- Title: AFGHANISTAN: REBELS DISPLAY CAPTURED SOVIET TANK
- Date: 1st March 1981
- Summary: Captured tank being driven by rebels in Paktia province near the Pakistan border; Russian helicopter gun-ships flying over Paktia; Village with smoke rising; Ruined buildings; Mujahadeen rebels walking along mule track and posing with tank. Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 16th March 1981 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Afghanistan, Afghanistan
- Country: Afghanistan
- Topics: Defence / Military
- Reuters ID: LVAO9WWQYX86HMYF3RCXNAVVK8I
- Story Text: PAKTIA & LAGHYAN PROVINCES, AFGHANISTAN
The administration in Afghanistan claims to have "broken the back of reactionary forces within the country". Internal security, they say is "fully under the control of the heroic armed forces of Afghanistan". President Babrak Kamal says the bulk of the Muslim rebels have been "liquidated". Yet the ruling regime still reportedly find it necessary to use coercion the maintain the levels of their armed forces where conscription has failed to meet their manpower needs. large numbers of unwilling teenage soldiers have spoken of Soviet and Afghan troops swooping on crowded bazaars and rounding up all the young men, taking them to jail or a bunker, and then flying them fight units in distant provinces. Afghan resistance leader Mohammed Amin Wardak says that the rebels, although hard-pressed, are fighting on. Egypt, Iran and China have supplied a few arms he says, but they rely heavily on weapons captured from Soviet troops, including Kalashnikov rifles, machine guns and bazookas. There can be no doubt that the rebels are by no means crushed, and the capture by one group of a Soviet tank was the cause for great celebration, as Visnews' Liz Aitken reports:
<strong>Source: REUTERS 1" VIDEOTAPE</strong> - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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