Word: mujahedin
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...downtown Kabul last week, a unit of Soviet and Afghan troops paraded through the streets towing a fresh supply of SS-1 Scud missiles. Elsewhere in Afghanistan the Soviets also deployed 30 MiG-27 attack aircraft and began striking at mujahedin fighters with Backfire bombers. Why the sudden buildup? In Moscow First Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh announced that the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan "is being suspended" because of new attacks by mujahedin rebels. Blaming the U.S. and Pakistan for continuing to give arms to the guerrillas, he hinted that the original pullout deadline...
...soldier stationed in an isolated outpost north of Kabul, the odyssey to confinement and conversion began with a dispute with one of his superiors in 1987. After beating the officer unconscious, the 21-year-old Uzbek from Tashkent deserted, and before long, Afghan villagers handed him over to the mujahedin...
...Nazaro and Vilko are three of 312 soldiers Moscow says are missing in Afghanistan and who it believes are being held by the mujahedin. The Soviet Union's desire to secure the release of its fighting men, however, may founder on an issue that involves their hearts and minds -- and even their souls -- for many simply do not wish to be repatriated under any circumstances. Some of the prisoners of war are defectors who, whether out of fear or conviction, have no intention of ever returning to their homeland. Others are converts who have embraced Islam, the religion of their...
...defectors, particularly central Asians with a genuine commitment to Islam and an antipathy toward European Russians, have reportedly actually taken up arms on the mujahedin side. Almost to a man, the POWs who talked to TIME denied any desire to return to their homeland after the war. "I'd like to stay in Afghanistan and find a job," said Beg, explaining that he feared imprisonment or even execution if he returned home to the Soviet Union. "I'm free here," he explained. "As a Muslim, I'm not oppressed...
...final status of the POWs is far from certain. They could become pawns in a postwar tussle between Moscow and the mujahedin, who are insisting that the Soviet Union pay war reparations to a future Afghan government. Negotiations over the POWs will be further complicated by the task of separating those who decide to return to the U.S.S.R. from those who do not. Until then, most of the POWs are doomed to remain strangers in a strange land, trusted by hardly anyone. "To all appearances, they are Muslims and pray with us," says , Mohammad Payendah, an administrative officer...