Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990 TAG: 9003072084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/9 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN LENGTH: Medium
A government spokesman denied the reports but acknowledged fighting at the base at Bagram.
Western diplomats and guerrilla leaders in Pakistan said they had received reports from Afghanistan of fighting between rival factions in the southern city of Kandahar and the northwestern city of Herat.
The diplomats and guerrilla sources, all speaking on condition of anonymity, also told of sporadic street fighting in Kabul, the capital, and said mutinous air force pilots bombed the capital for a second day but were repulsed by troops loyal to President Najib.
Afghanistan's highest-ranking diplomat in Pakistan, Charge d'Affaires Qudratullah Ahmadi, denied there was widespread fighting. "There is only fighting in Bagram. All of Afghanistan is quiet," he told reporters in Islamabad.
Of the Bagram battle, Ahmadi said, "This was a strong challenge. This was their [the mutineers'] last chance." He denied the base had fallen.
But a foreign diplomat said, "All indications are that the mutineers are in control of Bagram."
"Beyond that, the situation in Afghanistan is exceedingly unclear," the diplomat said.
Claims made by the Kabul government and the Moslem insurgents are often exaggerated and impossible to verify independently.
The reported fighting countered Najib's claims that his forces had crushed the uprising launched Tuesday by his defense minister, Maj. Gen. Shah Nawaz Tanai, a hard-line Marxist popular with the military rank and file.
In a brief speech today on official Radio Kabul, Najib again claimed victory over the mutineers and said renegade soldiers were surrendering. "Tanai has escaped. His allies are defecting, and those who do not surrender will be punished," he said.
Radio Kabul said troops loyal to Najib controlled Kabul, a city of 2 million, but urged residents to stay indoors.
It also accused another high-ranking party member, Asadullah Sarwari, of involvement in the attempted overthrow. Sarwari was a former interior minister known as "the butcher" for hundreds of killings following the 1978 revolution that installed the Communist government.
The whereabouts of both Tanai and Sarwari was not immediately known, but Radio Kabul said Tanai had been hiding near Bagram, 30 miles north of Kabul.
Najib, who was installed as president by the Soviets in December 1986, said "a number of people," mostly civilians, had been killed and injured since Tuesday. He gave no figures.
The government appealed to supporters to take up arms in defense. Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, leader of one of the most fundamentalist of the guerrilla groups that took up arms against the government 11 years ago, claimed six Soviet warplanes joined the government's fight. A Soviet official denied it.
Hekmatyar offered his support to the mutineers within hours after planes began bombing the presidential palace Tuesday afternoon.
by CNB