Afghan Veteran Fears Return of Muslim Rebels

Akim Khan, a member of the security force on a huge farm at Ghazniabad, less than 15 miles from the Pakistan border, is a gray-bearded veteran of skirmishes with the anti-government forces he calls dushmani, or bandits.

There has been no shooting around the farm by the guerrillas, the moujahedeen , since the Kabul government called its cease-fire, beginning early Thursday.

“I know they are coming back,” Khan said in an interview with visiting foreign correspondents on a tour conducted by the Afghan Foreign Ministry.

Judging by the rebels’ rejection of the proposed truce at a rally Saturday in Peshawar, Pakistan, Khan is right.

Life in the Jalalabad region generally has been calm during the seven-year war between the Afghan army, its supporting Soviet troops and the guerrilla fighters.

Funnel for Khyber Pass

Both sides, according to Western diplomats, want to preserve the peace in this city close to the Pakistan border that serves as a funnel for goods coming into Afghanistan by way of the fabled Khyber Pass.

But there are signs of concern over security even in Jalalabad, a lively market city on the eastern edge of this troubled nation.

Reporters observed a line of seven Soviet tanks on the road near the city, apparently on patrol, and two Soviet armored personnel carriers with Soviet soldiers in combat gear sprawled on the top.

In the capital city of Kabul, however, Soviet commanders scaled back a deployment of armored vehicles around key government buildings after an unusual movement of tanks and armored personnel carriers into the city Friday.

But Soviet vehicles were still posted around the Soviet Embassy and other key points, including Radio Afghanistan.

Minimizes Attack Danger

In Ghazniabad, site of a 175,450-acre farm that is the country’s most important irrigation complex, state farm Chairman Latif Ekhlas minimized the danger of rebel attacks.

Of the 5,000 workers on the farm, however, he said that 700 form a security force known as “defenders of the revolution.”

In Jalalabad, a sunny day encouraged hundreds of Afghans to come to the market where such goods as solar-powered calculators, video cassette recorders and stereos were on sale along with a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables.

About 300 tribal leaders who live across the border in Pakistan met in the city’s cultural center and endorsed Afghan leader Najib’s call for a cease-fire and national reconciliation, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Najib’s wife, who is rarely seen in public, attended the meeting. When she arrived, she was escorted by half a dozen bodyguards, three of them carrying short-barreled automatic weapons.