AFGHAN REBELS TAKE CONTROL OF CAPITAL.

Byline: Associated Press 

An ex-president's bloated body still dangled from a noose outside the palace, but shops reopened and people walked the sunny streets Friday as victorious Islamic forces moved swiftly to establish control over Kabul.

Exhausted by years of rocket attacks and street battles, some Afghans were cheered by the end of fighting. Others worried over the prospect of strict Islamic rule, including restrictions on women and harsh criminal penalties like those imposed by Taliban forces in other parts of the country they rule.

``I just want the fighting to stop. Right now I don't care what they make me wear,'' said Najan, a teacher wearing a flowing black chador that covered her from head to foot. She was one of only a few women who ventured outdoors after Kabul fell to the rebels. Like most Afghans, she uses only one name.

Outside the presidential palace, hundreds of people hurled abuse at the corpse of Najibullah dangling from a 20-foot cement platform where a policeman would, in quieter days, have stood to direct traffic.

Overnight, Taliban forces swept in from all directions, climaxing a 15-day march that began with the capture of the eastern city of Jalalabad. They met little resistance from government troops.

Most officers and government troops abandoned the city under cover of darkness. Thousands of civilians and foreign aid workers fled before nightfall Thursday. The whereabouts of President Burhanuddin Rabbani and his top commander, Ahmed Shah Masood, were not known.

Government forces were planning a counterattack, the Afghan ambassador to India, Masood Khalili, said in New Delhi, calling the retreat a tactical move.

In Washington, the State Department called on the new authorities in Kabul to restore order and to form a representative interim government to begin the process of reconciliation.

U.S. officials noted that Afghanistan under Taliban leadership is unlikely to become the sort of outpost of Islamic fundamentalism like Iran because the Afghan rebels follow a different brand of Islam.

The Taliban rebels began as a movement of Islamic theology students that now controls two-thirds of Afghanistan. In areas they captured previously, they have imposed an Islamic code that restricts women to the home, closes girls' schools and includes criminal punishments like execution and amputation. They also ended fighting among rival factions.

A decision has not been made on whether women will be permitted to work alongside men in Kabul, said Mullah Mohammed Rabbani, head of the six-member provisional council set up to govern Kabul. If the sexes are segregated, nearly half the civil servants in the city might have to be sacked.

``Of course I am worried. I don't know whether they will let me work,'' said Nadia, a government employee who supports nine relatives.

Near the Arg presidential palace, a small crowd milled around a lone rebel soldier perched atop a tank. A bouquet of red plastic roses rested below the cannon.

``We are not scared. They have brought us peace,'' said Ram Singh, a businessman and one of the small Sikh community in an overwhelmingly Muslim country.

At daybreak, residents kept up all night by the thunder of rockets and artillery fire came out and cheered at the sight of the bodies of Najibullah and his brother and former security chief, Shahpur Ahmedzi. ``Death to Communists!'' the crowd chanted. ``Najib killed our people.''

``He was against Islam. He was a criminal. He was a Communist,'' said Mullah Rabbani, a bearded, thick set man wearing a cleric's black turban.