Aid Workers Caught in Crossfire : As Afghan Peace Nears, Rebels Battle for Power

As talk of a potential settlement in the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan increases here, the loosely affiliated Afghan rebels, known collectively as the moujahedeen, or holy warriors, are engaged in a contest for postwar primacy that has foreign journalists and aid workers caught in the crossfire.

In September, one of the largest rebel groups in Afghanistan hijacked a French medical relief mission headed for Badakhshan province. The group, known as the Hizb-i-Islami, held seven French doctors and three relief workers captive for 10 days and confiscated their pack train and $70,000 worth of medicines consigned to a clandestine French hospital in Badakhshan province.

In October and December, two other French aid missions were intercepted by the Hizb-i-Islami. In one incident, near the village of Kantiwah in the Nuristan district, the equivalent of more than $100,000 in Afghan currency was taken from the French group.

In January, a British woman charged here that her husband, a free-lance cameraman on an assignment for the British Broadcasting Corp., had been robbed and killed by the Hizb-i-Islami, also near Kantiwah.

What these incidents have in common is that the victims were all intercepted by the Hizb-i-Islami as they were headed for an area controlled by a rival rebel group, the Jamiat-i-Islami.

The Hizb-i-Islami and the Jamiat-i-Islami are probably the two strongest of the Afghan rebel groups that for eight years have been fighting Soviet troops and Soviet-backed Afghan government troops.

They are also enemies in a power struggle that pits fundamentalist Islamic forces against more moderate elements in the Afghan resistance.

Battle for Weapons, Cash

On another level, the internecine battle is for a greater share of the millions of dollars in cash and weapons that the United States provides to the rebels. Last year, the United States, with the support of China and Saudi Arabia, gave the Afghan rebels equipment valued at more than $600 million, including Stinger ground-to-air missiles.

“Now is a bad time to be in Afghanistan because the different parties imagine a solution in sight,” Eduard Lagourgue, a leader with the French aid organization Guilde du Raid, told a reporter. “The fighting between them is now very hot, particularly between the moderates and the fundamentalists.”

The atmosphere of suspicion and hatred among the rebel groups has tarnished the image of cohesion and unified cause they wish to project through such organizations as the seven-party alliance that includes both the Hizb-i-Islami and Jamiat-i-Islami.

Postwar Struggle Possible

The fighting and angry words lend credence to the idea that if the war is settled, a war in which a million or more Afghans may have been killed already, a blood bath will follow as leaders of the various groups fight it out for supremacy.

Various rebel factions often charge tolls when others travel through their territory, and ammunition shipments are considered a particularly good source of revenue.

Lagourgue said that on a recent six-week trip to the Bamian district in central Afghanistan, he passed through 45 checkpoints manned by the men of 15 different groups of the moujahedeen. He said his rebel escorts, who were attached to an ammunition supply train of the Jamiat-i-Islami, had to pay a total of 1 million afghanis--the equivalent, at an unofficial rate of exchange, of $65,000--in tolls at the 45 checkpoints.

Along the way, he said, he saw a fierce fight between Jamiat-i-Islami and Hizb-i-Islami forces, but no fighting against the Soviets.

“The only party fighting the Soviets is the Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami,” he said. “The others are all fighting each other.”

Accusations Traded

Leaders of the Hizb-i-Islami accuse the most famous commander of the Jamiat-i-Islami, Ahmad Shah Massoud, of killing six Hizb-i-Islami commanders. Nawab Salim, a spokesman for the Hizb-i-Islami, said: “Massoud attacks us in the northern areas of Afghanistan. He killed six of our commanders. Otherwise, he is a gentleman.”

Leaders of the Jamiat-i-Islami accuse the Hizb-i-Islami of stealing money and supplies, including the French medicines bound for area controlled by the Jamiat-i-Islami.

Reports of fighting among the main rebel groups--there are seven of them--are nearly as common as reports of battles with the Soviet and Afghan government forces. Caught in the middle are the journalists and volunteer foreign aid missions that operate clandestinely in Afghanistan. Scores of French medical and agricultural specialists live and work in Afghanistan, for the most part in territory controlled by the Jamiat-i-Islami.

U.S. Aid Affected

Also in the crossfire is the huge, covert U.S. aid program, the largest CIA operation since the Vietnam War. Aid organizations, bitter over the hostile behavior of the fundamentalist rebel elements--exemplified by two factions within the Hizb-i-Islami, the Hekmatyar and the Khalis--have urged the United States and its allies to reconsider the distribution of funds to the rebels.

