Word: afghanization
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Translated, that means Moscow will continue to help the Najibullah < government avoid military defeat. Earlier this month the regime's forces lost two provincial capitals in the northeast: Taliqan, a relatively insignificant small city, and Kunduz, a strategic strong point. Though Afghan troops, supported by Soviet air power, subsequently recaptured Kunduz, Moscow apparently regarded the setbacks as serious enough to quash earlier suggestions that the 50,000 troops still in Afghanistan might be home by the end of the year, well ahead of the Feb. 15, 1989, deadline established under the Geneva accords signed by Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, Pakistan...
...fighter-bombers based in the Soviet Union blasted and strafed rebel positions, reducing portions of the city to rubble. Washington considers the sorties a violation of the Geneva accords, as well as a serious threat to the mujahedin's efforts on the battlefield. If the Soviets fear that their Afghan comrades are not tough enough to fend off the mujahedin, Western analysts and rebel leaders have quite the opposite concern: so far, Najibullah's troops have been showing more gumption than expected. Around Jalalabad, a city the Soviets left three months ago, Afghan troops have thrown back repeated rebel assaults...
...pulled out. The guerrillas overran the government defenders and freed the prisoners at the local jail, but failed to capture the heavily defended airport. Within two days government reinforcements closed in, and Soviet aircraft went to work. After three days of fighting, the mujahedin withdrew; according to TASS, twelve Afghan troops and 173 insurgents died (the latter figure possibly includes civilian casualties). The Kunduz affair apparently triggered a shake-up in the Afghan military. TASS reported that Najibullah had appointed a new Defense Minister and army chief of staff...
...wake of Kunduz and other rebel setbacks, Western analysts' predictions that major Afghan cities would fall quickly once the Soviets pulled out look overly optimistic. Says a Western diplomat in Kabul: "The mujahedin are not capable of waging large-scale conventional warfare. The regime still has superior firepower and transport capacity...
...contact beyond the kind that requires a salute or a karate chop. On the other hand, the author has kept up with shifts of attitude in the U.S., and not every Kremlin big shot is portrayed as an evil-empire builder. He has not anticipated the end of the Afghan war, and the Pentagon procurement scandal is not foreshadowed. Complicated weapons systems usually work, and no U.S. military officer or enlisted person is less than true blue. Fair enough. Accepting Clancy's word on such matters for the duration of a flight is less strenuous and far more reassuring than...