Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:22:41 EDT
From: <OMARS@auvm.american.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.afghanistan
Subject:    Afghan news item #6

From: clarinews@clarinet.com (RALPH JOSEPH)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 11:24:46 EDT
Location: afghanistan, pakistan


Here is the latest, as reported in an unedited mode:

        ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- Afghanistan's Hizbi Islamic party said
Wednesday warplanes from an unnamed neighboring country had carried out
bombing raids on the Shindand air base in the west of the country.
        The most recent raid occurred Monday when four people in a village
near Shindand were killed and six injured, Afghan rebel warlord
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's party said in a statement sent to Islamabad.
        The party's statement quoted Hekmatyar as saying ``a foreign country
was involved in bombing'' Shindand, but he did not name the country.
        Shindand, about 400 miles west of Kabul, is controlled by Hekmatyar's
forces, which have been fighting forces loyal to the interim government
in Kabul since April.
        The ethnic Pushtan mujahideen guerrilla chief said, ``Our radar
systems pursued the jets carrying out bombing missions.''
        The radar tracking continued until the planes crossed the border into
a neighboring country, he said.
        Shindand, where the Soviet forces set up a nuclear missile base
during their decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, is just 75 miles
from the Iranian border.
        Hekmatyar said his forces ``had more sophisticated weapons'' than
those of the interim government, and ``in case the violations of the
cease-fire agreement were not stopped...they would exhibit their air and
military strength.''
        He was referring to the agreement signed Aug. 26 between his group
and several other Afghan mujahideen guerrilla organizations to end the
fighting that erupted last month outside Kabul and has since killed some
2,500 people and wounded more than 6,000.
        Hekmatyar Tuesday addressed a news conference in Jalalabad, close to
the Pakistan border, and denied he was receiving arms from a Pakistani
Islamic fundamentalist leader.
        Speaking to reporters in the summer palace of the former Afghan King
Zahir Shah, the Hezb-i-Islami guerrilla chief said he had ``not used a
single Pakistani bullet'' since he returned to Afghanistan from Pakistan
in April, after the fall of Communist President Najibullah.
        Afghanistan's interim President Burhanuddin Rabbani told reporters
Sunday in Islamabad that Qazi Hussein Ahmed, chief of Pakistan's Jamaat-
i-Islami party, was involved in smuggling arms to Hekmatyar's forces
across the border between the two countries.
        The Pakistani Jamaati-Islami party, a mainly Sunni Muslim
fundamentalist group, has no links with the Afghan party of the same
name of which charismatic Afghan mujahideen chief Ahmed Shah Masoud is a
member.
        A Pakistani official in Islamabad said his country's intelligence
forces were aware that arms were being smuggled to Hekmatyar's forces,
and stopped 14 trucks loaded with weapons as they tried to cross the
border a month ago.
        Rabbani discussed the alleged gun-running operation with Pakistani
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif when he visited Islamabad at the weekend.
        Afghan diplomats in Islamabad said Ahmad was shipping the arms to
Hekmatyar without the approval of the party he led and the operation was
being ``carried out by his relatives,'' as a clan affair.
        Ahmed has not denied Rabbani's charges, but told reporters Tuesday
the United States and the Sharif government were carrying out a
propaganda campaign against him.