NEW AFGHAN ATROCITIES ALLEGED BY THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100190028-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 14, 2007
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: March 5, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/03/15: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100190028-4
3
ARTICLE APIP &R2a
ON PAGE /
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
5 March 1980
at Afghan soldiers, some of which were alleged
+ to have resulted in the victims'deaths. 11
The CIA director said details of all of these
allerled by the incidents had to be omitted in order to protect
sources of information. He also said that
By Daniel Southerland there have likely been numerous unreported-
Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor incidents of this kind.
Washington The CIA reports coincided with one from a
The US Central Intelligence Agency has revealed new re- Cairo-based correspondent for the London
ports of atrocities alleged to have been committed by Soviet- Observer, who said he had recently seen the
supported troops in Afghanistan, destruction of 80 percent of the villages along
In a letter to Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D) of Texas, CIA diree- one of Afghanistan's main roads and with new
tor Stanfield Turner listed the following until-now reports from other US government sources
unreported events said to.have occurred in Afghanistan in that the Soviets have used nerve gas in trying
1979: to crush Afghan guerrillas.
In retribution against a village that refused to cooperate Admiral Turner's letter to Senator'
with the Kabul regime, Afghan troops destroyed the village Bentsen came in response to a letter from the
and killed 20 of its inhabitants. The children among the vic- senator asking for information about a report
tiros were mutilated in front of their parents before the entire in The Christian Science Monitor Feb. 4 which
group was slain., quoted survivors as saying that Afghan ?!
__ troops, under Soviet orders_ had murdered
in anther incident re
ortedl
...
tiv..a,..a a... __t
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o
ribu
Afghan soldiers killed 300 nliagers.
had been reports of several cases of rape perpetrated by The CIA director said, in his response that ?'
the agency was "almost certain" that the al-
leged massacre did occur. He said CIA had no -
on-the-spot confirmation from its own sources
but noted that a strikingly similar account ap-
peared in a Pakistani newspaper on April 29,
19-19.
As a result of Admiral Turner's report to
him, Senator Bentsen has urged President
Carter to seek a UN Security Council investi-
gation of the alleged massacre at Kerala. In a
letter to the President dated March 4, the sen-
ator said that if the Soviet Union were to veto
such an inquiry, then "the veto itself would
speak volumes about Soviet conduct, and the
debate leading to the veto will insure that the:
whole world will watch the 'debate and evalu-
ate the charges."
He suggested that as alternatives,;