked and last month the Soviets, before the attack, mined the other communication links. The night watch and security search had been intensified while day-time ambushes continued until a few days ago, the sources said. - . The long-distance shelling continued at night on residential quarters to terrorise citizens who watched the scene from roof-tops, they said. A couple of Afghan tanks were able to guard only a few vital places in the garrison town of Kandahar. The rebel Afghans, although shaky because of the new strategy, had still “not abandoned their control," and most of the population was obeying them, they said.