Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Ahmad Shah Massoud, 35, a onetime engineering student at the Soviet Polytechnic Institute in Kabul, has spent the past nine years molding the mujahedin in Afghanistan's northeast into what is widely considered the country's most effective guerrilla formation. Last May Massoud's men, who owe allegiance to Jamiat-i-Islami, one of the seven mujahedin parties based across the border in Pakistan, watched in triumph as the last Soviet and Afghan government troops retreated from the Panjshir...
...major disagreement is the possible return to Afghanistan by the former monarch, King Zahir Shah, to serve as an interim ruler. Jamiat leaders reject the suggestion outright because they regard the King as a feudal holdover as well as accountable for the steady growth of Soviet involvement in the country until his ouster in 1973. "Free elections will have their limits," says Massoud. "Even if one of the other mujahedin parties were to propose it, we would not agree to people who have betrayed this country having a chance to participate...
...discuss military strategy and the internal politicking with Massoud, the leader of Jamiat-i-Islami, Burhanuddin Rabbani, 53, in September made his first trip to Afghanistan's northeast since the war began. Accompanied by an escort equipped with Stinger missiles, the former Kabul University theology professor met with Jamiat commanders in Panjshir's bomb-scarred villages. Rabbani told TIME that he thought it unlikely that elections could be held soon after Kabul falls. "It is important to establish a government on the basis of the vote of the common people of Afghanistan," he said in a bow to principle...
...Nazaro and Vilko are three of 312 soldiers Moscow says are missing in Afghanistan and who it believes are being held by the mujahedin. The Soviet Union's desire to secure the release of its fighting men, however, may founder on an issue that involves their hearts and minds -- and even their souls -- for many simply do not wish to be repatriated under any circumstances. Some of the prisoners of war are defectors who, whether out of fear or conviction, have no intention of ever returning to their homeland. Others are converts who have embraced Islam, the religion of their...
According to a number of Soviet POWs held in northeast Afghanistan, who spoke to TIME, conversions to Islam have seldom, if ever, been made at gunpoint. Nor do they seem to owe much to the spiritual appeal of the Muslim faith. In most cases, isolation, fear and the promise of being socially accepted by their captors have drawn the prisoners to Islam. Beg, Nazaro and other Soviet captives say they are free to make occasional accompanied visits to local bazaars and encouraged to join in volleyball games with off-duty guerrillas. "I became a Muslim once I learned the language...