International Afghan revolt has come a long way
By
ROBERT TRUMBULL,
Of!
the “New York Times *’ through NZPA Shamkan, Pakistan An effective network of self-exiled Afghans in refugee camps in the semi-desert tribal areas of Pakistan’s remote Baluchistan province appears to be directing the growing revolt against the year-old pro-Soviet Government in Afghanistan.. A system of couriers carries information and orders back and forth between the rebel fighting units in Afghanistan and the planners of the operations at bases on the Pakistan side of the border, according to a source involved in the operation. Evidence of the network was uncovered in visits to four Afghan refugee camps in Baluchistan province, in- i eluding two in the narrow frontier belt where the only'
' law is that of the Muslim ' tribes. Tentacles of the organisation touch dozens of points along the 1600 km frontier : from the former princely State of Chitral, in the Himalayas, to the brown i hilis and bare plains between Afghan soil and ; Kuetta, a Baluchistan pro- 1 vincial capital whose bazaars purvey a wealth of expensive consumer goods ■ smuggled from Iran and the 1 Gulf States. ; The nerve centre of the ’ rebel campaign is at Miram i Shah, in the northern Waziristan district of Pakistan’s ’ I North-West Frontier prov- ’ ince, according to the infor- , mant, an Afghan. Much of j j the planning also takes place in or near Peshawar, the i capital of the northern prov- i Since and the nearest big t town to the historic Khyber I Pass. i ’ Important ' but less con- i 'spicuous links include such < t
out-of-the-way places as twoi refugee settlements on the! plain at Skamkham in the tribal territory about 2km from the Afghan border, where Pakistani and Afghan Army posts keep watch on each other. Colonel Izmatullah Achadzai, who was introduced’ as the commander of rebel operations in southern Afghanistan, said: “from here we can have men across the border before Communist agents in Pakistan can get word of their coming by radio to Afghanistan.” Colonel Izmatullah said he was one of several officers who had defected from the Afghan Regular Army to join the rebellion. Six top-ranked defecting officers formed an advisory council on the direction of the rebellion, he said. “The availability of seasoned Army officers in planning the rebel operations give a touch of profes-
sionalism to the exercise,” said an English-speaking Afghan. “You see,” he added, “we aren’t all mullahs” —
an allusion to an impression aboard that the rebellion is led primarily by Muslim religious men who suffered at the hands of the Communists. All the defecting officers report to a man who is emerging as the central figure in the rebellion. He is an importan. pir. a hereditary religious leader, Named Syed Ahmed Gailani. The sved in his name translates as a title for descendant of Mohammed, the founder of Islam. The men around him have a low opinion of the several other dissident groups in Peshawar and put their followers at a maximum of 500 C. Colonel Izmatullah said he had 7500 to 8000 fighting men under his command in the southern Afghanistan.
They strike at police and military units or at the! homes of Government sup-1 porters in groups of 10 to! 50, he said. According to Colonel Iz-| matullah and others inter-l viewed on the day-long tour of the camps, the rebels rule! much of Afghanistan bynight, in the classic pattern! of guerrilla warfare, the Government taking over; when daylight permits effective air patrols and the use| of other standard weapons. | “Major guerrilla oper-' ations are going on,” he; said, “in the provinces of Paktia, Uruzgan, Helmand, Herat, Mazar-I-Sharif, Takhar, Badakhshan, Parawan, Konar, and Farah — 10 of: the country’s 28 provinces. ; "Guerrilla strikes have! closed the military airport at I Shindand. outside Herat. 1 the country’s second-larg-i est,” he said. “The Govern-| ment has planes but can’t trust the pilots,” he said.!
| “And the road leading into Herat from Kabul is comipletely cut off by guer- 1 rillas.” ; Another informant said I that at least one-third of the j ! army was sympathetic to i ,the rebel cause. I They reported cases in' [which Army men had re-. I fused to fire on the gueri rillas, among whom they recognised friends from their home villages. Judging by these accounts,} the rebellion has come a long way since the unorga-1 nised, sporadic attacks on; Government forces by angered village tribesmen that were reported intermittently| by sources in Peshawar. | Significantly, the source! of the news about Afghan : fighting fronts has changed i from the Peshawar circle of! politicians involved in squabbling and intrigue to! men of action like Colonel! Izmatullah.
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Press, 17 April 1979, Page 9
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776International Afghan revolt has come a long way Press, 17 April 1979, Page 9
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