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8,000 Troops Will Leave Afghanistan, Soviet Official Says

Associated Press

A senior official said Friday that the limited Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan will involve 8,000 soldiers and will begin this fall.

Further limited pullouts “are not excluded” by the Kremlin, said Valentin M. Falin, chairman of the government news agency Novosti, but he declined to say when they might be carried out.

Falin, in an interview with the Associated Press, is the first Soviet official to detail the number of soldiers to leave Afghanistan under the withdrawal announced by Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in a speech July 28.

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