Afghans fly top Soviet helicopters to Pakistan

Press, 15 July 1985, Page 6

Afghans fly top Soviet helicopters to Pakistan

NZPA-Reuter Islamabad

Afghan defectors had taken two highly sophisticated Soviet Mil 24 helicopter gunships to Pakistan at the week-end,- a Pakistan Government spokesman said.

The spokesman confirmed earlier reports by Afghan exiles that the helicopters had landed at the Pakistani border town of Miranshah and that the defectors had handed themselves over to

Pakistani authorities. He said he could not give more details, but Afghan exile sources in the northwest frontier province capital, Peshawar, said there were seven defectors, hailing from the eastern Afghan province of Paktia. The Mil 24 is the Soviet Union’s top-of-the-line helicopter and probably its single most effective weapon against Muslim guerrillas fighting the

Soviet-backed Afghan Government. Western diplomats said they believed the two helicopters were the first Mil 24s to land in a country with Western military ties, and thus allowing Western military Intelligence officials to inspect the machines at first-hand. Afghan and Soviet pilots have been using Mil 24s to ferry commandos into rebel-held areas and conduct lightning raids on guer-

rilla hideouts. Miranshah, 180 km southwest of Peshawar, lies on a main route used by Pakis-tan-based rebels crossing into Afghanistan. Afghan exile sources said the crew members of the two helicopters had asked for political asylum in Pakistan, which is sheltering an estimated three million Afghan refugees who fled their country after the Soviet military intervention there in December, 1979.