Afghan Coup Attempt Reportedly Fails

The Afghan defense minister and Muslim guerrillas attempted to overthrow the Kremlin-backed government in Kabul today but failed, Kabul Radio said. Pakistan-based guerrillas and diplomats said they had reports of widespread fighting in Kabul.

In Moscow, official Soviet sources said that the palace of President Najibullah was bombed by unidentified planes and that there was fighting around the Defense Ministry.

Official Kabul Radio, monitored in Islamabad, said Defense Minister Shah Nawaz Tanai had plotted with guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his fighters to overthrow the government.

But the attempted coup was crushed, it said, and Tanai had escaped. Security forces were searching for him and his backers.

The radio appealed to Afghans to join the military and help capture Tanai “dead or alive.”

A curfew was imposed at 7 p.m. in Kabul, the radio said.

Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-i-Islami, one of the most fundamentalist of the seven resistance groups based in Pakistan, said the guerrillas were broadcasting appeals on the Afghan army’s military frequency urging soldiers to help oust Najibullah and his government.

“Now is the time for all Afghan people to join hands, topple this regime and finish the fighting,” Hekmatyar said at a news conference in Islamabad.

Najibullah has been president of Afghanistan since 1986. He has made various offers to the guerrillas, known as moujahedeen or Islamic holy warriors, to try to end the civil war that started when his Marxist party seized power in a 1978 coup.

Tanai is considered a party hard-liner who opposes the peace overtures. He was implicated in a December coup attempt but never charged.

Guerrilla sources based in Pakistan said they had reports from their commanders of widespread fighting in Kabul.

“If Kabul Radio says it (the coup) has been crushed, it doesn’t mean it has,” a guerrilla source said.

Tanai, one of the leaders of the revolution that installed the Soviet-backed government, has reportedly had contacts recently with the Muslim guerrillas.