Guerrillas Rain Rockets on Kabul, Kill 14, Injure 79
Renegade guerrillas pounded Kabul with rockets Wednesday, killing 14 people, as mediators worked frantically to negotiate a peace between President Burhanuddin Rabbani and a maverick radical leader.
The United Nations said it had withdrawn staff members from the eastern city of Jalalabad and Kandahar in the south and suspended road travel a day after gunmen ambushed and killed three U.N. employees and a Dutch consultant.
Deputy Foreign Minister Najibullah Lafrai, in a message to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, said: “I honestly tell you that the terrorists will be arrested and punished for their crimes.”
He blamed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, fundamentalist leader of the rebel Hezb-i-Islami party, for the killings and for the rocket attacks on Kabul that went into their 16th day Wednesday.
Hekmatyar is fighting to oust Rabbani, saying the president was elected to a two-year term by a nationwide assembly last December in a rigged vote.
Kabul radio said 93 rockets fired by the Shiite Hezb-i-Wahdat group aligned with Hekmatyar slammed into the city Wednesday, killing 14 people and injuring 79 and causing heavy damage to buildings.
Guerrillas were firing from positions in the abandoned Polish Embassy and the Russian Embassy’s cultural center, and the army retaliated from hilltop positions, the radio said.
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