Rebel Rocket Attack on Kabul Kills at Least 6

One day after the Soviet Union removed its last troops from Afghanistan, a rebel rocket attack on Kabul, the capital, killed at least six people, three of them children, state-run Afghan television reported Thursday.

Six rockets struck Kabul about 1:30 p.m. in an attack launched shortly after the government announced a curfew to counter guerrilla efforts to “create panic and sabotage.”

The guerrillas had largely refrained from launching major attacks on Kabul and other cities since November to allow Moscow’s troops to leave unhindered.

Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Abdul Wakil, meanwhile, charged that 1,500 Pakistani troops had massed on the border east of the Afghan city of Jalalabad and that a similar number actually entered Afghan territory.

Diplomats have reported that Muslim rebels have massed near Jalalabad in preparation for an offensive.

“About 1,500 (Pakistanis) are on the border and another 1,500 have entered Afghanistan,” Wakil said. “The numbers are difficult (to estimate) because they have camouflaged themselves.”

Other Afghan and Soviet officials made similar accusations last week, saying as many as 5,000 Pakistani troops had massed along the border. Pakistan denied the allegations.

The official Afghan government broadcast said one of six rebel rockets that struck the city Thursday exploded in the courtyard of a mud house, sending a shower of deadly shrapnel through the building and killing two young sisters. A third sister, age 20, was wounded.

“The rocket has come and killed my daughters,” said Mohammad Badakhshi, an air traffic controller. “My 11-year-old daughter, Kadira, was in little pieces. Who is doing this?”

Another rocket struck a nearby house, killing a boy and wounding three girls, and three men were killed by rockets in other locations, the broadcast said.

The broadcast also reported stepped-up fighting around strategic cities in the country in the 24 hours since Soviet troops left the country.

It said 10 rebels were killed near the southern city of Kandahar, nine near the eastern city of Jalalabad and seven near Herat in the west. In addition, six Afghan troops died in clashes in Ghazni, 80 miles south of Kabul.