From: tahar@i80s25.ira.uka.de (tahar)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.afghanistan
Subject: Re: Afghan news item #11
Date: 12 Oct 1992 14:37:56 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: i80s25.ira.uka.de

In article <92286.091008OMARS@auvm.american.edu>, <OMARS@auvm.american.edu> writes:
|> From: clarinews@clarinet.com (ANWAR IQBAL)
|> Date: 10 Oct 92 20:37:14 GMT
|> Approved: clarinews@clarinet.com
|> 
|> 
|> 
|>         ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- Afghan mujahideen leaders have extended a
|> deadline for the withdrawal of the former communist militia from Kabul,
|> as demanded by a dissident Muslim faction, Afghan sources said Saturday.
|>         The deadline, set under a cease-fire accord between government and
|> the dissident mujahideen leader Gulbadin Hekmatyar, was to have expired
|> Sunday and had already been extended twice.
|>         The Afghan Islamic Press, a comparatively neutral mujahideen news
|> agency, said mujahideen mediator Haji Shamali Khan extended the deadline
|> after meeting with Hekmatyar on Friday.
|>         President Burhanuddin Rabbani's interim government had requested a
|> 24-hour extension, saying it needed more time to expel the militia from
|> the capital.
|>         The militia, which helped Rabbani and his defense minister Ahmad Shah
|> Masoud capture Kabul when President Najibullah's communist government
|> collapsed in April, has several thousand troops in the capital.
|>         Most mujahideen groups oppose the militia because it was founded by
|> the communists and the mujahideen hold it responsible for killing
|> hundreds of their men during the war.
|>         A mujahideen coalition force sent by the powerful Nangarhar Council
|> in eastern Afghanistan has promised to launch a combined attack on the
|> militia if the government failed to evict it from Kabul within the given
|> period.
|>         Meanwhile, Masoud -- famous for his daring attacks on the Soviet army
|> during the 14-year Afghan civil war -- has asked thousand of his men from
|> the north to come to Kabul ``to help the government expel the militia,''
|> Radio Kabul said.
|>         However, Afghan mujahideen leaders and western diplomats in Pakistan
|> believe the government did not have ``enough strength to oust the
|> battle-hardened militiamen,'' a Western diplomat said.
|>         Earlier reports from Kabul said the militia forces were digging
|> trenches inside the city to resist attempts to force them out of the
|> Afghan capital.
|>         Observers fear that attempts to force a withdrawal could lead to an
|> all-out war between the government and its militia allies.
|>         ``And it will be a bloody war -- bloodier than anything we have seen
|> so far,'' said a Western diplomat.
|>         He said a war between Rabbani's mujahideen could lead to a larger
|> ethnic conflict. The militia forces are mainly ethnic Uzbek from the
|> north, while the mujahideen parties demanding their withdrawal are
|> dominated by the majority Pashtoon ethnic group.
|>         A spokesman for Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami party said efforts to oust
|> the militia would not lead to an ethnic war, but could ``possibly lead
|> to a war between mujahideen and the militia.''
|>         The country was plunged into an internecine conflict six months ago,
|> almost immediately after the 14-year civil war ended.

-- 

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Sofiene Tahar                                     | email: tahar@ira.uka.de 
Institut fuer Rechnerentwurf und Fehlertoleranz,  | Tel.: +49 (721) 608 4220
Fakultaet fuer Informatik, Universitaet Karlsruhe,| Fax: +49 (721) 370455
P.O. Box 6980, W-7500 Karlsruhe 1,                |
Germany                                           |

Newsgroups: soc.culture.afghanistan