			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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DROWNING IN THEIR OWN BLOODY
BY Eric Margolis 8 Jan 96

Watching Afghanistan enter its fourth year of brutal civil war fills me
with the deepest anguish. After battling and defeating the might of the
Soviet Union in a ten-year struggle, at a cost of 1.5 million dead, the
fierce Afghans have turned on each other in a conflict that threatens to
destabilize Central Asia.

I met, befriended and admired many of the current Afghan leaders  during
the Great Jihad, or holy struggle, against Soviet invaders.  Commanders
like Burhanuddin Rabbani, Gulbudin Hekmatyar, Sibghatullah Mojadidi, Abdul
Sayaff, Hadji Kadir -  as fighters and men of character.  I went into
battle with the mujihadin, shared their sorrows, and savored their final,
glorious victory over the Soviet invaders in 1989. Now, my old friends and
comrades in arms are killing one another.

President Rabbani, and his military chief, Ahmad Shah Masoud, hold the
demolished capitol, Kabul.  Rabbani refused to step down at the end of his
term, as previously agreed, and hand power to Prime Minister Hekmatyar.
Rabbani and most of his men are ethnic Tajiks from the northeast, who speak
Dari, a Persian dialect. Hekmatyar is the main leader of the fabled
Pathans, the world's largest tribal group that straddles the border between
southern Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pathans, traditional rulers of Kabul, refused to allow the more
sophisticated, but less warlike Tajiks to hold the capitol.  Tajiks, backed
by ethnic Uzbeks from the northwest, vowed never again to accept Pathan
rule. Later, the Uzbek warlord, Gen. Rashid Dostam, backed the Pathan
elader, Hekmatyar. Sunni Muslims battled Shia Muslims; local warlords
fought for control of the nation's massive opium trade and smuggling
routes.

For centuries, the ethnic mosaic of Afghanistan had held together under
weak kings in Kabul whose power rarely extended beyond city walls.  The
1979 Soviet invasion fatally shattered Afghanistan's modus vivendi.  Using
divide and conquer tactics patterned after British rule in India, the KGB
launched a campaign of ethnic destabilization, pitting tribes, clans,
religions  and ethnic groups against one another. This, plus the endemic
bellicosity of the Afghans, and the drug trade, tore the fragile nation
apart.

Last year, a new group of insurgents appeared out of thin air: Taliban.
They were supposedly devout seminary students, mainly Pathan, who had taken
up arms to end the war.  The fact that these `religious students' were
amply equipped with tanks, artillery and fighter-bombers strongly suggested
they had been organized and fielded by my old acquaintances at Pakistan's
crack intelligence service, ISI, which played a key role in defeating the
Soviets in Afghanistan.  ISI, had previously backed Hekmatyar, but when he
failed to take Kabul, it may have launched Taliban.  ISI, however, denies
involvement.

Today, Taliban has taken about a third of the country and is besieging
Kabul from the south. Rabbani is fighting back. So far, 25,000 civilians
have died in this ongoing madness. All sides have ruthlessly shelled
civilians.

Behind the scenes, Afghanistan's hostile neighbors are becoming more
involved by the day.  Russia secretly supplies its old foe Rabbani with
arms and munitions in order to keep the more extreme Islamic forces of
Hekmatyar and Taliban at bay. Moscow rightly fears consolidation of Islamic
government in Afghanistan would threaten its control over the former Soviet
republics, and now quasi-independent, Muslim states, of Central Asia:
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirghizstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

The economies and infrastructure of the landlocked Central Asian states
remain shackled to Russia. Peace in Afghanistan would reopen the major
north-south trade route from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea and Indian
Ocean: Tashkent-Kabul- Peshawar-Karachi. This would allow the Central Asian
states to export their resources through Pakistan rather than through
Russia.  Russia thus fuels the Afghan war to keep its Central Asian
satrapies isolated.

Iran, similarly, keeps stirring the Afghan pot to ensure the main
north-south trade route remains shut. Tehran wants Central Asian gas, oil
and mineral exports to go through its rail and pipelines to the Persian
Gulf, rather than through neighboring Pakistan. In another bloody sideshow,
Saudi Arabia and Iran continue a proxy war through their factions in
Afghanistan.

India, which backed the defunct communist regime in Kabul, supplies arms,
munitions, spare parts, pilots  and technicians to the Rabbani regime.
India's aim is to thwart Pakistani influence over Afghanistan, and hinder
Islamic support of the Muslim rebellion in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

The still-communist regimes of Central Asia are also backing Rabbani, as
well as Afghan Tajiks and Uzbeks, to prevent Islamic forces from
threatening them.  The KGB and its Central Asian `little brother services'
are increasingly involved in the new, Great Game in Afghanistan.

Last, but hardly least, CIA continues to back Rabbani, and is trying to
block more militant Islamic groups, notably Hekmatyar. He claimed to me
that CIA had tried to assassinate him at least three times. The US, prodded
by Israel, also continues to strongarm Pakistan and ISI to stop backing
Islamic forces.

Meanwhile, as warlords and foreign powers fight over the bleeding carcass
of Afghanistan, its civilians suffer horribly. No one seems capable of
stopping the demented butchery. After 17 years of ceaseless war, the
Afghans, one of the world's bravest and most noble people, are drowning in
their own blood.


copyright Eric Margolis Jan 1996

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