Bombers shifted to Afghan border

Press, 26 April 1984, Page 10

Bombers shifted to Afghan border

By

DREW MIDDLETON of

‘‘The New York Times” (through NZPA) London Intelligence officials in London say that the Soviet Union has moved three squadrons of medium-range bombers to bases near the nation’s border with Afghanistan. The officials are puzzled by this development because, they say, there does not appear to be any immediate military reason for the move. The Tupolev 16 bombers, known in the West as “Badgers,” were reportedly accompanied by ground-attack aircraft, and transports with munitions and spare parts. One official suggested that the Russians might be planning some high-level carpet-bombing of Afghan areas where guerrillas are strong. In May last year, Soviet forces in Afganistan made sustained, heavy air strikes around the northwestern city of Herat, using up to 50 planes a day. A second possible explanation for the Soviet air transfer, officials said, may be that it was part of a general build-up of Soviet forces near the Gulf and the Iran-Iraq war. Targets in or near the Gulf are within the 2000-km range of the slow, elderly “Badgers.” Their deployment came as Soviet armoured units and troops of the Sovietsponsored Afghan Government opened a new drive against insurgents in the Shakardarah and Guldra valleys. These are part of the larger Shomali Valley system through which supplies from the Soviet Union reach Kabul, the Afghan capital. The primary objective of the operation, which began during the first week of April, was guerrilla bands that moved into the valleys with the coming of spring. As a result of the attack the insurgents retired into the hills bordering the valleys. Military sources said that nothing in the military state in Afghanistan seemed to call for the use of heavy bombing. They said that there was no serious challenge to the Soviet occupation, which began in December, 1979.

The informants said that, for operations against the guerrillas, Soviet commanders generally used from 12,000 to 15,000 of the approximately HO,QOO Soviet troops serving in Afghanistan. For the rest, Afghanistan is said to be a huge exercise ground on which deployment of air, airborne, and ground forces are practised. The Intelligence officials said that there were no signs that the guerrillas were receiving the advanced weapons they needed to fight Soviet bombers, helicopter gunships, and tanks. One British observer reported that in four months with the insurgents he had seen only two SAM 7 missiles. These are not regarded as particularly effective because they can be diverted by decoy flares dropped by Soviet aircraft. Guerrilla attacks also suffer from shortages of machine-gun and mortar ammunition. Egypt and China are supplying most of the heavy ammunition reaching the guerrillas. Despite these deficiencies, the insurgents occasionally filter down from the mountains for night attacks on Soviet and Afghan strongpoints. One British observer said that he had watched a night attack on the Ministry of Defence in Kabul in which a single mortar and a recoilless rifle had been used.

Such operations, the effects of which are frequently exaggerated by the guerrillas, leave the Soviet forces about where they were at the onset of winter. They and the Afghan Government troops hold the cities, towns, airfields, and main communications lines. Truck convoys, although occasionally harassed, have increased in size.

Intelligence officials in London and at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters in Brussels caution against taking at face value many reports of the strength of the guerrilla movement and its impact on the Russians. They said that the guerrillas had recently reported destroying 15 tanks and armoured cars in valleys north of Kabul. But, the officials said, there had

been no independent witnesses.

The Intelligence experts reported that, aside from the lack of advanced weapons, the guerrillas suffered from serious shortages of heavy clothing and boots.

Soviet attacks on fanning villages had cut food supplies, the officials said, adding that medicine and medical equipment were almost unobtainable in the mountains. One Pakistani official estimated that about 90 per cent of the severely wounded died because of a lack of adequate medical help. • From Paris, Reuter quotes an Afghan exile as saying that the Soviet Union had recently sent more than 80,000 extra troops into Afghanistan and was planning to airlift more. Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, leader of the Afghan exile party “Jamiat e Islami” (Islamic Society) in Pakistan, said that the Soviet military presence now amounted to more than 200,000 soldiers and advisers.

The figure, which he said was based on reports from rebel contacts within the military staff of the Afghan Army, is roughly twice as high as the 105,000 Soviet troops estimated by Western governments earlier this year. Professor Rabbani, on a visit to Paris, said that recent preparations for an especially large Soviet offensive had reflected the more aggressive military policy of the Kremlin leader, Konstantin Chernenko, who he said backed heavy military intervention, whereas his predecessor, Yuri Andropov, had focused more on infiltrating rebel

groups. Afghanistan said yesterday that its forces had captured the strategic rebelcontrolled Panjshir Valley, between Kabul and the Soviet border. The official Kabul radio announcement came as Western diplomats in neighbouring Pakistan said that Soviet forces had begun a big spring offensive to control the valley, a rebel enclave Moscow had sought and failed to subdue six times before.