Afghan Leader Makes Surprise Visit to Moscow

Afghan leader Najib arrived here Sunday on a surprise visit amid reports of rising Soviet casualties in the war against Afghan guerrillas.

The official news agency Tass, reporting his arrival, gave no explanation for Najib’s unannounced trip and no details of his schedule in Moscow.

He was greeted at the airport by Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze and Anatoly F. Dobrynin, a key Kremlin adviser on foreign policy, Tass reported.

Najib, former head of the Afghan secret police who replaced former Afghan leader Babrak Karmal in May, 1986, declared a unilateral cease-fire last January as part of a program of national reconciliation.

Afghan rebel groups, however, spurned the proposed armistice, and fighting has been reported heavy in recent weeks. Najib has tried, with only limited success, to induce former opponents into joining a coalition government that would end the seven-year-old war.

Talks with Gorbachev

The program of “reconciliation” was announced a month after Najib had visited Moscow and held discussions with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other officials.

Gorbachev has referred to Afghanistan as a “bleeding wound” and said several times that the Soviet Union would like to withdraw its troops if other countries would cut off aid to the guerrillas battling the Soviet-supported regime.

The United States, Britain, Iran, China, Egypt and other countries have provided arms and financial assistance to the anti-Communist forces. The Kabul regime has complained that the rebels are using American-made Stinger and British-made Blowpipe missiles to shoot down Afghan civilian airliners as well as military aircraft.

The Soviet Union, according to Western diplomats, has about 115,000 troops in Afghanistan and thousands of civilian advisers.