Afghan Rebels Attacked Soviet Post, Tass Says

Afghan guerrillas attacked a Soviet border outpost 10 days ago and killed two Soviet guards, the official news agency Tass said Saturday.

It was the second confirmed attack on Soviet border guards this year. The first occurred March 9 and apparently took the lives of several people.

“On the night of April 8-9, a band of Afghan (guerrillas) trespassed the Soviet frontier,” Tass said in reporting the latest attack. It said they crossed the Pyandzh River, a tributary of the Amu Darya, attacked border guards 80 miles south of the city of Dushanbe in the republic of Tadzhikistan but retreated “in disarray” after “heavy casualties.”

The previous attack had been described as a rocket attack, apparently staged from Afghan territory. The latest statement was the first proof of Afghan rebel claims that they have been able to infiltrate and carry the war to Soviet territory in Tadzhikistan, whose population is culturally similar to Afghans just across the border.

Soviet Reprisals

Rebel accounts and the Soviet description of the March attack indicated that it was followed by Soviet reprisals against guerrilla areas in northern Afghanistan.

Tass said Saturday that the Soviet Union will do everything necessary to ensure that its borders are secure and that those who continue “military interference” in Afghanistan must be held responsible for the consequences.

The Soviets accuse the United States of trying to stop what the Soviet-backed Afghan government calls a program of national reconciliation to end the civil war.

Muslim guerrillas have been fighting the Afghan government since a 1978 coup that installed a Marxist government. Moscow sent troops to Afghanistan in December, 1979. An estimated 115,000 Soviet soldiers remain in the country to help fight the insurgency.