Moscow's Murky Morass

Political troubles, rebel resistance and a China connection

If you assume that the Soviets thought they would improve their situation by invading, then they have miscalculated." So said a State Department analyst last week, commenting on the murky troubles that Moscow may be facing in Afghanistan. Some of the estimated 90,000 Soviet troops in the country fought a fierce skirmish with defecting units of the Afghan army; others were apparently killed or wounded by rebel snipers, not only in the mountain passes but also reportedly in Kabul and other cities. There were unconfirmed rumors from the Afghan capital of widespread looting by Soviet troops, and even of gunfights involving Cabinet members in the government of national unity named by the U.S.S.R.'s puppet strongman, Babrak Karmal. The wildest story was that Karmal had been deposed in favor of former Secret Police Chief Assadullah Sarwari, a hard-line Stalinist.

Even if he still held office, Karmal's position was less than secure. His official photographs have been removed from government offices and public squares, and he has not been seen publicly for the past two weeks. Late last month a surprisingly strong criticism of Karmal's attempts to form a broader political base appeared in the Kabul New Times, a government-run English-language daily. Karmal, who is believed to have ties among both the deposed royal family and the frontier tribes, had included non-Marxists in his government. Knowing that many of the Cabinet members were bitter political enemies, some Western observers in Kabul concluded that the mix was probably unworkable. "Karmal's dilemma is unique," said a diplomat at the time. "To win the people's trust he must distance himself from Moscow. But such a move would be political suicide. The Russians would not stand for it."

Indeed they would not, especially since they had hand-picked Karmal to rule Afghanistan after the overthrow and execution of Hafizullah Amin last December. Karmal did seem to be losing control of events. Early last week, diplomats living near the People's Palace in Kabul heard bursts of machine-gun fire coming from inside the building. This led to speculation that a quarrel had erupted among rival members of the Politburo and had ended in a gunfight. Lending credence to that theory was an official Afghan news agency report a couple of days later that said that Deputy Premier Sultan Ali Kishtmand, a bitter opponent of Sarwari, had been flown to Moscow for emergency medical treatment.

If things were hardly serene on the political front, the Soviets could not derive much comfort from their military position either. Defense analysts in Washington said last week that it appeared that the Soviets were preparing for a spring offensive against the rebels and were continuing to build up their forces by massive airlifts. Some counterinsurgency specialists believe that Moscow will have to put a total of 120,000 to 200,000 troops into Afghanistan if it is to put down the rebellion. The Soviet forces, by and large, appear to control the larger cities and communications routes in the country, but they still encounter occasional heavy rebel attack. In one bitter battle last week, Soviet tanks and at least one MiG-23 fighter fought a rebellious Afghan army unit near Kabul. Witnesses said that the MiG dropped what appeared to be napalm incendiary bombs on the rebels.

Against this gloomy backdrop, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko flew to India last week to explain Moscow's reasons for the intervention, and to keep its relationship with New Delhi in good repair. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had previously expressed her guarded disapproval of the Soviet action; she had hoped to use her persuasive powers to bring about a speedy Soviet withdrawal. By the end of the three-day visit, though, Mrs. Gandhi had failed to obtain assurances of an immediate Soviet removal. There were reports, however, that Soviet diplomats at the United Nations and elsewhere had privately pledged that Moscow would remove its troops when Afghanistan's border with Pakistan is "stabilized."

The Prime Minister told Gromyko that such a withdrawal was necessary in order to relax tensions in the subcontinent. New Delhi has been alarmed by both the heightened big-power rivalry and the prospect of a new arms buildup in the area. India is particularly concerned about renewed U.S. military aid to Pakistan; New Delhi has pointed out to Washington, for example, that the vast majority of Islamabad's forces are on Pakistan's frontier with India and not on the border with Afghanistan. In hopes of negotiating a Soviet pullout from the country, Mrs. Gandhi has tried to coordinate a regional diplomatic response, involving Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal as well as India.

Gromyko insisted that the Soviets were invited to enter Afghanistan under the terms of a friendship treaty with Kabul. He also castigated the U.S. and China for "intrigues directed at turning Pakistan into a seat of tensions and a base for further aggression against Afghanistan. If Pakistan proceeds along this path," he warned, "it will gain nothing good and will undermine its position as an independent state."

Gromyko's warning about interference by Peking and Washington gave credence to the theory that one factor in the Kremlin's Afghan adventurism may well have been its longstanding paranoia about China and its fears of a new U.S.-China axis. According to one knowledgeable Asian diplomat, Chinese arms aid for the Muslim rebels significantly increased after Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's visit to Washington in January 1979. And help from other sources seems to be on the way. Last week Egyptian Defense Minister Lieut. General Kamal Hassan Ali admitted that his country was arming and training Afghan rebels. A senior White House official also confirmed that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has been providing light infantry weapons--most of Soviet design and presumably bought in third countries--to the Afghan insurgents via Pakistan since mid-January.

Quite clearly, though, a possible China connection for the Afghan rebels is the one that most bothers the Kremlin. In talks with French National Assembly President Jacques Chaban-Delmas in Moscow last month, President Leonid Brezhnev bearishly declared that the Soviets would not hesitate to launch a preemptive strike against Chinese missile-launching facilities--if the U.S. even helped the People's Republic build up its strategic arsenal.

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