Word: najibullah
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After nine years of fighting, mujahedin can drive their few vehicles through the valley in daylight with little worry of attack. The government withdrawal from the Panjshir has prompted hopes in Kabul that Massoud might be coaxed into a cease-fire or even a coalition. According to Massoud, President Najibullah has even offered him a choice of top government posts in exchange for peace...
...walled farmhouse three days' ride from the Panjshir Valley, Massoud is asked if he would consider dealing with Najibullah. Amid interruptions from aides bringing intelligence reports scribbled on scraps of paper, the guerrilla chief declares, "There is no possibility of coexistence with the Communists...
...military area, Massoud believes that the mujahedin must strike a decisive blow soon, before Najibullah can adjust to the departure of the Soviets, who are scheduled to complete their troop withdrawal by Feb. 15. The government has 150,000 troops dug in around major cities. To face them in a final showdown, Massoud is training 10,000 men, initial units of an "Islamic army," to fight like a conventional force, rather than as hit-and-run marauders. Training, in camps spread along the rugged northern flanks of the Hindu Kush, includes the use of U.S.-supplied Stinger antiaircraft missiles...
...most of the Soviet forces remain in place until late this year or early 1989, as the Kremlin indicated last week, they will almost certainly guarantee Najibullah's survival through next winter. Moscow continues to supply the regime with a bountiful flow of weapons and ammunition, and has announced long-term aid and economic agreements...
...Soviets hope to prop up Najibullah long enough to allow a transition to a more broadly based regime friendly to the Soviet Union. Whatever the stripes of the new regime, Moscow aims to have it seeded with friends open to continued Soviet access to gas fields and copper and oil deposits that it has developed in the north. Says Ambassador Yegorychev: "There is no doubt that we have our national interests here. Our main interest is that Afghanistan be a good neighbor of the Soviet Union...