Gunfire and mass demonstrations erupted in Kabul during a dramatic nationwide general strike and martial law was declared as Soviet forces struggled to prop up the weakening authority of the regime in Afghanistan.
Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev said "Let the United States together with the neighbours of Afghanistan guarantee this, and then the need for Soviet military assistance will cease to exist."
"I want to state very definitely that we will be ready to commence the withdrawal of our troops as soon as all form of outside interference directed against the government and people of Afghanistan are fully terminated," the Soviet President said.
Mayor denied travel permit in West Bank
The mayor of the occupied West Bank town of Hebron said Israeli military authorities denied him permission to travel to New York to testify at a UN debate on the disputed region.
Mayor Fahd Kawasmc told Israel Radio the military governor refused his request to attend a UN Security Council debate on conditions in Hebron and the West Bank in general.
Bani-Sadr warning as riots rage
Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr threatened harsh treatment for rioters as street fighting continued between rival religious groups in at least three Iranian cities.
Bani-Sadr addressing a crowd of over 100,000 at mass prayers in Tehran, said: "Those who allow themselves to attack other groups under the pretext of supporting the Islamic revolution...they will be dealt with like counter revolutionaries."
His warning came as gangs of fundamentalists wielding knives, clubs and stones, attacked supporters of the radical Islamic Mojahedin guerrilla movement in Oa'em Shahr.
Communist scientists barred from US meet
The US Commerce Department ordered a private scientific association to bar Communist scientists from a meeting and forced scientists to pledge not to discuss the sessions with the Communists.
Eight physicists from the Soviet Union. Hungary and Poland were "disinvited" at the American Vacuum Society meeting in Santa Barbara, California, where members discussed bubble memories, a new development in computer technology.
