Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Soviet armored personnel carrier, loaded with infantrymen and flying a white flag, rolled up to the Pakistani frontier post of Tor Kham from the Afghanistan side of the border. It was the climactic moment of a battle that had begun after Afghanistan's mujahedin resistance fighters attacked and briefly held three Afghan border posts on the Khyber Pass. The Soviets had reacted with lightning speed, sending in a full brigade by air to retake the outposts. In the confusion of battle, three soldiers of the Soviet-backed Afghan army fled to Pakistan, but their defection had been detected...
...three men back," he said, addressing Pakistani frontier policemen in English. Beside | him, an Afghan officer repeated the request in Urdu, adding, "If we don't have them back, you will be in for a lot of trouble." The Soviet vehicle then turned around and rumbled back into Afghanistan. "Not a shot was fired," a Pakistani officer recalled. "But just in case we didn't believe they meant business, they dropped 80 artillery shells on our positions that night." For the next two days, sporadic tank and artillery fire fell on the Pakistani outpost--and on the morning...
Pakistani officials suggest that the situation along the frontier has worsened since President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq met last month in Moscow with Mikhail Gorbachev, the new Soviet leader, and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. Zia was told by the Soviets that Pakistan's policy toward Afghanistan --collaboration with the resistance and cooperation with the U.S.--could cause the relationship between Moscow and Islamabad to deteriorate. Though that line was not new, Zia was said to have been shaken by the conversation...
That means the time may have come for the diplomats. A number of Western experts believe Mikhail Gorbachev is looking for a face-saving settlement in Afghanistan. In Nicaragua, continued American support for the contras might eventually force the Sandinistas to accept a peace plan along the lines of one put forward by Opposition Leader Arturo Cruz. He calls for a cease-fire in exchange for new elections and democratic guarantees. A settlement should also provide for a reduction in the Nicaraguan armed forces and limitations on Soviet and Cuban arms. The U.S. is not likely to ease...
...Nicaragua, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the U.S. has clearly recognized that support for guerrilla warfare can be a legitimate and effective ploy in the great game of superpower competition. Recently the Administration seems also to have come around to recognizing that its hand, while strong, should not be overplayed...