Lethal Blunders

ITALY

Neo-Fascists miss their mark

Maurizio Di Leo, 34, a printing compositor at the Rome daily // Messaggero, had just parked his car near his home when the two gunmen struck. They pumped six bullets into him and sped away on a motor scooter. Di Leo died instantly. Within an hour, the neo-Fascist Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR) claimed responsibility for the killing --and even phoned // Messaggero to brag about it. "This evening our commando executed Concina..." the caller began. "No, you son of a bitch," shouted the switchboard operator in tears. "You didn't kill Concina. You murdered someone else." While Maurizio Di Leo lay dead in the street last week, // Messaggero Reporter Michele Concina, author of several exposes on the NAR and the real target of the attack, was working quietly in his office.

Italy's neo-Fascists had once again drawn blood--however mistakenly--a month to the day after a terrorist bomb detonated in the Bologna train station and took 84 lives. Indeed, on the morning of Di Leo's death, tens of thousands of demonstrators had gathered outside the gutted station to protest the massacre. Police were holding 21 suspects in connection with the bombing, claiming to have decapitated the country's neo-Fascist movement.

In fact, they may have barely scratched the surface. Italy's degenerating political climate has not only been chilled by violence from the left, it has also spawned what one official calls "a vast archipelago of black [right-wing] terrorism." Of the 248 people killed by terrorists in Italy since 1969, neo-Fascists have been responsible for 117.

Groups such as Ordine Nuovo (New Order) and Ordine Nero (Black Order) exist largely underground and range in size from a handful to several hundred members. Their activities include both the open violence of the NAR, the dominant force in the ultra-right movement, and the more traditional politicking of Terza Po-sizione (Third Position), a legal, strongly nationalist organization that operates just this side of Italy's antiFascism laws.

An enduring strain of ineptitude runs through Italy's terrorism-on-the-right. Last December four NAR hit men were arrested after shooting down a young university student they mistakenly took to be Giorgio Arcangeli, an anti-Fascist lawyer. Thus the Di Leo blunder did not really surprise anyone. A "tactical error," the NAR called it in a rambling note late last week that said it would still go after Reporter Concina for "contributing to the falsehoods about the revolutionary vanguard." Warned the terrorists: "We will return. This time there will be no mistake." -

AFGHANISTAN

No Place for Tourists

A land where Soviets are hated--and hunted

For nearly nine months a Soviet military occupation force of 80,000 has tried to subdue Afghanistan with an arsenal of tanks and helicopter gunships, only to be frustrated by fierce bands of Muslim rebels armed with rifles. Now the Soviets have decided to meet the insurgent mujahidin--holy warriors--more nearly on their own terms: guerrilla style. Under a new strategy disclosed last week, the Soviets have divided Afghanistan into seven sectors, each under a Soviet-led commando force. The new plan reportedly calls for the recruitment of highly paid Afghan tribesmen who are to act, in effect, as "enforcers" against the harboring of rebels in tribal villages. There are also signs that the Soviets may be preparing to starve out sympathetic villagers by destroying their crops.

Amid these indications of increasingly ruthless conflict, TIME Correspondent Marcia Gauger crossed the country last week. Traveling by public bus with Tyler Marshall of the Los Angeles Times, she journeyed hi six days from Spinbaldak on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the city of Herat in the far west. Her report:

As seen from the mountains of western Pakistan, Afghanistan is a desert carpet of brown and beige, smudged with dust devils rising to the sky. Up close, it is a land stubbornly clinging to its nationhood and seething with hatred for the Soviet invaders, the shuravi. Almost as soon as we boarded our first bus, at the border, we were asked a question that would be repeated everywhere we went: "What is your country?" Our reply invariably drew smiles and approving nods. "Ah, Amer-eeka. Good," they said.

On route to Kandahar (pop. 125,000), 66 miles away in southern Afghanistan, our traveling companions graciously shared slices of a delicious native melon. They warmed when we inquired about the cut communications and electricity cables along the road. "Mujahidin," one whispered knowingly. After passing through a Soviet-manned checkpoint at Kandahar airport--the first of 40 such roadblocks during the trip--we reached the city itself. A man who had befriended us on the bus located a scooter rickshaw and led us to a safe house to spend the night.

Because the airport and mam road were originally financed by the U.S., Americans are fondly remembered in Kandahar as dispensers of jobs and money. Nevertheless, our Caucasian features were a major liability. "Yes, you can go out," our host said, "but don't go to the bazaar. They will think you are Soviets and kill you." Everywhere we walked we were Indeed followed by smoldering black eyes. Only when the Afghans learned our nationality did hostile looks give way to smiles. That night we were awakened by the sound of gunfire close at hand. "Go back to America," our host counseled. "Afghanistan is not nice now for tourists."

We caught a bus for Herat early the following morning. The passing desert landscape yielded camel's thorn, patches of purple and pale yellow flowers, and 28 charred metal wrecks--military trucks, armored personnel carriers and, to our horror, a bus. Again came the whisper: "Mujahidin. "After a Soviet guard waved us through one checkpoint, my relieved traveling companion grinned and gave the soldier a little farewell wave in return. This upset one of the Afghans, who fixed Marshall with a scowl--evidently taking him for a Soviet sympathizer--and ran his finger across his throat. Then, just as Marshall was wondering whether his throat was about to be slit, the Afghan, reassured by his friends, gave the correspondent a broad smile and a bunch of grapes.

With its ancient mosques, covered bazaars, parks and gardens, Herat (pop. 50,000) used to be a popular tourist spot. Today it is a lawless ghost town, a kind of Tombstone, Ariz., of Afghanistan. Rival bands of mujahidin, who long since took over, roam almost everywhere at will, answering to no one. Bandit gangs rob and pillage at gunpoint. Citizens, if caught out of doors, can be routinely gunned down in the street. Shortly after we arrived, a young businessman tried to illustrate the pervasiveness of the violence: "I went home to change my clothes at 10:30 this morning--and got caught in a firefight. That night I could hear bullets ricochet off a nearby building."

During their long, turbulent history, the people of Herat have been conquered by the likes of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane--but it has always been over their dead bodies. Nowadays neither the Soviets nor the Afghan army dare go into the center of the city. The mujahidin control the old quarter, but sectarian fighting has made Herat unsafe for anyone. Understandably, travelers have scratched it from their itineraries. The owner of a handicraft shop, one of the few stores still open, said we were his first customers in a month. "What kind of life is it when you come to work and you don't know if you'll come home at night?" he asked.

Remarkably enough, there was an attempt to celebrate a holiday called Pashtunistan Day in Herat during our stay. In the past the occasion has called for parties, parades and dancing in the streets. This year in the desultory procession were a T-55 Afghan army tank, a number of military trucks carrying sullen soldiers, and a small band. The dispirited musicians played a couple of numbers, and a squad of soldiers in field boots galumphed through a dance. The whole affair was over in an hour. Only a handful of people watched.

A little while later the rat-a-tat of machine-gun fire could be heard in the distance, then the ka-boom of tank guns. The shooting continued sporadically through the afternoon and into the night. We slept fitfully and the next morning boarded the bus for the return journey to Kandahar. Not surprisingly, the bus was full. -

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