Red Army massacres Afghan civilians (10/23/83)

Red Army massacres Afghan civilians

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A former Afghan diplomat asserted on October 19 that Soviet troops massacred 126 villagers in southeastern Afghanistan two weeks ago, reported the Associated Press.

The former diplomat, quoting survivors of the attack, said women and children were bayoneted.

Although the account could not be independently confirmed, the former diplomat, Habibullah Karazai, has been accurate in past reports from the area, which is near Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city.

Mr. Karazai, who represented the Kabul government at the United Nations in 1972, based his report on accounts of survivors reaching the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, where he lives. The current Soviet-backed government of President Babrak Karmal took power in a coup in 1979. That same year, Soviet troops, estimated to be over 100,000 now, invaded the country to help the government fight a popular Moslem rebellion.

According to the report Mr. Karazai obtained, the attack on October 13 in the villages of Moshkizai and Kolchabad was in reprisal for an insurgent attack the day before on a troop convoy in which several tanks were destroyed. Mr. Karazai said: "I was told that the troops returned on foot the next day. They rounded up the people, gunning down the men and bayoneting the women and children.

"Then they leveled the houses. In one case, 18 members of one family were killed."

Other villages in the area were later subjected to heavy aerial bombing, he said. Many villagers managed to flee before troops encircled the area, he added.

Mr. Karazai said local resistance groups had begun hit-and-run attacks on convoys earlier in the week when troops began installing military outposts around Kandahar. On October 11, three tank columns were sighted encircling the city. Guerrillas attacked and destroyed 11 tanks and armored personnel carriers, he said.

The following day another column moved in and was attacked. That, he said, appeared to trigger the brutal reprisals against the civilian population.

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