Soviets Hand Out Emergency Rations in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan —  Soviet soldiers handed out emergency rations Wednesday to Afghans in Kabul, and the capital’s mayor said his city has a three-month supply of food and fuel in case of a guerrilla siege when the Soviet troops are gone.

U.N. aid officials, less optimistic, said much more must be brought in “if disaster is to be averted.” They were preparing contingency plans.

The Soviet Union said Wednesday it has begun its final troop withdrawal from Afghanistan but that it is continuing to fight guerrilla attempts to clamp an economic blockade on Kabul.

“The withdrawal process has started,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov told a news conference in Moscow. “I cannot say when it started. But it is under way.”

Gerasimov also appeared to dispel any doubts that the pullout of the last of the Soviet troops will be completed by Feb. 15, the deadline set by last April’s U.N.-mediated accords on Afghanistan.

“Maybe it will not end exactly on the 15th, it could end on the 14th,” he said. “It is not important.”

Muslim guerrillas operating along the Salang Highway are attacking supply convoys bound for the city as the withdrawal deadline approaches. Soviet cargo planes began flying loads of flour and fuel to the capital Saturday.

The mayor, Gen. Mohammed M. Hakim, said government soldiers killed 377 guerrillas Tuesday on the Salang Highway, which runs 250 miles from Kabul north to the Soviet border, and the route is now open for convoys. He put the flour reserve at 57,000 tons.

Friction over the supply situation has been evident between the government and the Soviet military. Maj. Gen. Lev Serebrov, deputy Soviet commander in Afghanistan, complained this week that his army has to feed all 2.3 million people in the city. He accused the Afghan regime of inefficiency and failing to ask for help in time.

Mayor Hakim told a news conference, “That’s a private opinion. . . . I have no comment.”

Asked why the Soviets started the costly airlift if the city has stockpiles, he said some supplies have been released but “we need to keep these reserves for the future.”

Western diplomats in Kabul have said the silo holding Kabul’s wheat reserves is down to a half-day supply.