Word: kandahar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...heroin and cocaine production worldwide in 10 years. Yeah, sure. But before you sell him short, take note of what he has already done since taking over the U.N. Drug Control Program last September. Responding to reports that opium production in Afghanistan had shot up 25%, he flew to Kandahar and personally persuaded the country's radical Taliban rulers to halt future planting in exchange for help in reconstructing a factory that will provide jobs for impoverished residents. A few weeks ago, the Taliban publicly burned two tons of opium, enough to produce 400 lbs. of heroin, which is roughly...
...state. But it is still a shadowy one. Last week the Taliban's leader, Maulana Mohammad Omar, a one-eyed former cleric who is also known as Commander of the Faithful, had yet to make an appearance, running the capital from his base 300 miles to the south in Kandahar. And the Taliban aren't finished fighting. The forces of ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani, led by former Army Chief Ahmad Shah Massoud, are holed up 31 miles north of Kabul in the isolated Panjshir Valley, and have blown up the road leading in. Rabbani is rumored to have fled...
Then the question will be when, not if, the Soviet-backed regime of President 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...
...guerrillas learned that lesson the hard way at Kandahar last week when insurgents of Jamiat-i-Islami broke off attacks on strategic high ground around Baba Wali, a heavily fortified point overlooking the city, after coming under air and artillery barrages from entrenched government forces. An assault by fighters of Yunis Khalis' Hezb-e-Islami last month on outposts screening Jalalabad was similarly thrown back at the cost of as many as 50 mujahedin lives. Such large-scale attacks under heavy fire are something new for the guerrilla forces. Says Abdul Qadir, a senior rebel commander with Khalis: "The mujahedin...
Moscow and Kabul's answer to the emerging rebel strategy of slow strangulation is to dig in at a few strongholds -- Kabul, Jalalabad, Herat, Faizabad, Ghazni, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif -- and await a change in the military or political equation that could give them an advantage. Most of the remaining 50,000 Soviet troops are garrisoned in Kabul and Shindand, the huge air base in western Afghanistan, as well as in Herat and a few other cities along the main roads to the Soviet border. As many as 100,000 Afghan troops - are deployed in the same areas...