Before Rocket’s Liftoff, He Appeals for End of War : Afghan in Crew of Soviet Space Shuttle

Afghanistan’s first cosmonaut was launched into orbit today in a perfect, televised liftoff that was clearly designed to stress the Soviet-Afghan quest for reconciliation.

The Soyuz TM-6 spacecraft carrying Abdul Ahad Mohmand and two Soviet cosmonauts to the Mir orbiting station blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Soviet Central Asia into clear skies at 8:23 a.m. local time and will dock with Mir on Wednesday.

Mohmand, a 29-year-old Afghan air force captain, used the occasion to appeal for an end to the war pitting Muslim rebels against the Soviet-backed Afghan government.

“As a son of my proud people, I will carry to space both joy and anguish for my native land, where the flame of fratricidal war is still blazing,” he said from inside the spacecraft moments before liftoff.

“Brothers, stop the war and direct your forces toward building a durable national peace.”

Mission commander Col. Vladimir Lyakhov said before liftoff that the joint flight was a step forward in international cooperation for the peaceful exploration of space and a sign of the solid relations between Moscow and Kabul.

The Soviet Union began withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan in May after nine years of fighting against Muslim rebels.

A Soviet-trained pilot, Mohmand served in his country’s air force, Tass said, without specifying if he saw combat action.

In space, Mohmand will take part in “research in the interests of the Afghan economy,” Tass said. Previous reports have said this would include photography of remote areas of Afghanistan, where the guerrilla war is still raging.

Lyakhov will return to Earth with Mohmand on Sept. 6 after a week of space research.

The third crew member, Valery Polyakov, is a physician who will remain aboard Mir until Dec. 21, when the space laboratory’s two current occupants are due to set a new space endurance record at the end of a yearlong mission.