Kabul Falls at Last But the War Isn't Over

AFTER 14 YEARS OF CIVIL STRIFE, AFGHANISTAN'S mujahedin guerrillas have won, but their war may not be over yet. While many of the U.S.-supplied fighters say they are weary of battle and hope for peace, leaders of their various ethnic and religious factions are still struggling for power in whatever government next tries to rule the country.

Defying most Western predictions, Soviet-installed President Najibullah hung on for three years after Moscow's army pulled out. But as mujahedin forces led by Ahmad Shah Massoud marched on the capital of Kabul from the north, more and more of the government's army commanders went over to him, creating new coalitions in the field. Najibullah was forced to resign two weeks ago, and went into hiding.

Last week Massoud's troops moved into Kabul, where they met and mixed with thousands of guerrillas loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who heads the main southern mujahedin unit. Most government troops and police surrendered without a fight, but rifle fire echoed over neighborhoods on the outskirts. Some of the shooting was celebratory, but some resulted from brief skirmishes between the factions.

Massoud, a member of Afghanistan's Tajik minority, had initially held his men out of the capital, partly to avoid chaos in the city of 1.5 million and , partly to try to seal it off from Hekmatyar, his principal rival. Hekmatyar, an ethnic Pashtun and Islamic fundamentalist, had demanded that the rump government in Kabul surrender to him so that a strictly religious Muslim regime could be installed. Now both mujahedin forces are in the center of the city, including the grounds of the presidential palace, where even a small clash could spark another round of civil war.

Guerrilla leaders meeting in Peshawar, Pakistan, suggested a compromise. They proposed an interim council, with representatives from each of the 10 major guerrilla groups, to govern Afghanistan until elections could be held within a year. They instructed Massoud to take charge in Kabul until their arrival. The U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, Benon Sevan, asked all factions to set aside their differences and cooperate, but he was less than optimistic. "What they agree to in the morning," he said, "they reject in the evening as if it were signed in invisible ink." Hekmatyar talked with Massoud for two hours by radio and then rejected the compromise plan.