Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...much for conventional wisdom. This week, when Secretary of State James Baker flies to Moscow for talks with Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, Afghanistan will be high on the agenda: namely, Soviet requests for negotiations to devise a political settlement of the stalemated war between the mujahedin and the Kabul forces. Moscow will complain, moreover, that the ongoing fighting is fueled by arms from the U.S., a violation of the Geneva accord that led to the Soviet troop withdrawal. But Baker is unlikely to respond favorably. The National Security Council has concluded that the rebels need more time to prove their...
...political front, U.S. optimism also seems misplaced. Some experts are worried that the mujahedin leader who has received the lion's share of U.S. support, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a fanatic Muslim who might turn out to be Afghanistan's version of the Ayatullah Khomeini. Others wonder whether the mujahedin coalition, linked by hatred of the Najibullah regime, could stay together long enough to form an effective government...
...heightened by the military stalemate at Jalalabad. On March 6, a force of 10,000 guerrillas launched an assault on the city, which was defended by an estimated 11,000 government troops. From ! the rebel perspective, Jalalabad was a logical, indeed necessary target. Government forces occupied 25 of Afghanistan's 31 provincial capitals. Seizing Jalalabad, the third largest city, would not only wound the fragile morale of government troops, but it would also enhance the rebels' bid for wider international recognition of their newly formed government-in-exile. Some mujahedin leaders confidently predicted that the city would fall within...
...seen as endorsing Pakistan's vision of a friendly Islamic regime in Kabul. The rebel leader who most closely fills that bill is Hekmatyar, head of the best- disciplined guerrilla organization, Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic Party). Some ; Western experts are uncomfortable with Hekmatyar's plan to turn Afghanistan into a Muslim state governed by shari'a (Islamic law), which could take an anti-American course. Should Washington be supporting someone with the potential to be a U.S. enemy? Defenders say Hekmatyar, despite his Islamic zeal, is also a pragmatist. But abetting someone with a reputation for ruthlessness in pursuit...
...affairs, Shevardnadze is his master builder. Like the General Secretary, the amiable, white-haired diplomat has a smile that can melt ice. And like Gorbachev, Shevardnadze sometimes shows a glint of iron teeth. Thanks, in part, to Shevardnadze's diplomatic labors, Soviet tanks and troops have been withdrawn from Afghanistan and are being partially withdrawn from Eastern Europe. A whole class of nuclear weapons has been marked for destruction under the INF treaty signed in 1987. As the Soviets and their allies disentangle themselves from conflicts in Namibia and Cambodia, they are making diplomatic inroads in the Middle East...