Afghanistan Looking Toward the Final Days

By EDWARD W. DESMOND

A Soviet Il-76 cargo plane lifted slowly into the bright morning air over Kabul International Airport last week. As it did, a string of incandescent flares dropped from the aircraft, a necessary defense against Stinger missiles, the U.S.-made, heat-seeking, antiaircraft weapons used by the mujahedin, Afghanistan's resistance. On the airport perimeter, sunburned Soviet soldiers stood around a formidable new stone-and-cement guard post topped by a hammer-and-sickle flag. Their thoughts were turning toward withdrawal from their flinty outpost. "Who wouldn't like to go home?" asked Victor Avershin, a blond, 19-year-old private. "Everybody wants to go home."

Two weeks ago, in Geneva, Moscow promised to fulfill that wish: starting next month the Soviets will begin to withdraw their 115,000-man contingent from Afghanistan. But it will be a tense nine months before the pullout is complete. Under the terms of the Geneva accords signed by the U.S., the Soviet Union, Pakistan and Afghanistan, there is no cease-fire or promise of safe passage for Moscow's exiting forces. The mujahedin have refused to give any quarter to the Soviets, whose eight-year occupation has left more than 1 million Afghans dead.

To cover its retreat, Moscow is banking on the tenacity of Najibullah, the Afghan Communist leader installed by the Soviets in 1986, and his ragtag 150,000-member security force. Najibullah, the former chief of KHAD, the Afghan secret police, is trying to win over the mujahedin by promoting capitalism and elections and by playing up his adherence to the Muslim faith. His efforts have not impressed the rebels, but he evidently hopes to gain credibility in Western eyes.

Last week a delegation from the Washington-based International Center for Development Policy, a left-of-center think tank, paid a private visit to the ravaged country. Robert E. White, a former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, headed the tour. Over the span of a week, the group visited Kabul and Mazar-i- Sharif, a surprisingly peaceful city of more than 100,000 people on Afghanistan's border with the Soviet Union. One stop on the I.C.D.P. tour was a large, blue-tiled mosque, where about 1,500 men listened as a stooped, aged mullah read from the Koran. When several worshipers turned and glared at the intruders, however, the Afghan officials hustled the group out the door. The episode offered a possible indication of religious freedom, but not of any warmth toward the government.

The business community was more friendly, in the person of Rasul Barat, 31, a dapper entrepreneur who boasted, "Half of Mazar-i-Sharif is mine." Barat welcomed his guests with a poolside barbecue complete with lamb kabob and imported German beer. Elected a short time ago to the Afghan legislature, & Barat claimed that Afghanistan's taxes were so low he had recently been able to import three autos, from Mercedes, Mitsubishi and Ford.

By contrast with Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul seemed caught in tightening coils of fear and tension. Checkpoints and roadblocks were numerous: mujahedin leaders claim that they have already infiltrated commandos into the city. Ambassador White, for one, was not impressed by what he saw. He likened Najibullah's situation to that of Nicaraguan Dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle in 1979, shortly before the ruler was overthrown. Said White: "Some Soviets have come up to me and said privately, 'I agree with your Somoza analogy.' "

With reporting by Ross H. Munro/Kabul