Word: kabul
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...border who could be rushed into combat if necessary. U.S. analysts believe it will take all of them, perhaps 100,000 strong, to subdue the country, hold all the important towns and keep the roads open. With the force now in Afghanistan, U.S. analysts believe, the Soviets can hold Kabul and most provincial capitals, but nothing more. The Soviets also control many units of the Afghan army, but the army's ranks are depleted (down to an estimated 50,000 from as many as 150,000) and its loyalties bitterly divided...
...killing season, when there is nothing to do but go out and shoot." The tribes are hopelessly disunited and fight constantly among themselves. But for the most part they dislike central authority, they distrust foreigners?particularly Russians ?and they have fought with rising fervor against the Kabul government ever since the Soviet-backed regime of President Taraki came to power in April...
...rebels were doing well until the Soviet takeover. They had virtually surrounded Kabul and controlled as many as 22 of the country's 28 provinces. Not even armored-car escorts could ensure safe passage for trucks on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar. As a result of the disruption of the transportation system, prices of essential commodities soared in Kabul?rice by 100%, firewood by 500%, and diesel fuel was nearly unobtainable...
...Pakistani government of President Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq is tempted to encourage the Afghan tribesmen to fight the Kabul government, with which Pakistan has always had uneasy relations. But the Pushtun (or Pathan) tribesmen, whose homeland is on both sides of the border, also have their differences with Pakistan. So Zia is reluctant to grant the insurgents too much aid lest they use it to fight his government, which has serious problems...
...some historians argue that the traditional fierceness of the Afghans is a quality that defies measure. In January 1842, after an adventure in Afghanistan, the British ordered the withdrawal of 4,500 soldiers and 12,000 camp followers from Kabul. A week later, the sole survivor of the march, a field surgeon named Brydon, staggered into Jalalabad on the way to the Khyber Pass. The present generation of rebel tribesmen are hardly equipped to repeat such a feat. But, as a former U.S. Ambassador to Kabul, Robert Neumann, has observed, "Foreign invaders have found it easier to march into Afghanistan...