Word: kabul
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...front is just outside Kabul. From the center of the city, it is easy to spot a series of outposts -- small, mud-walled fortresses -- on the snowy mountaintops that ring the capital. Soviet and Afghan troops man the redoubts around the clock, watching for guerrilla movement in the valleys beyond. As soon as mujahedin activity is spotted, Soviet artillery goes into action, and the boom of outgoing fire echoes through the city...
...defense of Kabul, however, is undergoing its biggest change since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan a decade ago. Having already withdrawn most of its 115,000-strong invasion force, Moscow has now begun pulling out the last of the estimated 15,000 troops who form the Kabul garrison and defend the corridor north to the Soviet border. By Feb. 15, the last Soviet soldier is scheduled to be gone from Afghanistan, and the Afghan military will bear sole responsibility for the security of the capital as well as the rest of the country...
...Najibullah will fall. Though all the country's major cities are still under government control, Kandahar and Jalalabad, two of the five largest, have seen their defenses crumble under mujahedin attacks. Moscow insists it is determined to ensure the survival of Najibullah's government, but nearly all diplomats in Kabul believe the regime will collapse within months, perhaps even weeks, of Feb. 15. As the prospect of a bloody siege grew last week, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker ordered the closing of the American embassy in Kabul and told the eight U.S. diplomats still in Afghanistan to leave...
...Though Kabul has not yet come under consistent, heavy military barrage, the city is vulnerable to attacks that may cut the Salang Highway, the 264-mile road that climbs the towering Hindu Kush and crosses long stretches of mujahedin-controlled territory to the Soviet border. In a move to push the guerrilla forces back from the highway, Soviet and Afghan troops last week shelled villages south of the Salang Tunnel, killing hundreds of civilians and refugees...
...Moscow would halt the withdrawal if the mujahedin leadership did not accept some participation by Najibullah's People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (P.D.P.A.) in a shura, or council of leaders, that would choose a new government. The mujahedin, smelling a bluff, would not budge, and the pullout from Kabul continued...