Word: mujahedin
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...outlook ahead is far grimmer: more war, more bloodshed, more despair. With 1 million dead, 2 million uprooted from their homes and another 5 million claiming temporary asylum in neighboring countries, Afghanistan is bracing for a duel to the death between Najibullah's shaky regime and the U.S.-backed mujahedin rebels. No one knows whether the Soviets will mount cross-border air raids to thwart the rebels' designs, or if Washington intends to keep open its not-so-covert arms pipeline through Pakistan to the rebels. But even if the superpowers bow out entirely, both sides in the Afghan conflict...
Afghanistan's only hope for a halt to the savagery rests with the shura, or consultative council, that convened in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi last Friday. The 526-member council is composed of representatives from the seven- party mujahedin alliance that operates out of Pakistan and the eight mujahedin parties based in Iran. Their aim is to designate an interim - government that would supplant the Najibullah regime. But last week's meeting, attended by 420 delegates, gave little cause for optimism. The council's session lasted just 40 minutes, then disintegrated into chaos over the question of just...
Even if by some miracle the squabbling mujahedin political leaders and their allied military field commanders reach agreement, their determined resistance to any Communist representation in the new government all but ensures that Najibullah will continue to struggle for his political life. Last week, his voice cracking uncharacteristically, Najibullah proclaimed, "God is with us. The people are with us. We will win the war." But the extent of the President's fear was evident as the regime summoned the 30,000 members of the ruling People's Democratic Party who have been newly armed with automatic rifles and are intended...
...hold for long. Rebel commanders in the field, who sense that a military victory is within reach, are not going to let that long-sought opportunity slip away. The only remaining question seems to be precisely how they will take the cities. Full- scale assaults are tempting, but the mujahedin insurgents fear that the civilian toll may be high and that a successful attack may draw Soviet retribution from the air. That is what happened last August, when rebels took the northern city of Kunduz, then were forced to flee under a hail of fighter- bomber fire...
...government's most immediate military concern focuses on the Salang. The Soviets have been able to keep the route open by combining military muscle with diplomacy. Outposts dot the way. Soviet officers had an informal understanding with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the powerful mujahedin commander in the Panjshir Valley, north of Kabul: safe passage for Soviet vehicles as long as Moscow keeps up the withdrawal. After last week's offensive by Soviet and Afghan troops, that arrangement may be finished...