From: hermi@shape.mps.ohio-state.edu (Lotfi Hermi)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.afghanistan
Subject: Rabbani cancels visit to Pakistan (UPI)
Date: 4 Sep 1992 19:53:28 -0400
Organization: Department of Mathematics, The Ohio State University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: shape.mps.ohio-state.edu

Omar Joon! What ! no more news digests?! All Afghans out-there! No
more discussions about the future of Afghanistan, its culture, civilization!
No more flaming :) or what ?!! Come on! I remember we were about to discuss
the new social and political outlook of Afghanistan..! I guess
the tragedy is overwhelming...Wasbir wa ma sabruka illa billah...
Sabran brotheram fajr is sooner that you might think!
Here is a news item I picked up... (again check the sources... this
is not from our DWYA sources - so inshaa Allah it trusworthy (R.M.))

P.S. R.M. ---> Regular (not sarca) Mood

Ba ehteram 
Lotfi 
_____________________________________________________________________

Subject: Rabbani cancels visit to Pakistan as rain kills hundreds
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 92 10:12:51 PDT


	ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani
canceled Friday a scheduled visit to Pakistan because of flash floods
that swept away entire villages in mountain valleys of northern
Afghanistan, a government spokesman said.
	Radio Kabul said Friday rescue workers were only able to recover 50
bodies as ``the floods had scattered the bodies in a vast area.'' About
3,000 people were missing and government officials in Kabul said they
feared most of them might have died.
	Rabbani was in Indonesia to attend a summit meeting of the non-
aligned movement and had planned to visit Islamabad Saturday on a one-
day official visit. However, he sent a message to Pakistan from Jakarta
saying he would go straight home ``because of the disaster,'' the
spokesman said.
	President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have sent
messages of sympathy to Rabbani and asked what relief aid he needs from
Pakistan.
	Pakistan was sending food and medicine to northern Afghanistan and
would send more after consulting the Afghan government, the spokesman
said.
	The floods destroyed scores of villages Wednesday in the northern
province of Parawan-Kapisa on the foothills of the Hindukush mountains.
	Kabul Radio said torrential rains caused flash floods in the Ghorbund
and adjacent rivers in an area which is the junction of three rivers and
several tributaries. At some places the waves were as high as 30 feet.
	The worst affected were the Gulbahar, Panjsheer and Salang districts.
British mine-clearance experts working near Gulbahar, about 55 miles
north of Kabul,said several places in the three valleys had been swept
clean of human existence.
	Most of the affected villages were populated by the refugees
returning from Pakistan who had just completed rebuilding their homes
destroyed by 14 years of war.
	Kabul Radio read a government statement appealing to the United
Nations and the international community to ``help generously to rescue
the flood victims and for their rehabilitation.''
	Despite the disaster, the government and rebel troops of the
dissident Hizbe Islami party continued to accuse each other of violating
a 6-day-old cease-fire. The truce, which took affect Saturday, had
suspended more than two weeks of fierce fighting that left about 2,000
people dead in Kabul.
	The Hizbe-run Afghan news agency said government planes bombed its
positions at the Shindand airbase for the second day Friday.
	The government also accused Hizbe Islami of violating the cease-fire
and firing rockets and heavy artillery at government troops.
	The Hizbe Islami said one of its senior commanders, Deedar Khan, was
killed in a helicopter crash Friday near the Korgun mountain about 10
miles west of Kabul. The crash, the party said, was caused by technical
faults.
	Meanwhile, Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf, one of the 10 main mujahideen
leaders, met the Hizbe chief Gulbadin Hekmatyar at his base south of
Kabul Friday and supported his demand for the expulsion of all former
communist militia forces from the capital, the Afghan news agency said.
	Hekmatyar, who signed a peace accord with Rabbani on condition he
would evict the militia from Kabul, is now trying to expand his support
base. He wants other mujahideen groups to join him in evicting the
militia if Rabbani fails to do so.
	The militia had fought for the Soviet-backed government against
Muslim rebels during Afghanistan's civil war. Soviet troops helped prop
up the government for nearly 10 years before withdrawing in 1989. The
government of President Najibullah survived until this year, when it
collapsed in the face of rebel advances.


Newsgroups: soc.culture.afghanistan