Issue Date: December 31, 1981 : Royal Minister Returns

Abdul Sattar Shalizi, who had served briefly as a minister to the king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, in the 1960s, had been allowed to return, it was reported Nov. 24. Shalizi was believed to be the first noncommunist politician to return to Afghanistan since the Soviet intervention in 1979. His return fueled speculation that the Soviets might be making an attempt to resolve theAfghan impasse by wooing Zahir Shah. The king had ruled for 40 years before being overthrown in a coup in 1973 and fleeing to exile in .

Insurgency Continues

In recent events of the Afghan insurgency:

Rebels had been forced to yield the town of Paghman, near , Western diplomats said Oct. 6. Control of the town had changed hands at least three times in as many months. [See 1981 Afghanistan: Government Revises Land Reform] A guerrilla group Oct. 24 said it had captured a senior Soviet military adviser in downtown Kabul and was prepared to exchange him for 50 captured guerrillas. Afghan aircraft Oct. 26 bombed and strafed one of their own border outposts, according to a Pakistani official.

Twenty-one Afghan soldiers, including a brigadier who said atrocities were being committed, defected to Pakistan Nov. 9.

The United Nations General Assembly Nov. 18 again demanded that "foreign troops" leave Afghanistan, by a vote of 116 to 23.

Afghan authorities had arrested four U.N. International Children's Emergency Fund employees on charges of aiding the rebels, it was reported Nov. 21, and there were claims that one had been executed. Rebels had recently killed a senior defense ministry official, his wife, and several Communist Party functionaries in and around Kabul, it was reported Nov. 28. Afghan helicopter gunships attacked two buses inside Pakistan Dec. 2, killing five people, Pakistan charged. Pakistan warned for the first time that it "would be justified in taking appropriate countermeasures" in "self- defense."

Afghan and Soviet forces attacked rebel strongholds south of , it was reported Dec. 6, producing what one former Afghan diplomat called "absolutely the worst fighting since the invasion of the Soviets."

Pakistan protested a Dec. 18 strafing attack on an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, which it described as the second Afghan incursion in 24 hours.