Afghan Govt blamed for car-bomb attacks

Press, 28 December 1987, Page 8

Afghan Govt blamed for car-bomb attacks

NZPA-Reuter Islamabad Pakistan has blamed the Soviet-backed Government in Afghanistan for three car-bomb attacks in crowded Islamabad markets and said it would not yield to what it called blackmail from its neighbour. The bombs exploded in two markets, killing one man and injuring about 40 other people on Saturday, the eve of the eighth anniversary of the Soviet military intervention in ' Afghanistan. Afghan exiles planned to mark the occasion with demonstrations. The Interior Minister, Malik Nasim Ahmad Aheer, said the blasts, the latest in a series blamed on Afghanistan, were part “of a planned attack of

foreign terrorism” and said security forces were put on alert to protect people's lives and property. "Agents of the Kabul regime have come out with a new wave of terrorism to exert pressure on Pakistan to change its just stand on the question of Afghanistan,” he told reporters. But he said Pakistan, which gives refuge to about three million Afghan exiles and provides a haven for most of the Western-backed guerrilla groups fighting the Kabul Government, would “never yield to blackmail and would face the situation courageously”. Islamabad says the wave of bombings which has killed more than 200

people this year, is aimed at obtaining concessions from a proposed United Nations settlement in Afghanistan. A United Nations mediator, Diego Cordovez, is due to visit the region in January to try to resolve differences between Islamabad and Kabul on a timetable for the withdrawal of an estimated 115,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Moscow sent troops into Afghanistan on December 27, 1979, to help a fledgeling Marxist Government fight guerrillas. Saturday’s bombings were the first in the heart of Islamabad, which has usually escaped the attacks that have hit other major Pakistani cities. The only previous blast in the capital was at a subur-

ban vegetable market on October 5. Four people were injured. The explosions went off within seconds of each other, two inside cars at a central market close to a carpet store run by Afghan exiles. The third exploded in a car at another market about three kilometres away. Hospital doctors said the dead man was a shopkeeper and that at least three of the injured were in serious condition. The bomb attacks have led Opposition politicians to criticise President Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq’s policy on Afghanistan. President Zia, in a speech, described as “irresponsible utterances” statements that Afghan refugees were a burden on Pakistan’s economy.