FIGHTING EBBS; ISLAMIC RULE COMES TO KABUL.

Byline: Kathy Gannon Associated Press 

A former president's bloated corpse was cut down from its wire noose Saturday and dumped outside a hospital, nearly two days after rebels took over the capital, executed him and strung him up in a public square.

The bodies of Najibullah, Afghanistan's Soviet-backed president in the late 1980s, and his brother were handed over to the Red Cross in Kabul, said Ali Mohammed Muttaqi, a spokesman for the Taliban rebels.

A United Nations official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bodies were thrown outside a hospital and then the Red Cross was contacted to pick them up.

It was not clear who cut down the bodies, which had been condemned to rot on a cement post until today. The 72-hour sentence was to be a warning to ``murderers, criminals and anyone against Islam,'' according to Mullah Mohammed Rabbani, leader of Kabul's newly formed governing council.

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement Saturday condemning the execution of Najibullah and urging the leaders of Afghan parties to renounce violence and open a dialogue.

As fighting tapered off outside the Afghan capital, the Taliban rebels began insisting on observance of their strict version of Islamic law. Radio Kabul told men to return to work but ordered women to stay home.

It also announced that two aides to Najibullah were hanged Saturday.

Radio Kabul identified them as ``Tukhi'' and ``General Jafzar'' and called them ``accomplices'' of Najibullah, president from 1986 until his overthrow by an Islamic guerrilla alliance in 1992.

Western sources said Mohammed es-Haq Tukhi had been Najibullah's right-hand man and personal secretary since Najibullah headed the dreaded secret police early in the 1980s. They said the other aide was a bodyguard.

The Taliban militia, which emerged two years ago as a religious student movement, already controlled about two-thirds of Afghanistan by the time it entered Kabul on Friday. Most government troops had fled.

Rebels pursued the government's army during the night, and the army was pulling back Saturday from the front line at Charikar, 40 miles north of Kabul, according to international aid workers in the region.

Ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani and his top commander, Ahmed Shah Masood, were seen late Friday at Masood's headquarters at Jabul-al Siraj, 12 miles north of Charikar, workers of the aid agency Halo Trust said.

There was no attempt by either side to launch an offensive or seize more ground, said a Taliban commander, Mohammed Moussa.

The United States has called on the new authorities in Kabul to restore order and form a representative interim government.

The State Department indicated it would re-establish a diplomatic presence in Kabul once the security situation improves. There has been no U.S. presence in the capital since 1979, when U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs was assassinated.

But the ousted president called on his followers to ``struggle against conspiracies of the stooges of foreign circles, the so-called Taliban.''

In a statement released by the Afghan mission to the United Nations, he said he ordered the army to retreat from Kabul to avoid a bloodbath.

Shops in the capital were open after Radio Kabul repeatedly appealed for normalcy in the city. ``Brothers, come to work,'' the radio said. But it told women to stay home and everyone to dress in traditional Islamic style. Men were told to wear a skull cap or turban and begin growing their beards. Women were told to cover themselves from head to toe.

A woman journalist was forbidden to attend a news conference by Mullah Mohammed Rabbani. The driver of another reporter said a music cassette was confiscated from his car because it was not Islamic.

Exhausted by years of rocket attacks and street battles, some Afghans welcomed the victorious Taliban rebels, hoping for the end to four years of factional fighting.

An estimated 30,000 people died and 80 percent of Kabul was destroyed when former guerrilla allies battled each other for power after ousting Najibullah.

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Photo: Afghan Taliban fighters, gaining control of the coun try, gather around the presidential palace in the capital.

Associated Press