News In Brief

September 4, 1984

Soviets said to have 150,000 troops in Afghanistan

Moscow has sent up to 70,000 men into Afghanistan this year in preparation for a new onslaught against guerrilla forces there, the British Sunday Telegraph newspaper said this week. The USSR was building up its presence to more than 150 ,000, with the latest arrivals stationed along the barren, mountainous border with Pakistan in an attempt to cut guerrilla supply lines.

Meanwhile in Islamabad, Afghanistan's President Babrak Karmal charged Sunday that neighboring Pakistan engineered Friday's airport bombing in Kabul, which Western diplomats said had killed at least 30 people in the worst attack yet by Moslem rebels in the Afghan capital.