Soviets rescue advisers

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 7

Soviets rescue advisers

NZPA Islamabad Western diplomats in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, have corroborated Indian news agency reports that Soviet advisers kidnapped by Afghan rebels early last month have been freed in an attack on a guerrilla base. The Press Trust of India reported on Friday from Kabul that of 17 advisers abducted, 11 had been freed, four had been killed during the rescue, and two had earlier been tortured to death by their captors. The diplomats, who receive information from their missions in Kabul, said

that 16 had been kidnapped and that 12 had been freed by Soviet troops and four killed. The diplomats said that the bodies of the four dead had been mutilated, suggesting torture. A Pakistan-based Afghan resistance group, Hakat Inquilab Islami, which claimed responsibility for the kidnapping from Mazar-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan, has said that it has received information about the rescue. The diplomat said that the rescue had been an efficient intelligence effort that pinpointed a mountain retreat

in which the advisers were being held. They said that all the rebels in the hide-out had been killed but they did not know how many there were or when the rescue was made. P.T.I. said that it was on February 1. Western diplomats and Afghan resistance sources in neighbouring Pakistan had reported frequent bombing of rebel hide-outs in the mountains near Mazar-i-Sharif since the kidnapping. They had also reported that the kidnappers had shot dead one of the 16 advisers when he tried to escape soon after the abduction.