Afghan Rebels Face Crucial Test of Unity

Afghan rebel leaders today will mark the 10th anniversary of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, no nearer to victory even though their Soviet enemies have gone.

Western diplomats say the next few months will be crucial for the rebels who fought for nine years against Soviet troops but whose battle against the Kabul regime that Moscow put in power is crumbling under a leadership crisis.

Rival rebel leaders based in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, where rebels have their government in exile, plan separate rallies today in refugee camps that dot the North-West Frontier province.

The desolate camps of mud houses are home to more than 3 million people who fled after Soviet troops poured into Kabul in late 1979 to install Babrak Kamal in power.

The last Soviet troops officially left last February, and this week the Soviet Parliament recognized that Moscow’s intervention deserved “moral and political condemnation.”