Afghan Pullout: Last Soviet Soldiers Leave

Lt. Gen. Boris Gromov, commander of Soviet forces in Afghanistan, became the last Soviet soldier to leave the embattled country when he crossed into the Soviet border town of Termez at 9:55 a.m Moscow time today, the official Soviet news agency Tass reported.

Today was the deadline for troop withdrawal under a U.N.-sponsored accord designed to end the nine-year Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Soviet officials said the last Red Army soldiers in Kabul, the capital, climbed aboard giant military transport planes and flew home Tuesday night.

The airlift apparently left Afghan armed forces to defend the capital alone for the first time in nine years.

Just hours before, Muslim guerrillas fired five rockets into Kabul, killing four children and an adult, according to official reports. The airport also was hit for the first time in several weeks.

Kabul Radio said the fatalities occurred after one of the rockets exploded in a bazaar where dozens of people were lining up to buy bread in a city desperately short of supplies.

At the airport, reporters watched as at least 80 Soviet soldiers boarded Il-76 transport planes. Earlier, it had been thought that only about 40 Soviet troops remained in Kabul on the day preceding today’s pullout deadline.

Lt. Col. Pytor Sardarchuk declined to say exactly how many troops were leaving. “All those who are left” were going, he said. Then he turned to watching reporters, shook their hands and said “Goodby.”

Envoys to Remain

About 140 Soviet diplomats and five Soviet journalists planned to stay behind in the capital.

About 5,000 Soviet soldiers had remained on Afghan soil on Tuesday, according to the official Tass news agency, out of an estimated 115,000 during the height of Soviet intervention.

Many of those troops were crossing the 1,056-yard-long Friendship Bridge over the Amu Darya River during the day into Termez, Tass said, after rolling north along the Salang Highway.

The departure of the troops complied with the Feb. 15 withdrawal deadline set by the U.N.-mediated accords signed by Afghanistan and Pakistan in April.

A ceremony was planned in Termez to mark the end of a war that began with the Soviet intervention in December, 1979, to stabilize a Communist government besieged by Muslim rebels and internal political conflicts.

Gromov, 47, who supervised the withdrawal by land, had vowed to be the last soldier out of the country, where at least 1 million Soviet soldiers in all have been involved and 15,000 killed. Today, he walked alone across the Friendship Bridge linking the Afghan town of Khairaton to Termez.

Warning Letters

In Kabul, it was generally quiet, but residents said letters--unsigned and delivered the past few nights--warned people to stay off the streets today.

Many residents believed the letters came from the guerrilla forces believed bearing down on the city, but some foreign diplomats suggested that the letters might be the work of the Najibullah government’s secret police.

Written in the local Dari language, the letters warn residents to stay off the streets, close their shops and keep away from the airport.