Word: rebel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
According to U.S. intelligence sources, in fact, the regime regained Kunduz only after Soviet fighter-bombers based in the Soviet Union blasted and strafed rebel positions, reducing portions of the city to rubble. Washington considers the sorties a violation of the Geneva accords, as well as a serious threat to the mujahedin's efforts on the battlefield. If the Soviets fear that their Afghan comrades are not tough enough to fend off the mujahedin, Western analysts and rebel leaders have quite the opposite concern: so far, Najibullah's troops have been showing more gumption than expected. Around Jalalabad, a city...
...wake of Kunduz and other rebel setbacks, Western analysts' predictions that major Afghan cities would fall quickly once the Soviets pulled out look overly optimistic. Says a Western diplomat in Kabul: "The mujahedin are not capable of waging large-scale conventional warfare. The regime still has superior firepower and transport capacity...
...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 are not ready to risk high casualties...
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...
...civil war are already jockeying for advantage. The leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front is believed to be preparing its first major push since 1983. Although in the past the war was fought largely in the countryside, San Salvador is likely to be a major target for any new rebel operation. Intelligence reports say a shipment of guns was recently smuggled into the capital. Last week guerrillas ambushed an air force truck in the city, killing one civilian and wounding three soldiers...