Rebel Cabinet Holds 1st Session in Afghanistan

An Afghan rebel government held its first Cabinet session Friday a few miles inside Afghanistan before an invited audience of journalists.

Ten of the 16 ministers nominated so far assembled at the Shewai guerrilla training camp, a group of rough stone huts buried in the hills along the Pakistani border.

“We started our first meeting here, the next meeting will be held in a different place in Afghanistan,” provisional President Sibghatullah Mojaddidi told reporters.

“We are going to go forward toward Kabul,” he added.

In Kabul, Soviet-backed Afghan President Najibullah has dismissed the rebel government, elected two weeks ago at a congress in Pakistan, as a creation of Pakistani intelligence officers.

On Friday, Najibullah, warning that the current fighting in his country could spread into a major conflict, sent messages to world leaders asking for their help.

“The problem of Pakistani interference and help (to the moujahedeen rebels) with advisers, commandos, militia and weapons brings the danger of a major conflict,” Najibullah wrote in identical letters to President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Asks for U.N. Monitors

In a message to U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Najibullah appealed for “urgent measures to prevent a worsening of the situation.”

He asked Perez de Cuellar to send special monitoring groups to Afghanistan to observe and check the military position and to prepare a report for the Security Council.

“The situation along the border of Afghanistan is getting dangerous and serious,” the president’s message said. “The military interference of the Pakistani side has expanded qualitatively and quantitatively.”

The message said Pakistan is supporting rebels trying to capture Jalalabad, Kandahar and Khost.

The Western-backed rebels are trying to seize Jalalabad, Afghanistan’s third-largest city and the capital of Nangarhar province, as a possible base for their provisional government.

Sources said the guerrillas, who launched their offensive earlier this week, are close to the Jalalabad airport and are attacking the town from all sides.

The opening session of the rebel Cabinet here seemed largely symbolic and lasted less than an hour.

Western observers said it represented a considerable achievement for the Pakistan-based moujahedeen parties, which have spent much of the past few years feuding with each other.