Afghan Capital Falls To Rebels Islamic Fighters Enter Kabul, Quickly Hang Former President

Islamic guerrilla fighters seized control of Afghanistan’s capital Friday after two days of heavy fighting and quickly hanged a former president.

President Najibullah, who had been in hiding for four years since losing power, was seized from a United Nations compound and executed.

His bloated and beaten body was hanging from a cement lamppost outside the presidential palace just hours after the guerrillas seized Kabul from retreating government forces.

Witnesses said the Islamic Taliban fighters met little resistance as they rolled into the city about 1 a.m. from several directions.

Sporadic machine gun fire resounded but much of it appeared to be rebels celebrating their victory.

The guerrillas immediately set up check points around the city and began stopping and searching vehicles.

Witnesses said some rebels stopped at street corners and began using loud speakers to recite the Koran, the Islamic holy book.

The Taliban is a movement led by ex-seminary students who want to run Afghanistan according to strict Islamic law.

Shortly before the arrival of the Taliban, some residents burned posters of Rabbani and his military chief, Ahmed Shah Masood, in the city’s Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood.

The takeover came hours after government soldiers and commanders abandoned the capital under the cover of darkness, forced out by fast-advancing rebels seeking to impose strict Islamic rule in Afghanistan.

Hundreds of combatants on both sides died during fighting earlier Thursday, Red Cross officials said.

With cannons booming in the background, thousands of civilians grabbed what they could carry and jammed buses in a hurried flight from the war zone. In desperation, they spilled out of vehicle doors and even climbed onto bus roofs to escape what they feared would be a massacre.

The fighting pits troops loyal to President Baharunuddin Rabbani against the Taliban, religious students who broke from other Afghan factions they claimed were riddled with corruption. The Taliban want a form of Islamic rule that keeps women inside the home, refuses to educate girls and believes music, movies and most games are against Islam.

International aid agencies have tended to Kabul’s battered populace since the Russian-backed Communists were forced out in 1992.