Soviet Afghanistan Forces Return to Hero’s Welcome

Convoys of Soviet armored personnel carriers and tanks draped in red banners streamed back into the Soviet Union from Afghanistan today, crossing the Oxus River to a hero’s welcome from waving children and soldiers’ families.

The Communist Party daily Pravda said moujahedeen rebels, who have battled Soviet troops for nine years, held their fire as Kremlin forces pulled out of Afghanistan in a huge convoy that left Kabul last Friday.

Although Pravda said the last Soviet soldier had left the capital, a battalion of about 500 Soviet troops remained in Kabul to guard the airport until the end of a Soviet airlift taking out personnel and equipment and bringing in flour and fuel.

Lt. Col. Igor Korolyov told reporters in the Soviet border town of Termez that 30,000 troops had left Afghanistan during the second phase of the withdrawal. This indicated that about 20,000 Soviet forces remained in the country, in five provinces.

In one convoy, 300 men of the 350th Parachute Regiment riding 60 freshly washed tanks and armored personnel carriers crossed into Termez over the “Friendship Bridge” across the Oxus.

Hundreds of schoolchildren waved flags, and soldiers’ families brought to Termez by air and road waited to be reunited with the troops.

Red banners draped across tanks proclaimed “We have fulfilled our orders” and “We defended the peaceful Afghan people.” Some soldiers had stuck red carnations in their gun barrels.

The day before the crossing, some young Soviet officers told foreign journalists that Moscow’s decision to send troops to support the Kabul government nine years ago was a mistake.

Moscow pulled out half its 105,000 troops by last August in the first stage of the withdrawal due to be completed by Feb. 15 under accords on the conflict signed last year.