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Mujahedin leaders, most of whom are based in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, were less pleased. Not invited to the Geneva talks at the insistence of Kabul and Moscow, the rebels made it clear that since they were not part of any pact, the war would go on. Said Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a key mujahedin leader and spokesman for the seven-party resistance alliance: "The accords are not binding on us. Even if the Soviets start withdrawing, we will attack."
Despite the threat of more fighting, Gorbachev had good reason to be satisfied. Bringing the troops home will mean an end to Soviet casualties -- an estimated 30,000 men killed in action over the past eight years -- and to growing antiwar sentiment in the Soviet Union. More important, Gorbachev hopes the move will help burnish Moscow's international image, which was tarred by Leonid Brezhnev's decision in 1979 to invade Afghanistan in the first place. Thus it was perhaps no coincidence that Gorbachev wanted to see the withdrawal begin before President Reagan arrives in Moscow for a summit meeting on May 29.
The agreement, however, will not necessarily bring peace to Afghanistan, which has seen more than a million people killed since 1979 and at least 3 million, a sixth of the population, flee to neighboring Pakistan and Iran. In fact, last week's Tashkent accord may be just the opening bell for the war's final round. The main question remains unanswered: Who will control the country, the mujahedin or the forces of the Najibullah government? Moscow apparently feels that Najibullah can survive with Soviet military and economic aid or at least hold heavily fortified Kabul and a broad corridor leading north to the Soviet border. Officials in Washington and Islamabad, on the other hand, are confident that the mujahedin will score telling successes against the unpopular Najibullah regime and its 150,000-man security forces, fewer than 20,000 of whom are considered reliable. In preparation for what may become the final showdown, both Washington and Moscow have been shipping large amounts of arms to their allies. Says a U.S. Defense official in Washington: "Both sides appear to be very well supplied at the moment."
The texts of the documents that are to be signed at Geneva are still secret. Cordovez said last week that they would bind Kabul and Islamabad to "noninterference and nonintervention" in each other's affairs, provide for the voluntary return of Afghan refugees, name the U.S. and Soviet Union co-guarantors, and stipulate a Soviet withdrawal within nine months. In a separate memorandum, the United Nations will agree to monitor compliance. At week's end translators were busy turning out copies of the 40-page document in Urdu for the Pakistanis and Pashto for the Afghans, as well as Russian and English.
If the envoys at Geneva sign this week, it will bring to an end Moscow's major military involvement of the past 20 years. Soviet troops invaded in December 1979 in order to replace one Communist leader, Hafizullah Amin, with Babrak Karmal, another Communist but one more amenable to Soviet thinking on many issues. Soviet troops quickly became enmeshed in fighting with the budding resistance movement. Moscow has tried to defeat the rebels with everything from carpet bombing to lightning commando attacks, all to no avail. Soviet offers of bribes, cease-fires and amnesties have also failed to quell the mujahedin.