a232  1336  25 Dec 84
AM-Soviets-Afghanistan, Bjt,0647
Afghan War Almost Unmentioned By Soviets
An AP Extra
EDITOR'S NOTE - Five years after the Soviet Union intervened on the
side of Afghanistan's government against Moslem rebels, Soviet troops
remain in the rugged, mountainous land. But they are seldom mentioned
publicly.
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By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
    MOSCOW (AP) - Five Decembers ago the Soviet Union sent more than
80,000 Red Army troops across the border into Afghanistan in an
intervention that shocked world leaders.
    Five years later, the Kremlin has sent more troops but has failed to
crush the Moslem insurgents battling the the Moscow-supported Afghan
government. And in a country that daily extolls the 20 million
Soviets who died in World War II, the fighting and casualties in
Afghanistan are rarely mentioned in public.
    The Soviet military, among the most secretive institutions in a
society obsessed with secrecy, had kept preparations for the Dec. 27
incursion so quiet that it took Western intelligence by surprise.
    Reports from Afghanistan in the state-controlled Soviet news media
have lately changed in tone. Reports call the fighting there a
''war'' and make plain that Soviet soldiers face fierce resistance
and are getting killed and injured.
    But such reports are few and still are outweighed by stories about
how the ''limited contingent'' of Soviet troops helps Afghans build
schools, form collective farms and learn to read.
    Soviets rarely discuss the war with foreigners, although several
report Afghanistan is often discussed privately - especially by
mothers anxious that their sons will have to fight there.
    A Moscow student in her early 20s recently complained, ''There are
no men around. They are all being sent to the army, to Afghanistan.''
    Soviets and diplomats in Moscow say soldiers from the Moslem
republics of the Soviet Union formed the bulk of the contingent
originally sent to Afghanistan.
    Foreign diplomats and the Soviets willing to talk about the war
spoke on condition they not be identified.
    But an Arab diplomat generally well-informed about the military said
recently commanders now rely on ethnic Russian recruits and raid
northern institutes and colleges to make up manpower quotas.
    The military is even depriving its key Western front of some men, to
send them to Afghanistan, the diplomat said.
    Soviet soldiers who defected and were interviewed by Western
reporters this year said recruits are often not told they will go to
Afghanistan, and know only by the ''280'' code stamped on their draft
papers.
    A defector identified as Vladislav Naumov said he was trained in
house-to-house fighting in Tadzhikistan near the Afghan border. He
said that afterward, on the plane to Afghanistan, recruits were told
they were going to Poland.
    Another defector, Sergei Busov, said he spent 2 1/2 months training in
mountainous terrain in Turkmenia before going to fight in similar
conditions in Afghanistan.
    Such training indicates the Soviet military has been adapting to
fighting its first land war since World War II in the very different
circumstances of Afghanistan, where the tanks beloved by Soviet
commanders on flat European plains are virtually useless.
    Tactics have switched to razing rebel villages and bombing
guerrillas, who have few anti-aircraft missiles and no air power.
    An Asian diplomat says senior Soviet foreign policy officials are
nonetheless ''very worried'' that the sophisticated equipment going
to Afghanistan is not helping the Soviets win the war.
    One reason is the backing the guerrillas receive - from such
countries as Saudi Arabia, China and the United States.
    For many Islamic countries, some of them wealthy from the sale of
oil, it is a religious war and a duty to give the Moslem guerrillas
money.
    The Soviet government newspaper Izvestia in October carried a
detailed report on the organization and financing of the guerrillas.
    Diplomats in Moscow saw the report as an indication the Soviets are
facing the fact that, although a superpower, they confront
well-organized opposition that cannot easily be crushed.
    
AP-NY-12-25-84 1635EST
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