Yalies Visit Afghanistan For Paper

Some students may prefer Florida, but a Yale junior and a recent graduate spent their Spring break journeying through Pakistan and Soviet occupied Afghanistan where they witnessed fierce battles between Afghani insurgents and Soviet led government troops.

Charles Bork. Yale 81, publisher of the right wing Yale Free News, and Gregory D Elia, travelled for two and a half weeks in March through border areas and combat zones taking hundreds of photos and interviewing Afghani guerrillas known as muhajedeen.

The motive for the trip was a desire to correct the appalling lack of attention" paid to the cross by the Western news media. D Elia commented yesterday.

Bork and D. Elia who published their story in last Friday's issue of the Yale Free Press, made no prior arrangements for contacting the insurgents, but instead said they asked a taxi driver in Peshawar to take them to the headquarters of the guerrillas.

State Department officials who refused to be identified said they might be contacting Bork and D'Elia about their experiences.

Afghanistan was invaded by Soviet troops four years ago and ever since has been the site of a bitter struggle between the guerillas and the combined Soviet and Afghani armies.

Bork and D'Elia arrived in the border city of Peshawar. Pakistan February 28, where they made contact with members of the "Moderate Alliance," a major guerilla coalition.

After a week of preparation, they were disguised as tribesmen by the muhajedeen and taken on a seven-hour bus trip to the Afghan border. The trip, which is illegal for Westerners, involved several close calls as the bus passed through Pakistani security checks.

The journey became more harrowing as Bork and D'Elia passed into Afghanistan Accompanied by ten muhajedeen fighters, a guide, and an interpreter, they went thirty miles into the Afghan province of Paktia, crossing snow-covered mountains laced with Soviet air-dropped mines, and passing bombed-out villages.

They arrived at a guerilla outpost just as a force of 10,000 Soviet and Afghani government troops entered the area in an attempt to relieve a garrison that had been besieged by the mujahedeen for two years.

Bork and D'Elia spent a day hiding from prowling Soviet helicopter gunships, and a night observing the battle from the top of a mud-walled house. But as Soviet forces came nearer they decided to return to Pakistan having spent five days in Afghanistan. After resting in Peshawar for three' days, they returned to the United States.

"With anti-aircraft missiles they [muhajedeen] can win in a year," said D' Elia

State Department officials refused to comment on the amount of Western aid going to the guerrillas, saying that it was an intelligence matter.