Afghan Rebels Claim Capture of Border Post

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan â€”  Muslim guerrillas Sunday claimed that they killed 300 Afghan army troops and captured 120 as they overran a government post in eastern Afghanistan.

A statement by the seven-member alliance of guerrilla parties said it received news of the victory in a radio report late Saturday.

At the same time, Afghanistan’s Kabul Radio was reporting that government forces inflicted “heavy losses� on guerrillas at the same site, capturing scores of rockets, mortars, machine guns, mines and ammunition.

The radio report, monitored in Islamabad, did not say when that fighting took place.

Both reports placed the battle at Chamkani, nine miles west of the Pakistan border.

The guerrillas said they attacked retreating Afghan forces and destroyed 12 tanks and 18 armored personnel carriers.

If the guerrilla report was accurate, it would add to the list of at least six Soviet-Afghan positions overrun in about two weeks. On April 22, the guerrillas captured a major Soviet-Afghan garrison at Barikot, near the Pakistan frontier. It opened a key supply route for insurgents operating east, north and west of Kabul.

Soviet forces reportedly have been pulling back from bases in eastern Afghanistan in preparation for their withdrawal, scheduled to begin May 15.

Soviet forces intervened in Afghanistan in December, 1979, to back the Afghan government in its war with the guerrillas.

Afghan security forces, well-equipped but reportedly sagging in morale, have had little success in facing the U.S.-armed guerrillas alone.

The insurgents, based in Peshawar, Pakistan, claim that hundreds of Afghan army fighters have deserted to the guerrillas since Moscow announced its intention early this year to end its military involvement in Afghanistan.