109 Reportedly Killed in Afghan Rebel Rocket Attack on Soviet Arms Dump

Muslim rebels destroyed a major Soviet arms depot in northern Afghanistan in a rocket attack that left as many as 109 dead, a Western diplomat based in Kabul said Wednesday.

The diplomat quoted “multiple Afghan sources” as saying 109 Soviet troops died in the Aug. 10 blast caused by two rockets hitting the facility at Kalagay, about 100 miles north of the capital.

“It was supposed to be one of the major ammunition storage dumps of the Soviet 40th Army,” said the diplomat, who requested anonymity. “It was totally blown . . . this is a pretty big catastrophe.”

One Afghan rebel group on Wednesday confirmed the attack, which they said took place Aug. 11. Leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami told reporters in Islamabad, Pakistan, that about 200 vehicles were destroyed in a series of explosions at the dump, killing scores of people. Two other rebel groups, Ittehad-i-Islami and Hizb-i-Islami, said that up to 500 people were killed at the base, which they said housed 1,000 dependents of Soviet advisers.

However, accounts by other Muslim rebel groups said the attack took place on Aug. 13 or 14, while an Islamabad-based diplomat said it was on Aug. 8-9.

Meanwhile, the official Soviet news agency Tass on Wednesday said that Afghan rebels destroyed most government buildings in the northern provincial city of Kunduz during the brief period in which they controlled the city.

Tass also said the rebels suffered much heavier losses than the Afghan army in fighting that led to the army’s reported recapture of the city 60 miles south of the Soviet border. It put rebel casualties at 173 dead and 92 wounded against 12 dead and 28 injured for the army.