Word: shomali
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Rabbani's 300-man assault battalion is just one of the Northern Alliance units moving toward the Shomali Plain, north of Kabul, as opposition troops mass in preparation for a final offensive against the Taliban. In Jabal-us-Seraj, an opposition-held town 47 miles north of the capital, the narrow streets are clogged with irregulars arriving from Northern Alliance garrisons across the northeast. Distant explosions light the night sky to the south of Jabal-us-Seraj--U.S. air strikes that have bolstered the confidence of these men. "Since the beginning of the American attacks, there have been no Taliban...
...from Iran and Russia must follow one of two treacherous supply routes. The first is a limited airlift: a handful of Mi-17 transport helicopters that load up at supply dumps in Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan, then fly across the towering Hindu Kush range to the Panjshir Valley and Shomali Plain. But last week bad weather and low visibility grounded those choppers. The other supply line is a rock-strewn mountain track that winds for more than 150 miles from Afghanistan's northern border through the heart of the Hindu Kush, crossing the 13,000-ft. Anjuman Pass into...
...hours after dawn, thunderous explosions boomed every five seconds across the Shomali region of northeast Afghanistan, as Soviet tanks and artillery fired more than 1,000 shells at suspected guerrilla hideouts. Every 15 minutes, in reply, came the resounding rattle of heavy machine-gun fire as the guerrillas aimed, in vain, at two helicopter gunships circling high above the green plains. That evening tanks could be heard clanking through the darkness. By morning they were gone...
Such were the sounds of the Soviet spring offensive, vintage 1983, perhaps the most savage assault since the invasion. There are, according to Western estimates, some 105,000 Soviet troops now in Afghanistan. Using tanks, helicopters and fighter-bombers, these forces pounded villages throughout the Shomali region. Their objective, presumably, was to obliterate guerrilla strength around the crucial 50-mile stretch of highway leading from Kabul toward the Soviet border, along which the invaders transport their supplies. Meantime, according to Western intelligence reports, Soviet bombers were attacking targets near Herat in the west and around Kandahar in the south. They...