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- WORLD, Page 35World NotesAFGHANISTANImpasse at Jalalabad
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- Despite repeated furious attacks, mujahedin rebels were no
- closer to capturing the city of Jalalabad last week. They
- seemed to be suffering from disorganization as well as an
- inability to pull off major assaults. In one battle last week,
- rebel artillery pounded the Soviet-backed government's positions
- at the city's airport for hours at a time, but the several
- hundred guerrillas who mustered to rush the defenses never got
- going -- the attack bogged down under return fire and arguments
- within their own ranks over how to attack across several hundred
- yards of open ground.
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- When tanks and MiG aircraft zeroed in on their positions,
- the rebels fell back, taking an alarming number of casualties
- along the way. Reviewing the failed encounter, a frustrated
- Rahim Wardak, the battlefront commander of the National Islamic
- Front for Afghanistan, concluded that the battle that began more
- than three weeks ago "is turning into a stalemate."
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