Despite the anti-American position often taken by the Hizb-i-Islami--it says it is against either Soviet or American domination--much of the U.S. aid has gone to the Hizb-i-Islami, particularly its Hekmatyar faction.

The Hekmatyar, named after its charismatic leader, an engineer named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has long been the favorite of the Pakistan intelligence agencies that oversee the distribution of weapons for the Americans.

Critics of the program argue that the time has come for the United States to redirect its effort. Many say the aid might be better utilized by the Jamiat-i-Islami, which is headed by a former professor at Kabul University, Burhanuddin Rabbani, and counts among its leaders Commander Massoud, a famous combat commander in the Panjshir Valley in northeastern Afghanistan.

Propaganda Charged

Leaders of the Hizb-i-Islami contend that they are the victims of a propaganda campaign that pictures their organization as extremist in order to frighten off U.S. support.

“America should have no reason to be afraid of the Hizb-i-Islami,” spokesman Salim said. “We are a progressive party. We are not like (the Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini (of Iran) or (Libyan leader Moammar) Kadafi or anyone else. These people want to label us as fiends and fanatics, but we don’t want to go back 1,400 years. We believe in progressive advancement . . . in self-reliance.”

U.S. diplomats, asking not to be identified by name, agree that the charges of Hizb-i-Islami involvement in various misdeeds are probably exaggerated.

“There is a mood in Peshawar (the Pakistan frontier city where most of the rebel groups are headquartered) to blame everything bad on them, and credit everything good to the Jamiat,” one diplomat said.

Minimize Incident

Hizb-i-Islami leaders admit that one of their commanders, known as Gen. Nooristani, stopped the French medical mission in September, but they insist that no one was harmed.

“A few French volunteers were detained for 10 days by our commander without taking the party into confidence,” spokesman Salim said. “But they were treated well.”

The leaders deny any involvement in robberies. They were particularly vehement in denying charges that they had killed foreign journalists.

Abdul Qadeem Karyab, chairman of the Hizb-i-Islami’s political committee, said: “We know the importance of these journalists in Afghanistan. We need them. Why should we kill them?”

Blame Helicopter Attack

Karyab said that two free-lance American journalists, Lee Shapiro and James Lindelof, were killed in a Soviet helicopter attack. The two men were traveling with a Hizb-i-Islami guide when they were killed on Oct. 11 near Kabul.

Some opponents of the Hizb-i-Islami say that Shapiro and Lindelof were killed in fighting between two rebel groups, but U.S. officials who investigated the deaths say they believe the Hizb-i-Islami account to be true.

To the charge by the British woman, Christine Gregory, that Hizb-i-Islami people killed her husband, free-lance cameraman Andy Skrzpkowiak, Hizb-i-Islami leaders also plead not guilty.

Skrzpkowiak, 36, a former British paratrooper, disappeared in November, near Kantiwah, which is controlled by the Hizb-i-Islami. Others traveling along the same mountainous trail report that Skrzpkowiak, who developed a hatred for the Soviets in Polish refugee camps in England, was last seen being led away by four well-known Hizb-i-Islami fighters .

Camera for Sale

Later, an expensive camera matching the description of the one he carried into Afghanistan was offered for sale in the Pakistan border city of Chitral.

Skrzpkowiak was often identified as a close friend of Massoud, the Jamiat-i-Islami commander. His wife said he once gave Massoud an expensive watch.

“Hizb killed him,” she said. “They have taken off the market one of the most capable reporters of the jihad (holy war).”

Karyab said that “in Afghanistan, there is always a risk of life, danger every inch.”

He made no effort to hide his bitterness over the attention paid to leaders of the Jamiat-i-Islami, particularly Massoud, who is known as the Lion of the Panjshir Valley.

Denounces Rival

“Millions of dollars are going into Afghanistan through these voluntary organizations,” Karyab said, “and it is all going to Massoud. All of it. How is he using it? He is killing Hizb leaders. American money is being used to kill our people.”

Karyab said that after one of the French aid missions was robbed, U.S. diplomats in Pakistan telephoned and demanded the money.

“That is our money,” he said the Americans told him. “We want it back.”

U.S. diplomats, in keeping with their policy of not officially acknowledging the covert aid, refused to confirm or deny the story.